Finding the Joy in Giving: "There's Nothing Better"
Vivian Anderson, Ph.D. | JCU Parent
For Dr. Vivian Telford Anderson, higher education has been more than a career. It's been a way of life. The daughter of a college professor and department chair, Vivian grew up on a college campus, became a professor herself, and married a fellow professor and raised her family in a college town.
So when her oldest daughter, Janeece '98, was choosing a school in the mid-1990s, Vivian and her husband, Dr. Larry Anderson, knew just what to look for: small classes, full-time faculty, and a place where a quiet student could form meaningful connections and thrive.
They found all of that-and more-at John Carroll University.
"From the moment we stepped on campus, the light went on," Vivian recalls. "The class sizes were small. The focus was on thinking about the world beyond the classroom. As someone who had spent her life in higher education, I recognized right away how rare that was."
Janeece enrolled as a French major and embarked on an experience that shaped not only her academic path, but her life. Opportunities for students were plentiful and she seized them all: an internship with the French Chamber of Commerce in Cleveland, a study abroad program in Tours, France, and lasting friendships and professional connections. She attended Cleveland Orchestra concerts with student tickets, volunteered in the community, played intramural sports, and discovered interests and passions that would only be possible in the small, nurturing environment that John Carroll offers. "John Carroll didn't just educate her," Vivian says. "It connected her to Cleveland, to opportunities, and to people who cared about her as a whole person, not just a number."
That connection remains strong. Janeece met her husband, Dan Ansevin '98, at John Carroll and built a career in Northeast Ohio as an award-winning French teacher before stepping away to focus on her family.
For Vivian, the decision to make a planned gift to John Carroll was both practical and personal. After her husband passed away, Vivian took a close look at her finances. Much of their retirement savings were held in IRAs, and she quickly realized that leaving those funds directly to her children would come with a significant tax burden.
"I didn't want a third of that money going to taxes," she explains. "This was a way to make sure the money would directly benefit the institution that gave so much to Janeece." Working with her financial advisor, Vivian created The Larry and Vivian Telford Anderson Endowment, an unrestricted fund at John Carroll in honor of Janeece. The process was surprisingly simple. "It was as easy as changing the beneficiary designation," she says. "No complicated paperwork. No legal maze. I set it up during the pandemic and finalized it recently."
The unrestricted nature of the fund was intentional. As a lifelong academic, Vivian understands the value of flexibility. "I think if you're going to give, you don't put strings on it," she says. "Universities know where the need is. I want to let them use it where it will do the most good."
What does the gift mean to her? "It gives me joy," she says. "Just plain joy." That joy is a feeling Vivian is very familiar with. Over the years, she has established scholarships and funds at other institutions in honor of her father and her late husband. Letters from students whose lives were changed by those endowments move her deeply. "When students write and say, 'Your gift made a difference for me,' there's nothing better," she says. "That's when you know you've done something right."