A portion of the proceeds from every copy sold of The Wise Legacy goes to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Sid Wise spent his entire career, and from which author Dan Siegel and countless other legacies of Sid Wise graduated.
Franklin & Marshall College offers students a hands-on education that emphasizes close relationships with faculty. With a 227-year history of academic excellence, the College unleashes the potential in students to help them achieve beyond what they themselves thought possible. Students flourish in a supportive community that treats them as an individual, and their successes continue long after F&M. The College is a national leader in launching students and alumni to opportunities where they make a difference in the community and the world.
This description of F&M epitomizes what Sid Wise and his colleagues strived for -- providing an education focused on students, and inspiring students to understand that public service is valuable. Consider the words of John Buchanan, who spent the majority of his career as the Senior Pastor at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, who served as the leader of the Presbyterian Church (US) in 1996, and who has been the editor/publisher of The Christian Century since 1999:
"There was something that connected for me for the first time in my life, which ended in a career very different from politics, but in some ways were very connected. And it was Sid [Wise] who brought the two together, the kind of academic pursuit of public life and public policy and how what you believe and what you’re committed to needs to find some concrete expression in the public arena, whether it’s in public institutions like the church or education or government. I credit Sid with that, and I credit my F&M Government/Sid Wise experience with pushing me off in that direction. Now, I suspect whatever vocation I would have chosen, I would have still been guided by that involvement, engagement, and put it out there.”
Finally, consider the words of F&M President Dan Porterfield at the 2013 Reunion Weekend:
"Of course, the more we age, the more the campus of a great college becomes peopled with ghosts -- the faculty who pushed or prodded or nurtured or scared us -- now gone, the Sid Wises and Ruth Van Hornes and John Mosses, or retirees like Bill Hutson, Alice Drum, Carl Pike and Kathy Triman. These were colossal figures in our late adolescent eyes, embodiments of this place, whose advice we've held close or lived by, and perhaps shared (unquoted) to dear young people in our lives.
A great college also regenerates itself, which can be disconcerting when we come back to a campus we hold close in our time-bound lives as a still point in a turning world. Where once there was a tennis court or a tree where we made meaning and memories, we find bold new facilities. There are new Sid Wises -- I assure you, they are just as eminent -- but they may seem impossibly young. And there is a new generation of students making meaning on the self-same place where you roamed – as a composite they look different and reflect the world we live in today … and they're worthy. I can vouch for them. ...
"... we are living out the long vision of Chief Justice John Marshall, inventor of the Supreme Court -- that democracy, justice, private enterprise and education are four strands of a great chord pulling America forward. Even as F&M has become more global, no college is more enmeshed in the idea of America.
The notions, for example, that national strength requires intellectual strength, that economic growth requires academic growth, that upward mobility requires equal educational opportunity, and that global peace requires the broad sharing of knowledge. At this moment in history, and with your steadfast support, your alma mater is achieving distinction as a national institution with Franklin-esque aspirations."
F&M highlights the value of a liberal arts education, and I hope that you will consider donating to the college. Of course, if you or a friend or loved one is seeking a rigorous student-focused education, then please consider applying for admission.