Marcia Stofman Morton '61 made her first gift to Cornell in 1969: $5 in cash. Now, some 40 years later, she has decided to leave a $1 million bequest to Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

The bulk of her gift — $750,000 — will fund undergraduate scholarships in the agricultural sciences program, an interdisciplinary major that allows students to pursue a general education in agriculture. The remaining money will endow internships at Cornell Plantations and undergraduate research at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The Pittsburgh resident said she decided to set aside money for Cornell in her will about 25 years ago and gradually increased the size of the bequest. She recently formalized the arrangement with CALS.

"I think ever since I had gone to Cornell and began to save a little bit of money, I've wanted to give money to Cornell," Morton said. "I appreciated my education."

Morton said she also appreciates the Wood Foundation scholarship she received during her sophomore year, when her father, co-owner and manager of a movie theater in Atlantic City, N.J., lost his business.

"I know that scholarships are needed," she said.

After graduating from Cornell with a degree in biochemistry, Morton and her first husband founded ANSYS Inc., which specializes in engineering structural analysis software. For 24 years, Morton served as the corporate secretary and treasurer, until the Canonsburg, Pa.-based company was sold in 1994.

Her bequest to Cornell represents several of the interests that Morton has developed since graduation. An avid gardener, she volunteers for the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh as a master gardener. She is also an active bird watcher and remembers taking a course in ornithology her junior year at Cornell.

In 1975, Morton earned her pilot's license and began flying her children around the East Coast to visit relatives or take sightseeing trips. When her son, Andrew Swanson, M.S. '89, Ph.D. '97, entered a doctorate program in physics at Cornell, she would often fly to Ithaca to visit him for lunch.

"I'm very familiar with Ithaca's airport," she said. "I had a couple of interesting landings there in the fog."

Antonio DiTommaso, the Richard C. Call Director of Agricultural Sciences at Cornell, said the only scholarships available in his program are two small grants of $2,000. With the bequest, the six-year-old program, which now has 100 undergraduates enrolled, will be able to offer several larger scholarships annually.

"The gift will allow us to bring in young, bright, motivated students from across the country, and in some cases internationally," said DiTommaso, an associate professor of crop and soil sciences.

Cornell Plantations will use the bequest to create a new summer internship for a student in the horticulture or natural areas program to add to its 10 paid, 12-week summer internships.

"It's an opportunity for the students to learn new skills, through their assignments, their interaction with Plantations staff members and from each other," said Don Rakow, the E.N. Wilds Director of Cornell Plantations. "And the Plantations gains from the energy, creativity and knowledge that each of the students brings to their internship."

At the Laboratory of Ornithology, the bequest will fund undergraduates working in the facility's 10 research programs.

"We are always stretching our financial support to cover this incredible cadre of young scientists, so this new support will definitely allow us to help additional students accomplish great things," said Irby Lovette, the lab's associate director for academic affairs.

Sherrie Negrea is a freelance writer in Ithaca, N.Y.