Former University of Texas at Dallas dean of libraries Dr. Larry Sall and his wife, Judy, have made a planned gift to create a scholarship aimed at opening doors and expanding opportunities for future students.
The couple has committed one-third of their estate to establish the Judy and Larry Sall Scholarship Fund. The scholarship will support students graduating from the Dallas Independent School District, with a preference for first-generation college students and participants in the Academic Bridge Program, a University initiative to prepare high-potential students for college with programming that begins in the summer after high school graduation.
“We just want to give them a shot,” Larry Sall said. “What they do with it is up to them. We hope these students will realize the potential they never knew they had and help make the world a better place.”
When Sall arrived at UT Dallas in 1978, the young institution had been admitting only junior and senior undergraduates for three years. But over the course of his 32-year career, he witnessed the rapid growth of the University firsthand and saw the difference UTD made to not only students, but also to faculty and staff.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” Judy Sall said. “This is a way of paying it forward. Somewhere along the line, we will make a difference to some student. Hopefully, many.”
“We just want to give them a shot. What they do with it is up to them. We hope these students will realize the potential they never knew they had and help make the world a better place.”
Dr. Larry Sall, former dean of libraries at UT Dallas
Sall joined UT Dallas as a coordinator of Special Collections in the Eugene McDermott Library. He was named director of libraries in 2000 and dean of libraries in 2004.
“That opportunity meant a lot because of all that I was able to do to help the University,” he said.
Among the many experiences afforded to Sall during his time at the University were encounters with seminal figures in diverse academic fields. He curated collections from aviation pioneer and decorated World War II pilot Gen. Jimmy Doolittle and botanist and archaeologist C.L. Lundell, discoverer of the Mayan city of Calakmul, among many others.
“I got to know the most fascinating people you could imagine,” Sall said.
Since his retirement in 2010, the couple has continued to invest in the University. In 2013 they established the first charitable gift annuity in the University’s history for the benefit of the McDermott Library.
“We both believe in education as a way of moving people forward,” Judy Sall said. “We’re hoping that this new scholarship can make a real difference in someone’s life.”