Going Beyond “Sink or Swim”
Martha Darling ’66 & husband Gilbert Omenn, MD, PhD, donate $10 million to reimagine student success for Reedies.
When Martha Darling ’66 was a student at Reed, she was student body president, took part in a student leader delegation to Southeast Asia, worked as a summer intern in Washington, DC, in 1964, and participated in rousing lunchtime debates in Commons.
“We would have epic arguments with Prof. John Pock [sociology 1955–98] about the utility of going to graduate school, beyond just academics,” Martha recalls. “It was terrific. A lively discussion could be had most days of the week.”
As one of Reed’s most engaged and generous alumni, Martha, who has previously endowed support for student services, has inspired plenty of discussions of her own. In 1993, she led a multidisciplinary committee that included students, faculty, staff, and trustees, producing the formative President’s Commission on Student Life at Reed College.
It was, Martha remembers, “a time when there was quite a bit of divisiveness in the college, between those who liked the old Reed ‘sink or swim’ approach” and those who wished to provide support to students to “allow them to, frankly, enjoy the real fruits of the academic rigor.”
Now, Martha and her husband, Gilbert Omenn, MD, PhD, are strengthening that support with a $10 million donation. It is the largest gift to bolster student success in Reed’s 116-year history—and a new chapter in Martha’s quest to ensure that the opportunities that were available to her as a student are equaled and exceeded for current students.
“Reed is about rigorous academics, but it is also about providing students with the nonacademic skills and knowledge they need for productive lives,” Martha said when the gift was announced. “This fund will help create new student support and strengthen existing support in ways that make me envious that I’m not a student right now.”
Martha’s gift will profoundly affect all Reed students, but will be especially beneficial to those who are in their first two years—including sophomores who may be feeling frustrated and adrift after the inaugural rush of their freshmen year.
“The sophomores are sort of at sea,” Martha says. “The freshmen at least have humanities to rally around, to unify them, if you will. And once you’re a junior, you’ve got a major, and therefore another group of people who are coreligionists.”
With the aid of the Center for Life Beyond Reed (CLBR), Martha hopes to help sophomores find dry land. Her gift has given rise to the Sophomore Career Exploration Program, which enables sophomores to meet with CLBR staff as they seek internships, fellowships, and more.
Additionally, the Martha Darling ’66 Fund will endow a residential college program director, first-year academic support counseling, and expanded student mentoring and leadership. These positions, Martha says, are crucial to helping students develop both academic and nonacademic skills.
Martha has led a vibrant and varied career in business and politics. She worked as a senior manager at Boeing, and also served as executive assistant to Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal and as senior legislative aide to U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.
Yet to Reedies, Martha—who also established the Munk-Darling Lecture Fund in International Relations and the Lu Ann Williams Darling ’42 Scholarship, which was named in memory of her mother—will always be best known as a great champion of student success.
“Leadership is not the Il Duce standing on his platform, ordering this, that, and the other thing,” Martha says. “It happens in our conference system.” By helping to maintain and sustain that system, Martha is empowering students to learn from others and lead themselves.