About the Beinecke Legacy​

Under Rick’s direction and in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), The Sperry Fund launches an international leadership program to support emerging African conservation leaders. Scholarships to pursue graduate degrees in the U.S. and the U.K. are coupled with opportunities to develop networks and leadership, with the strong expectation of returning home to lead. The Beinecke African Scholarship initially awards one scholarship per year, later expanding to two annually. This new offering is developed in celebration of WCS’s 100th anniversary. 

“The African Scholarship program is targeted to support students already moving toward specific career paths, while the program for U.S. students broadens a student’s horizons to imagine something beyond their original assumptions. Both programs help students attain what may have previously seemed unattainable.”

 —Frances Beinecke

As a trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society since 1981, Rick served as co-chair of the International Conservation Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee. An advocate for global conservation issues, Rick traveled all over the world to visit WCS’s work. He understood the breadth and depth of WCS research and fieldwork, particularly on the African continent. In the early 1990’s, Rick already saw that young African conservation professionals faced multiple obstacles in accessing high quality doctorate programs. From his vantage point and experience with the Beinecke Scholarship Program in the U.S., Rick recognized that a scholarship program for Africans to attend graduate school in the United States could be advantageous on many levels. 

An effective, well-respected organization working in tandem with conservation partners worldwide, WCS had long been committed to nurturing next-generation conservation leaders. WCS would be The Sperry Fund’s ideal partner. Rick tasked Tom Parkinson to work with senior WCS staffer John Robinson, the Joan L. Tweedy Chair in Conservation Strategy, to develop the new program. John was also a professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, which hosts one of the most important research centers for tropical conservation in the world. This site would host many future African Beinecke scholars.

Beinecke Scholarship director Tom Parkinson and WCS staff, led by John Robinson, worked on the details of the new initiative. On the continent, the WCS network includes researchers with undergraduate degrees already working in junior positions in government agencies, local NGOs, and even within WCS itself. These early-career professionals are typically constrained by both financial capacity and limited local academic options in pursuing graduate study. The idea was that WCS would identify highly qualified candidates with potential for success, and that Tom would bring his persuasive power and relationships with university staff. Tom convinced universities that having international scholars in their graduate communities held value and effectively promoted foreign students’ unique qualifications and skills. For many African scholars fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, English was not their first language. Nor had many lived abroad. Tom and his wife often met African students at the airport when they landed and made sure they had winter clothes. Throughout their stay in the U.S., the Parkinsons ensured the scholars felt at home. Today, Kate Mastro continues the role that Tom established and, in the spirit and practice of all Beinecke Scholarship directors, Kate and her WCS peers serve as advocates, advisors, and mentors for the African Scholars as they journey through their graduate studies in the U.S.

In the program’s early days, fewer college-educated African women were participating in the workforce; those who worked outside the home often had family obligations that precluded study abroad.  Now that times have changed, the Beinecke African Scholarship Program applicant and scholar pool consistently shows greater gender parity.   

After piloting this model, WCS approached other funders with its demonstrated success and leveraged additional grants to create similar international scholarships for other global regions. To date, the WCS Graduate Scholarship Program has awarded 152 scholarships across 41 countries. Of the 152 awardees, 46 are African. The Beinecke African Scholarship Program catalyzed greater access to education for dozens of other international scholars.