NATCHITOCHES – A retired educator increased a planned gift through the NSU Foundation to assure the benefits of higher education for future generations. Dr. Diane Knight’s bequest to the NSU Foundation will fund three endowed scholarships, the most recent in veterinary technology. She previously established two scholarships in education.
The Dr. Diane Knight Endowed Scholarship in Veterinary Technology, the Dr. Diane Knight Endowed Scholarship in Education and the Willie Mae Hunter Knight Endowed Scholarship in Education are all four-year scholarships that will be awarded to female students from Vernon Parish who must maintain a 3.0 or better grade point average. The Willie Mae Hunter Knight Scholarship honors Knight’s mother, who graduated from Louisiana State Normal College, as NSU was then known, in 1940 and was also an educator.
Planned gifts provide long-term financial stability for NSU and funding for scholarships, professorships and other strategic initiatives, said NSU Director of Development Jill Bankston, CFRE. Depending on the type of gift, donors can receive tax benefits in deductions, reduced estate taxes or avoidance of capital gains taxes. Planned gift donors automatically become members of The Columns Society, with invitation to special events on campus.
“This planned gift truly plants seeds for the future,” Bankston said. “We are so grateful to Dr. Knight for honoring NSU in this way.”
Knight grew up the Vernon Parish community of Evans and earned an undergraduate degree in education at McNeese State University in 1976. She started her career teaching high school English, then began working with children with disabilities. She earned a master’s degree in special education at Northwestern in 1980 and a Doctor of Education at NSU in 1986 in curriculum and instruction and administrative supervision.
During her career, she worked in Natchitoches, Sabine and Red River parishes, in special education classrooms, in the central office and as an educational diagnostician. She later taught classes at NSU, served as an associate dean at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and taught at the Georgia Southwestern State, University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana-Lafayette) and the University of Georgia, teaching graduates and undergraduate courses on working with individuals with disabilities. After moving back to Louisiana, she worked with men and women in the adult correctional system and concluded her career at LSU-Shreveport. Throughout that time, Knight was active in service to organizations for exceptional children, grant writing, serving on committees at the national level and authoring numerous publications within the field of education.
Knight recalled Dr. Dan Carr and Dr. Hurst Hall as important mentors during her student days at NSU. She stayed engaged with the university over the years, serving on NSU Foundation Board committees and attending recruiting events.
Now at age 70, Knight has travelled the world and enjoys reading, gardening and working part-time at a branch of the East Baton Rouge Public Library. She has no close living relatives but counts close friends as family. In making out her will, she identified organizations she would like to support, including Northwestern. She recently learned about NSU’s program in veterinary technology and selected that department to support as well.
“I have a love for animals, particularly cats, so when I saw an article in the Alumni Columns about an endowment for the Vet Tech program, I thought ‘I love this idea,’” she said. “I wanted to do something that might be more ‘boots on the ground’ to help people who are going to major in veterinary technology.”
For more information on creating a planned gift for the future of NSU, contact Bankston at bankstonj@nsula.edu or visit www.northwesternstatealumni.com.