The Price is Right: Atlanta resident commits to scholarships for Lakers
(December 12, 2023) - Clayton State has many friends in our local community, and Atlanta’s Rosalynne Price is no exception.
Price felt so friendly with the university recently that she chose to gift $25,000 to the institution, plus an additional annual commitment of $1,000, as well.
In the past, she had already given approximately $5,000 in scholarships for students in need.
Grateful for her financial contributions to Clayton State, a university representative recently sat down with her to talk about her background and passions, as well as why she felt so driven to impact students’ lives at Clayton State.
CLAYTON: You have been incredibly generous with the university! Tell me a little about yourself – any connections you may have to the area, lifelong residency, maybe just a big fan of academics?
PRICE: Well, I’m a transplant – born in New York, raised in Los Angeles. I left Los Angeles for Louisville, Kentucky, which is where I met my husband. I actually have nobody in my family that’s gone to Clayton State, but I had a mentor who believed in Clayton State and did some support out there. I was a child of the ‘60s, so I was in “the revolution” and the Civil Rights Movement and all that. I had a tumultuous undergraduate experience and left Los Angeles because I was not able to make a difference there. When I got to Louisville, where I was in Teacher Corps, I was able to make a difference there and subsequently met my husband and wound up here. What strikes me about my life is that I’ve been blessed. I’ve been in the hard places, but I’ve also been honored. I did not pay for my master’s and did not apply for a scholarship. I later went for my doctorate, but the interesting thing about going for my doctorate is this – I was taking one course at a time, pregnant with my third child, and just doing what I could afford to do when I got a scholarship that I did not apply for! My advisor thought I was worthy of it, so I did not pay for my doctorate either. I was blessed! We’ve been so blessed, my husband and I – three children, 11 grandchildren. My mother started funds for all of the grandchildren, so we are doing likewise so everybody that wants to go to college can go to college. We aren’t paying for it all, because my mother and father believed that you should work for what you get. So, they said they would pay for half of my college, and I had to pay the other half. All I’m doing now is paying it forward.
CLAYTON: Paying it forward and doing so maybe with the wish that, just as you were blessed and had funds that went your way and clearly made an impact in your life – you’re trying to do that with some other students, I’d imagine?
PRICE: That’s right! That’s exactly right.
CLAYTON: Have you talked with any of the students who have received some of your scholarship funds in the past?
PRICE: No, because the last couple of years, I just gave money. This year, when I sat down with Michael Little – Clayton State’s Director of Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving – he said, “What do you want to do? What area are you interested in?” I said, “I want to make a difference.” When people grow up, they say “I want to be president of this, a doctor, a lawyer ...” I was in the Civil Rights Movement, so all I knew was that I wanted to make a difference. I didn’t need to be President of Podunk! All I wanted to do was know my efforts made a difference. Michael kind of honed in on that and said, “Well, I don’t know if this sounds like you ...” and I said, “Oh yeah, that sounds like me.” If somebody could accomplish their dream because they got funded, that works for me.
CLAYTON: And even though you haven’t met any of them, just the thought of it – that’s all it takes, huh?
PRICE: Yeah!
CLAYTON: Is there something specific about Clayton State that drew you into giving to the university? I know you said you had a mentor that was involved in Clayton State, but is there something about the university that stands out to you and makes you proud to be affiliated with it?
PRICE: I see it sort of as the people’s school where you need to go and get a job. You need to work; you need to employ yourself. I got my PhD at Georgia State, which is sort of international and urban. But Clayton State strikes me as a place where the people are from humble beginnings, as I was. My parents worked three jobs each. They’re not just focused on getting a college degree to get a degree. They’re going to have to support themselves and their family – sometimes their parents, their siblings, and their cousins. They need to get themselves in the position to do that. Clayton State strikes me as that kind of place. When I worked for Equifax, we opened the first international consumer service center in the country for the credit reporting industry. We used Georgia Quick Start and Clayton State to develop the program that we would train our people with so they could do what we needed them to do. We had people speaking every language in that center and we had requirements that none of the other credit reporting agencies had at that moment in time. We were ahead of the game and Clayton State was our partner. They were a wonderful partner! They helped us do what we needed to do. There wasn’t any fanfare ... let’s just roll up our sleeves and get the job done. I really appreciated that.
CLAYTON: There are students on campus somewhere that you’ve helped, but you don’t know any of them. Is there a message you want to give to these students as well as students in general just about the benefit of working hard for that degree?
PRICE: Each one of us has a gift. When you are at a place like Clayton State or any other institutions that work to develop people, your accountability is to discover that gift and use that gift, in my perspective, to help others. Discover who it is you are and what you bring to the table. The second thing is discover who it is you can help with that. How can you make a difference?