ShirleyKullen, Kogod/BSBA ’59, MBA ’61, PhD ’72, knows that life’s true shape is a circle; she understands that the past often touches the present and impacts the future.

Take Kullen’s relationship with her husband, Sol, with whom she enjoys an active and fulfilling retired life. Splitting time between Chevy Chase, Md., and Palm Beach, Fla., the two enjoy playing golf, going to the theatre, visiting art galleries, and attending lectures. While they took most of their lives to get to this point - both losing former spouses before they married in 1993 when they were both in their 70s - their relationship actually has its roots in Kullen’s childhood. “I knew him since I was 15,” explains Kullen. “His first wife was my cousin . . . It makes for a very comfortable relationship. Our families are very close.”

Her career arc was also a circle. Early in the 20th century, Kullen’s mother emigrated from Ukraine to study medicine in the United States. Her dream to become a doctor faded, however, when World War I erupted, making medical school tuition financially infeasible.

Some 40 years later, Kullen would embark on her own dreams at the University of Maryland, pursuing a degree in business. “From when I was a little girl, I just knew I wanted to do something big in business,” Kullen recalls. Yet, like her mother, Kullen had to put aside her dreams. When her first husband was drafted during World War II, Kullen had to abandon her education to take a job as a stenographer.

A decade later, after a divorce left her a single mother, Kullen knew she needed to return to school. "I had tunnel vision,” she recalls. "I had two children, and to support them the way I wanted to I knew I needed an education. So I really didn't pay attention to any of the obstacles in my way.” Aside from the challenge of returning to school as a single mother in the conservative late 1950s, Kullen faced an unexpected hurdle. The University of Maryland would not accept the credits she had earned there a decade earlier.

Having taken some night classes at American, Kullen decided to call AU’s School of Business Administration, and, as she puts it, “They welcomed me with open arms.” Taken seriously despite being the only woman in the program, the less conventional, but highly dedicated student earned her BS, MBA, and eventually her PhD in an environment of respect and support. “I wasn’t the little girl to be shunned there,” she recalls. “I found all of the professors to be very supportive, which I’m sure wasn’t the case everywhere.”

Following life’s geometry a step farther, Kullen’s three AU degrees, though not in medicine, ultimately led her to complete the journey her mother began when she left Ukraine. Joining the National Institute of Mental Health as a statistician after earning her MBA, Kullen built a career in medicine that lasted until she retired from NIMH as a health science administrator in 1993. And those two children, for whom she wanted a brighter future when she first came to AU . . . they are both doctors. “I guess the medical profession is a little bit ingrained in my family,” explains Kullen. “I don’t know whether it’s heredity or environment.”

Today, Dr. Kullen and her husband (a prominent printing and publishing executive) are drawing the ends of another circle together as they turn their attention back to AU to ensure that future Kogod students continue to benefit from talented professors. By including provisions in their charitable estate plan to fund the Shirley and Sol Kullen Research Professorship, the couple will help Kogod continue to attract and retain top faculty.

Still, for Dr. Kullen the gift is as much about the past as it is about the future. “It might sound trite, but I really feel that AU gave me something I couldn’t get anywhere else... Now it’s my time to give back.”

For more information on the benefits of including American University in your charitable estate plan, please contact Seth Speyer, Planned Giving Officer, at 202-885-5914; e-mail speyer@american.edu, or visit our Web site.