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The Samuel and Natalie Babbitt Kirkland College Scholarship

The Samuel and Natalie Babbitt Kirkland College Scholarship is awarded with preference given to disadvantaged female students who demonstrate financial need.

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Born in Dayton, Ohio on July 28, 1932, Natalie Babbitt was drawn to art and illustration from an early age. In 1954 she graduated from Smith College with a degree in fine art. Her first published work was The Forty-ninth Magician (1966), which was a result of a collaboration with her husband Samuel Babbitt. She is best known for her novel Tuck Everlasting (1975) which has become an internationally renowned and classic of children's literature. Her book Kneeknock Rise (1970) received the Newbery Honor in 1971. In 2013 she was awarded the E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After her passing in 2016, she is not only remembered as an accomplished author and illustrator but as a committed and loving wife and mother of three; Christopher, Tom and daughter Lucy. She married Samuel Babbitt in 1954. 

Born in New Haven, Connecticut on February 22, 1929, Samuel F. Babbitt is best known at Hamilton College for his role as Kirkland College’s first and only president before its merger with Hamilton in 1978. Babbitt was inaugurated as president in April of 1969. He served as a master sergeant during the Korean War and received a Silver Star. He went on to graduate with a B.A. from Yale College (Now Yale University), in 1953. Followed by a master’s degree in general studies in 1957 and a Ph.D. in american studies in 1965 from Yale's graduate school. Before becoming Kirkland’s president, Samuel Babbitt held several noteworthy positions that defined his career as a college administrator.  He served as the dean of men and lecturer in english at Vanderbilt University (1957-1962), followed by assistant dean of the Yale Graduate School (1962-1966). Corresponding with his arrival at Kirkland he received an honorary degree from Hamilton in 1969.  Before his retirement in 1993, Samuel Babbitt was the vice president of program planning and resources at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York (1980) and in 1983 he was appointed vice president for development at Brown University. He wrote Limited Engagement: Kirkland College 1965-1978: An Intimate History of the Rise And Fall of a Coordinate College for Women.