With $200 and a box of clothes, Louise Kirkbride left home to attend Caltech in 1970—without her parents' permission or support.
That year, Caltech had announced that it would begin admitting female undergraduates. Kirkbride quickly applied and was accepted, but her parents did not want her to go.
"It was absolutely the hardest school to get into," she says. "For me, that was irresistible. It was the perfect school to go to for science and technology. And being in the first class presented an extra challenge. So I called Peter Miller in admissions and told him my situation. He said, 'If you can get here, we'll take care of you.' That commitment changed my life. The next morning I left Philadelphia."
This week, Kirkbride (BS '75, MS '76) and her husband, Richard Lipes (PhD '69), announced that their will now directs the bulk of their multimillion-dollar estate to scholarships for Caltech students, a top priority in Break Through: The Caltech Campaign.