Seven decades of service began in a dorm room
In January 1946, just months after the end of World War II, The Rotary Foundation embarked on a mission to help heal the wounds from the conflict. The Foundation decided to nurture an understanding of other nations and cultures by providing scholarships to promising graduate students. The inaugural class began its year of postgraduate study abroad in the fall of 1947. That class was funded through donations to a memorial fund set up to honor Rotary founder Paul Harris, who had died earlier in the year. They were the first of more than 42,000 collegians to be granted scholarships by the…
