Walter Jensen (SMG'59) played as hard as he worked at Boston University. A finance major, he was president of his fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, and rowed on the Charles River with the crew team. "All those experiences added a great, great deal to my life," he says, "and prepared me for the future."

What he dubs his "attitude of gratitude" toward the University prompted Jensen and his wife, Joan, to make a significant pledge for an endowed scholarship. Students applying to the School of Management from New York City and New Jersey will be eligible for this need-based award. "It takes a little more money than if you're a commuting student and living at home," he says. "Maybe my gift helps to make a difference, so a few people can go to BU as opposed to going to a local community college or university down in this area." If a worthy applicant from that region cannot be found, Jensen would like to help applicants from Appalachia. "There's got to be a lot of bright people down there who certainly would not have the opportunity to go to BU unless there was some type of financial assistance," he says.

He graduated in 1959, leaving his Hayden Hall classrooms for a career in the securities industry. While waiting to be interviewed at the New York City firm of Hayden Stone, Jensen realized the solemn portrait staring at him was of the man whose picture he'd pondered as a student. "I went to work for Hayden Stone but I don't think it was necessarily because of Charles Hayden," he jokes. So began his decades-long career in branch management with such prominent firms as Dean Witter Reynolds and, most recently, Prudential Securities, where he served as vice president before it was taken over by Wachovia.

Now that he's retired from the hubbub of the financial world, he and his wife split their time between their New York City apartment and their Sea Girt, New Jersey, house. They entertain friends and travel "a fair amount." But Jensen hasn't left his profession entirely-he's a faithful reader of the Economist, does customer arbitration for the New York Stock Exchange, and spends "a little more time following the stock market than I used to.

"I have no complaints," Jensen says. "If you can help somebody else a little bit and give back a little bit of what life has given you, you should. I'm not going to take it with me."

— Jennifer Becker