2013 FWSF Scholarship Luncheon

June 2013

This year the FWSF awarded a total of $90,000 in scholarships to eight graduate students and two undergraduate students representing six different Bay Area colleges and universities. Awards were presented to these promising students at our annual scholarship luncheon on June 6th at the City Club of San Francisco. Scholarships awarded by the FWSF are made possible through the generosity of FWSF sponsors and the proceeds from the Financial Woman of the Year Luncheon. To date over $1.9 million in scholarship funds has been awarded to deserving students. 

At the luncheon FWSF's President Anne Chambers shared her thoughts on why she donates both her time and money to support the FWA scholarship program:

A large part of the reason is because I remember growing up and being told by my mother that there were certain professions I couldn't do, as a woman. My mother, who earned a Columbia law degree in the late 40's, was told not to apply for law firm jobs, and so she did not. It was an abiding regret her entire life that she never REALLY used her training.

One example of a profession I couldn't pursue, according to my mother, was being an architect. That's because it would require supervising male construction workers, which of course is impossible for a woman to do.

I remember being strongly encouraged by my father to learn shorthand and typing, so I would have some skills to fall back on should anything happen and I needed to earn a living. The implication of course was that I couldn't otherwise get any kind of decent job. Back then the want ads were segregated by men's and women's jobs, certainly through the mid-60's.

After school, I was one of the first women hires in at the Big 8 firm. In the first year they hired women, only 2 out of 30 new hires were female. By the time I was hired, the third year they brought on women, about ten of us were women. During the first year or so of my public accounting career, some clients asked that no women be assigned to their audit. It was simply "too complicated" to have women at their all male worksites.

So today, we stand here celebrating women in the following generations, who DO know they can be the best in their chosen field, and WILL be our future leaders. Wouldn't the world be a better place with more women like these leading our industry? That is why I support the FWA's scholarship program. And I would ask, as you meet these fabulous, deserving, and inspiring Scholarship Recipients, that you think about your own careers and what or who propelled, and sustained you.

Read about the 2013 Scholarship Recipients

2013 FWSF Scholarship Recipients (Photo: Karl Nielsen Photography)