Susan Bassett ’79 has a remarkable story and a close connection to Ithaca College. To express her gratitude and commitment to Ithaca, she set up a planned giving arrangement that will be beneficial to her and the College, too. “Helping the Ithaca College of the future helps to repay my debt to the Ithaca of the past,” she says.
Susan Bassett was a proud member of Ithaca College’s field hockey and swimming teams when a car accident during her freshman year left her severely injured and killed her best friend. After months of hospitalization and physical therapy, she returned to IC to finish her degree.
“Many people doubted I could complete a degree in physical education or work as a coach,” she says. “But my mentors at Ithaca College said, ‘Yes, you can do it.’ Their belief in me has made all the difference in my life and my career.”
Susan went on to earn her master’s degree at Indiana University and became a swimming and diving coach at William Smith College and then Union College, where she coached 114 all-Americans and was named the NCAA Division III coach of the year in 1993. Two years later she returned to William Smith College as director of athletics, and in 2005 she moved to Carnegie Mellon University as director of athletics and physical education. She also serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators. In 2005 she was inducted into the Ithaca College Athletics Hall of Fame, and in 2006 the Union College Athletics Hall of Fame.
Susan acknowledges the impossibility of adequately thanking all those she considers her benefactors. “I decided that the one, true way to thank them,” she says, “is to pass on their many kindnesses, help, and mentorship to others—to ‘pay it forward,’ so to speak.”
Besides teaching and mentoring athletes, she “pays it forward” by contributing to the Ithaca Fund, and she has named Ithaca College the beneficiary of her TIAA-CREF retirement fund. Last June she established a deferred-payment gift annuity that will ultimately benefit the College’s scholarship endowment. The gift annuity was an attractive vehicle, she explains, because it will give her income when she retires and alleviate her tax burden.
“But, primarily, it enables me to make a much more substantial gift to my college than I could otherwise,” she says. In addition, Susan’s arrangement of a future gift will count toward the Campaign for Ithaca College. Ithaca’s planned giving website has information about how to maximize opportunities in your estate that will also make a positive difference to the Ithaca College of the future.
—Anne Ryan contributed to this story.
—Photo by Carnegie Mellon University
