Director Profile
WELFund Director Jennifer Sanborn and grant recipient Alexandra Symmonds '10 celebrate WELFund's first year at a reception in October 2007
Jennifer Sanborn arrived at the University of Hartford in August 2006 to serve as the first director of the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund. A graduate of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa. and Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., Jennifer worked for 10 years at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. prior to her start in Hartford.
While at Wheaton, Jennifer served in leadership capacities in Student Life, the Filene Center for Work and Learning, and the Multicultural Center. As assistant director for academic and campus life, she managed a significant interdisciplinary grant and served as a partner to faculty to integrate diversity in the classroom via service-learning and reflection. A women’s college until the late 1980s, Wheaton is where Jennifer began creating women’s programming to serve the multi-generational populations of students, staff and faculty, and sought to empower women across the campus toward greater leadership and engagement.
“I am honored to be creating a legacy program with values that speak so clearly to my own,” says Jennifer. “In speaking with HCW alumnae, I’m treated to the gift of stories that shape my everyday work—stories about inspiring faculty, a connected community, and women surpassing their own expectations over and over again. Every day I carry the stories forward by using these funds to support University students, staff, faculty and the greater community in enhancing women’s education.”
WELFund Director Jennifer Sanborn and grant recipient Alexandra Symmonds '10 celebrate WELFund's first year at a reception in October 2007
While at Wheaton, Jennifer served in leadership capacities in Student Life, the Filene Center for Work and Learning, and the Multicultural Center. As assistant director for academic and campus life, she managed a significant interdisciplinary grant and served as a partner to faculty to integrate diversity in the classroom via service-learning and reflection. A women’s college until the late 1980s, Wheaton is where Jennifer began creating women’s programming to serve the multi-generational populations of students, staff and faculty, and sought to empower women across the campus toward greater leadership and engagement.
“I am honored to be creating a legacy program with values that speak so clearly to my own,” says Jennifer. “In speaking with HCW alumnae, I’m treated to the gift of stories that shape my everyday work—stories about inspiring faculty, a connected community, and women surpassing their own expectations over and over again. Every day I carry the stories forward by using these funds to support University students, staff, faculty and the greater community in enhancing women’s education.”