For Roy Cravzow ’61, coming to Lehigh just made sense. He wanted to be far enough away from home in Long Island, N.Y., to get that “going away to college” feel, but near enough to not have to fly home for holidays. He liked that Lehigh was strong in business, the arts, and his initial major, engineering. Little did he know that taking a Spanish class his first year would change the entire trajectory of his life.
That class was taught by a newly arrived romance languages professor, Victor Valenzuela, who became an advisor, mentor, and lifelong friend. At Valenzuela’s encouragement, Cravzow earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish at Lehigh and a master’s in Spanish from Columbia University New York (CUNY), where he was the first graduate of Columbia’s Latin American Studies certificate program. There he met another life-influencing professor, Gregory Rabassa, who would become his dissertation advisor and dear friend.
A switch in concentration to Portuguese, a Ph.D. in comparative literature (Portuguese) from CUNY, and a Fulbright fellowship to Brazil all led Cravzow to a career as an adjunct professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Queens College in New York from 1968 through 1989. In 1974, using the knowledge of Brazilian culture he learned from Valenzuela and Rabassa, Cravzow began an industrial export business serving clients in Brazil that he was still running until the COVID-19 pandemic recently shut down operations.
It was a desire to honor his two mentor-professors that led Cravzow to set up his first charitable gift annuity. He has given fourteen gift annuities to date, with the intent of creating an endowed chair of Latin American literature at Lehigh named for Valenzuela and Rabassa, both of whom have passed away.
Cravzow appreciates the steady income stream his annuity provides, as well as the generous tax deduction he receives in contribution years.
“It’s a win-win for everybody. When I found out about the charity remainder gift, I thought it was great,” Cravzow said of the opportunity to endow a chair at Lehigh. “Without Lehigh and Professor Valenzuela, which led me to meet Professor Rabassa, I wouldn’t have enjoyed these lifelong relationships and the success I achieved in my career.”
