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Nicole Gibson’s grandparents set aside money for her college. She’s keenly aware of her good fortune. Now she’s paying it forward.

Gibson is a 2004 environmental-studies graduate of the University of Colorado who began funding a scholarship in 2005. The $1,000 Donald and Marjorie Gibson Scholarship is open to full-time environmental-studies students who have demonstrated financial need and academic merit. It honors Donald and Marjorie Gibson, Nicole’s grandparents.

Coming to CU served Gibson’s long-term interests, and now it serves the university’s. But her arrival came a bit by chance.

She had begun her studies at the University of Delaware’s natural-resources-management program. Gibson wasn’t really happy there.

She came to CU because her cousin was here. “I instantly fell in love with it,” she recalls. The intellectual excitement and natural beauty were doubly intoxicating.

The difference between her first college experience and CU was “night and day,” she says. Professors clearly wanted to be where they were, and they embraced a results-oriented, interdisciplinary approach.

“They were passionate about what they were doing” in the classroom. And they were well-rounded, following up rigorous academic discussions with group skiing trips.

Later, after earning her master’s in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania, Gibson landed a job in Boulder working with Geographic Information Systems and planning. Now, she works in Boulder County’s Land Use Department.

Gibson is still in her 20s, a time of life during which major philanthropic overtures are relatively uncommon.

Gibson frames her initiative as no big deal. She says she had long thought about establishing a scholarship because she saw people working their way through college. “If people like me can make it easier, I thought that would be cool,” she says.

As soon as she started working, she set up the scholarship. She says the expense is less onerous than a student loan. “I don’t even see it,” she says. “It comes out of my paycheck.”

She is similarly matter-of-fact when discussing the rationale for funding a scholarship: “It’s the right thing to do. Education makes you more able to contribute to society.”

Scholarship recipients are grateful, she says. “I got the most wonderful letter from girl who was a recipient. She’s doing really neat things in the environment.”

Gibson herself reaped the benefit of a degree in environmental studies from CU. When she interviewed with a professor at the graduate school she eventually attended, “I told him I went to CU, and he was instantly enthused.”

At Delaware, Gibson did not start out her college career pursuing environmental studies. She began doing pre-med work. She liked physics and biology and science in general.
A pivotal moment came during a backpacking trip with her father in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. “I was so taken with it, I came back and switched my major to natural resources management.”

After graduating from CU, Gibson spent time in Tempe, Ariz., and in Europe. In Tempe, the desert suburbs were dotted with green grass lawns. In Europe, towns and cities were more compact, and Gibson didn’t drive a car for two months.
Those experiences underscored the importance of public planning, she says.

In her current capacity with Boulder County, she works in the GIS Division using GIS analyses and mapping to support the planning efforts of the Land Use Department. “I don’t give answers. I just give different scenarios.”

Such analyses help citizens and leaders understand the environmental and economic effects of certain policies.

In her free time, Gibson enjoys classic Colorado pastimes such as hiking, biking, running, snowboarding and cross-country skiing.

She seems content in her avocations and occupation. And while stressing her desire not to ascend a soap box, she gently suggests a mechanism that might prompt more graduates to fund scholarships. She proposes that CU could create a chart indicating the number of students who could go to college if every graduate gave a certain amount for scholarships.

It’s a perceptive suggestion from a young woman who has clearly absorbed the lessons and the implications of higher education.

For more information about supporting scholarships in Environmental Studies, please contact Kevin Vasquez, associate director of development, CU Foundation, at 303-541-1490, orkevin.vasquez@cufund.org. To support other scholarships within the College of Arts and Sciences, please contact Teresa Chamberland, assistant director of development, CU Foundation, at 303-541-1445, or teresa.chamberland@cufund.org.