After her first year of law school, Susan Fleischner Kornspan, J.D. '90, almost had to give up her dream of becoming an attorney. But an anonymous donor loan enabled her to continue. "I was very thankful to whoever those people were, and I was hopeful that I could do that same thing for others someday," she recalls. "I feel I was just the custodian of that money we should all keep passing forward."
Today, Susan and Scott Kornspan, A.B. '86, J.D. '90, who met at the University of Miami School of Law, are excited to be able to pay their success forward. Besides contributing to the building of the UM Student Activities Center and naming the Scott and Susan Fleischner Kornspan Study Lounge, the Boca Raton-based attorneys have made a bequest in their wills that, on their passing, will fund scholarships for UM student leaders.
"The little bit we can do to make a student's life better or improve the University, which is already improving by leaps and bounds, is really rewarding for us," Susan says. Scott, a former Student Government president, adds, "We're both certainly very pleased with our UM experience, so it's appropriate that we help others enjoy an even better University of Miami."
The Kornspans were among 93 philanthropists—living and deceased—inducted into the University's Heritage Society in May. Established in 1988, the donor recognition group comprises more than 1,500 faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and others who have made planned gifts to UM. Planned gifts can range from those that provide the donor a guaranteed income for life to real estate donations to simple bequests in a will or trust.
More than $141 million in planned gifts have been secured during the $1.6 billion
Momentum2 campaign. Among those are recent bequests from Margarita, M.P.A. '86, and Rick, M.B.A. '84, M.P.A. '85, Tonkinson, and Susan and Victor D. "Vic" Wortmann, B.B.A. '59, as well as a retirement plan gift from clinical psychology professor Michael Alessandri, executive director of the UM Center for Autism & Related Disabilities.
