Alan ’72 and Joan Henricks

“MIT was a precise humbling acquisition for me,” says Alan Henricks, 1 of the archetypal procreation successful his Midwestern household to be college. “But astatine the extremity of 4 years, it besides gave maine self-confidence to spell guardant successful the world.”

Doc Edgerton’s legacy. Alan, who went connected to a palmy vocation of enactment roles astatine respective exertion companies, and his wife, Joan, enthusiastically enactment the MIT Edgerton Center, founded successful 1992 to grant the precocious Harold “Doc” Edgerton, SM ’27, ScD ’31, the inventor, entrepreneur, and beloved MIT professor. When Alan was an undergraduate field circuit guide, his favourite halt was Edgerton’s Strobe Lab, wherever helium often encountered the supposedly retired prof assisting undergraduates with projects. The Edgerton Center, Alan says, combines mens and manus, providing a invaluable shaper abstraction for students. 

Joan Henricks, who holds a doctorate successful behavioral sciences and served galore years arsenic a docent for visiting schoolchildren astatine a San Francisco creation museum, praises the center’s outreach to section schools. “I had ever believed successful informal learning,” she says, “but I became profoundly funny successful seeing this benignant of learning successful action.” 

Thoughtful giving. In summation to making a bequest to MIT successful their will, the mates established the Edgerton Center Director’s Fund, to which others tin besides contribute. Today’s students, the Henrickses constituent out, volition soon beryllium the adjacent procreation of alumni astatine MIT. For those who find that the Edgerton Center helped motorboat their careers, says Alan, “they’ll person a mode to springiness backmost done this endowed fund.” 

Help MIT physique a amended world. For much information, interaction Amy Goldman: (617)253-4082; goldmana@mit.edu. Or sojourn giving.mit.edu/planned-giving.