Challenge Gift from Harry C. Barr ’56 Will Benefit The Wesleyan Fund
To commemorate his 50th class reunion, Harry C. Barr ’56 challenged his classmates to raise $100,000 for Wesleyan and agreed to match that amount if they were successful. Not only did the class meet the challenge; they exceeded it by more than $9,000 and set new records for 50th-reunion giving — $217,782, and participation — 89 percent.
“I’ve found that challenges usually work,” said Harry, who has also helped to raise funds for his private secondary school. “I thought the Class of ’56 did a great job, because a lot of people extended themselves more than they ordinarily would have.”
Harry is a generous volunteer for Wesleyan. In addition to serving on the 50th reunion committee, he is an active WAF solicitor for his class and a former president of the Boston Alumni Council. His activities keep him in close touch with a number of alumni and faculty members. Burton Hallowell ’36, professor emeritus of economics, was an outstanding teacher who later became the chairman of the company from which Harry retired. Another professor who had a significant impact on his career path was Sigmund Neumann, who taught government and social sciences and served as Harry’s advisor. Neumann also wrote the critically acclaimed history, Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War.
“Professor Neumann was a real friend and he knew me well,” said Harry, who was often a dinner guest at the professor&rsquos home. “When it came time for me to pick what I wanted to do after Wesleyan, he steered me in the right direction.”
Besides providing excellent instruction and guidance, Harry’s professors were “very available to the students,” he said. “You could have a cup of coffee with them and they were always there, and you never had the feeling you were intruding on their time, even if you were.”
In the middle of his freshman year, Harry was asked to resign from Wesleyan for academic deficiencies caused by a lack of focus on his work. He joined the Marines and served as a machine gunner in the Korean War. Harry returned to the University two years later with a renewed appreciation for the value of a Wesleyan education. While applying himself to his studies, he resumed his activities as a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and the football team. After graduating with a major in government, he went on to receive an MBA from Harvard University and began a successful career in business, retiring as vice president of a Boston mutual funds company in 1996.
Today, Harry and his wife, Judy, enjoy traveling and spending time with their grandchildren and four grown children, three of whom are Wesleyan graduates: Pamela ’81, David ’85, and Gregory ’87 Barr. During a recent conversation, Harry contrasted his University experience with that of his children and today’s students.
“The faculty was and is first-rate,” he said, “but I think Wesleyan is more intense today. Students have tremendous exposure to people from all over the world, whereas we just had a small number of students from Europe. There is also a lot more competition now, and students pursue their work with greater fervor.“
Today’s students also have a larger variety of courses to choose from than Harry’s contemporaries did, as well as the opportunity to major in more than one subject. While studying abroad was a rarity in his day, Harry’s children all spent at least part of their junior year in an international-study program, which gave them a broader perspective on the world than earlier students enjoyed.
Wesleyan is grateful to Harry for helping to enrich the University experience of today’s students through his generous 50th reunion gift.
