A Love of Learning

The late Professor Emerita Blair Hanson fostered a love of learning at Allegheny for 40-plus years as a teacher, chair of the modern languages department, faculty secretary, live-in residence hall advisor, and friend. Students were immersed in languages and culture on campus and abroad under her leadership. Colleagues, friends, and students honored her when she retired in 1981 with the Blair Hanson Scholarship Fund to help defray students’ expenses for studying a foreign language abroad.

Pre-pandemic, about 35 students per year studied abroad at one of 20-plus Allegheny-vetted institutions. Meredythe Baird ’23, a dual major in business and Spanish, is in Seville this fall with support from the Hanson Scholarship. She wrote that immersing herself as much as possible in Spanish culture will help her to better understand others and their worldviews, which will be important to her career. Meredythe carries the memory of Prof. Hanson, whom she describes as a kindred spirit, with her this year, grateful every day.