A testament to belief, fostering a supportive environment, was left by Irene Sharaff and Mai-mai Sze.
'Your letter of May 5, 1993 has touched me deeply. The supportive environment you have created for women enables them to reach their full potential, and Mai-mai Sze and I were delighted that we found through you and Lucy Cavendish that special place.’ A letter from Irene Sharaff to Dame Anne Warburton, 27 May, 1993.
Irene Sharaff and her partner Mai-mai Sze left an extraordinary legacy to Lucy Cavendish College.
Based in New York, Irene Sharaff was an Oscar-winning costume designer, whose credits include West Side Story and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Mai-mai Sze was a talented writer, artist and lecturer. Both women held a deep belief in the continuing advancement of educated women and, inspired by the work of our College outlined in a New York Times article in 1985, they began to correspond with our College President.
This correspondence eventually led to a generous legacy, which funded the build of our Music Pavilion, completed in 1995 (and relocated from College to Strathaird Lawn in 2022).
The legacy also made provision for the creation of two Research Fellowships; the Alice Tong Sze Fellowship for the humanities and the Lu Gwei-Djen Fellowship for the sciences.
Fellowship recipient, Dr Lorena Gazzotti says, “The Alice Tong Sze Research Fellowship allowed me the time and space to disseminate my research on migration control in the Mediterranean, and to start a new major research project. In the three years of the fellowship, I published a book, four solo-authored research articles, and edited two special issues of academic journals. I also conducted over a year of fieldwork studying migration in the Canary Islands, where I now teach Geography to high school pupils. None of this would have happened without the generous support of the fellowship".
Sadly, Irene and Mai-mai never visited Lucy Cavendish College during their lifetime. However, their headstones now lay beside the Pavilion, in a peaceful, sunny corner of the gardens.
About Lucy Legacy Month:
This September, Lucy Cavendish College is proud to host Lucy Legacy Month, celebrating the transformative power of legacy giving. Throughout the month, we will shine a spotlight on the incredible impact legacies have on our college community, and provide valuable information on how you can leave a lasting legacy at Lucy Cavendish (and how you can write a will online for free).
