An IRA Bequest from Beloved Music Professor Dr. Lauren Fowler-Calisto to Provide Scholarships for Students

When beloved music professor and director of choral activities Lauren Fowler-Calisto died in December 2023, William Paterson University was honored to learn that she had designated the University as a beneficiary of her individual retirement accounts.

Lauren, whose husband John Calisto passed away in 2018, had signed a document making William Paterson a partial beneficiary of their co-mingled IRAs, indicating the distribution be used to establish the Dr. Lauren Fowler-Calisto and John Louis Calisto Memorial Scholarship for music education students who plan to become choral educators.

“Dr. C., as her music students called her, set up this scholarship to honor the love of her life, her husband John, a jazz guitarist,” explain Christopher Herbert and Jennifer Siebold, co-executors of her estate. “Lauren believed in the power of transformation through music education, and we are grateful that her legacy will live on by supporting vocal music education majors at William Paterson.”

Lauren joined the music faculty in 2016. Always student-focused, she took numerous student choir groups on international tours and collaborated on student musical productions in addition to teaching and conducting student ensembles.

“This is an extraordinary gift from a well-loved faculty member, and we are grateful to work with her co-executors to fulfill Lauren’s wishes to establish this scholarship at WP,” says Pamela Ferguson, vice president for institutional advancement and president of the William Paterson University Foundation. “We welcome her into the Hobart Society, which celebrates our alumni and friends who leave a legacy gift. These gifts will support deserving WP students in perpetuity.”