The university has been given two significant bequests totaling $4.6 million.

One is Northeastern's largest such gift ever. Marguerite Parker has left Northeastern $2.4 million to support the university's eight-year-old Presidential Scholars program, which to date has provided eighty-four students with full tuition during their middler, junior, and senior years.

The other bequest, which will ultimately total about $2.2 million, comes from Douglas Lockwood, E'53, a resident of Saugus, Massachusetts, who studied mechanical engineering at Northeastern. He had supported the Northeastern Fund for twenty years

Parker's gift, which creates an endowed Presidential Scholarship, will support eight scholars.

Although Parker didn't herself attend Northeastern, she left the donation in memory of her lifelong friend, Marjorie Stevens, who earned degrees from University College in 1963 and 1966. The two women had been friends since attending elementary school in Peabody, Massachusetts; they also attended the Katherine Gibbs School together.

Stevens rose through the ranks at the publishing firm D. C. Heath & Company, and was eventually named assistant vice president at the Boston investment firm Kidder Peabody. Parker spent her career at Shawmut Bank.

Stevens's sister, Grace Short, says, "Northeastern reinforced Marjorie's own sense of ability and instilled in her confidence at a time when men dominated the business world."

• E Line Story Index