Susan Morgan, BS ’01, always knew she wanted to be an architect. As a high school junior in Minneapolis, she had read about WashU, and she was sold on the school when she earned a spot in a two-week summer architecture program taught by WashU professors.
“It was transformational,” Morgan remembers. “It was a little theoretical, a little technical, a little about beauty and craft. We were in studio every day. And the way that the teachers respected us and spoke to us — like WashU students, not just high schoolers — really had an impact on me.”
While the summer program sealed the deal on WashU for Morgan, she also made a friend who would shape the rest of her life: Sandy Brennan, the longtime assistant to the dean of the School of Architecture (now the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts).
Thirty years later, Morgan still gets emotional talking about Brennan, who was known as the unofficial mother of the architecture students. “She was my friend and mentor starting my junior year in high school,” says Morgan. “We were more than just students to her — every single one of us mattered to her. And she modeled to me what kind of person I wanted to become, what it meant to be a woman in this field. She was spunky, she was confident, and above all, she was caring.”
Morgan, who is now a principal focusing on the education sector at Cannon Design in Boston and an adjunct professor at the Boston Architectural College, also credits Brennan with influencing her own philanthropic journey.
In 2001, Morgan worked with her peers to establish what is now known as the Sandy Brennan Student Fund as their class gift. She and the Class of 2001 engaged architecture alumni and professors to join their class in making funds available for architecture students to use in ways that support their educational goals, and surprised Brennan with the announcement of the fund at their graduation ceremony.
Then, in 2011, Morgan received the Sam Fox School’s Young Alumni Award, and in recognition of this achievement, Brennan returned the surprise by making a one-time scholarship gift in Morgan’s name.
“Sandy honored our friendship and WashU students by establishing that scholarship,” Susan says. “She gave what she could, and it mattered. You don’t have to make a big gift to make a difference.”
Morgan continues to make yearly contributions to the Sandy Brennan Student Fund, and in 2018 she paid tribute to her mentor by establishing a planned gift to the fund to benefit both undergraduate and graduate students in perpetuity.
“The university needs people who have the resources to make large gifts, but it also needs people like Sandy who give what they can to our students because their heart is called to,” Morgan says. “Small gifts come together to make a big impact, and that’s just as important.”
Remembering Brennan, who died in 2012 following a long illness, in a way that supports the student experience is paramount to Morgan. She freely acknowledges how her entire WashU experience still sticks with her today.
“WashU set the course of my life,” she says. “My closest friends have remained with me on our shared architectural journeys. My professional understanding of a college campus from an architectural standpoint — design cohesion mixed with creative exploration, the importance of outdoor spaces as well as indoor spaces, how the university is part of the surrounding community — comes from WashU. The professors gave me a foundation for my personal and professional values, and that still shapes the projects and clients I pursue, the firms I’ve worked for, how I mentor my own students.”
But more importantly, Morgan still connects with what she calls the heart and soul of the university: “The WashU experience isn’t just about skills; it’s about learning to be part of a community. People who intersect with WashU care about sharing their wealth — which is sometimes money, but is also heart, time, and other resources. WashU is a community where you learn to give.”
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
I would increase everyone’s capacity to see the humanity in the people around them. If we could meet each other with love and care, that’s what’s going to change the world.
— Susan Morgan, BS ’01