UMHEF 60th Year: Our Beginning
In case you hadn’t heard, 2025 marks the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation’s 60th Year! Today, we look back at the earliest days of the foundation’s creation.
Founded in 1965 as the Methodist Foundation for Christian Higher Education, we are indebted to Chancellor William Pearson Tolley, President of Syracuse University (1942-1969), for his vision of supporting church-related education. During the Higher Education Banquet at the 1964 General Conference of The Methodist Church*, Tolley proposed a foundation to raise up to $100 million that would provide scholarships for Methodist students attending Methodist institutions. He viewed the initiative as “imperative in the balanced operation of higher education, in the maintenance of church influence through higher education, and for effective freedom in our society.”
Tolley’s driving belief in the need to financially support Methodist-related institutions of higher education led not only to the creation of the foundation but also the assembly of an outstanding, group of influential individuals to lead it through its initial years.