Carol Townsend Cofield '69 Creates Legacy Gift for Nazareth in Her Estate Plan

Award-winning educator and artist Carol Townsend Cofield '69 knew that Nazareth was the place for her to pursue her degree in art education as soon as she stepped foot on campus. Growing up on a dairy farm located one mile from where the 1969 Woodstock Festival was held, Carol's high school graduating class held 12. And she only made that initial visit to Nazareth to appease her guidance counselor. Knowing that she wanted to be an artist since age 3, she immediately felt this was the place to pursue her passion.

Following graduation, she became a teacher at School No. 6 in Rochester before accepting a teach-ing fellowship at Ohio University. This started her career in higher education, which ultimately led her to Buffalo State University - where she spent most of her career as an associate professor teaching Ceramics, 2D and 3D Design, and Color Theory and chairing the Design Department for many years and championing interdisciplinary ventures.

Carol also has a strong desire to create positive change within the community and has served on many boards. These include StitchBuffalo, which empowers refugee and immigrant women through the sale of their handcrafted goods, The Anne Frank Project, Buffalo-Lille Association, and Friends of the Chautauqua Writers' Center. In addition, she was selected by Just Buffalo for the public art project, "BufLit: On the Move," in which one of her poems was displayed on a bus stop in the city.

Her passion for social justice led her on trips to Rwanda and on "The March: Bearing Witness to Hope" (The March) with Nazareth. In Rwanda, she was able to meet with and listen to the stories and perspectives of prisoners who helped carry out the genocide as they were on their restorative justice path. The March is a tour through Germany and Poland to study the Holocaust under the guidance of Holocaust scholars and survivors. These experiences were transformational and helped shape her life's purpose.

When two of her role models talked about legacy plans that they had set up at their institutions, Carol was motivated to do the same at Nazareth. She decided to leave Nazareth in her will in order to create an endowment to support The March, create an endowed scholarship for a student major-ing in visual arts, and to create a visual arts fund to help students purchase materials that are a course-required expense. "I am truly happy with the life that Nazareth set me on pace for. I couldn't imagine anything else I would have rather done! It makes me happy to provide this gift for the future generations of Nazareth students who seek to carry on their own life's purpose."