Giving back to Syracuse University is one of Carla Fischer’s lifelong goals. The alumna runs an online-based jewelry business from her Connecticut home, and during this year’s Homecoming weekend, she unveiled a branch of her jewelry business. Titled the 315 Collection, it will help create a scholarship for future SU students dually enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences and S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications, like Fischer was when she attended SU.

Daily Orange: Why did you use Syracuse’s area code in the name of the collection?

Carla Fischer: I definitely wanted to connect it to Syracuse, but, as you may know, there is a lot of protection around all things that relate to the university, like the No. 44, the word ‘Cuse, even the word orange has some copyright protection around it. I thought the next closest thing that would point it directly to Syracuse was to use 315.

And why did you want to create a scholarship in your name?

I went to Syracuse because of the generosity of others. I received several scholarships when I was a student, which enabled me to get through my four years there. I always felt that at some time I would start to pay that back. I certainly am not in a position where I can just write one big check to do that, so there’s something called planned giving. And through planned giving, you’re able to, in essence, open an account and make deposits into that account until it hits a certain amount of money. When it hits a certain amount of money, it starts to pay out to a student. I wanted that to happen while I was still alive. A lot of people give money to the university as a part of their estate planning, you know when they write their will, and I didn’t want to wait for that. I wanted to give money while I was alive.

Can you tell me a little bit about the collection that is available?

I went to the Villanova game two years ago, and I had a pair of earrings on that I had made just for the game because I didn’t have anything that was orange. A lady that was sitting near us was just so excited about my earrings. She just thought they were so wonderful, and so I started making them for my friends. That was all kind of happening at the same time that the endowment fund idea was brewing in the back of my mind. So then I got this idea to just sell any kind of accessories that were orange because a lot of people said to me, ‘We really want to wear something to go to a game that matches T-shirts, but we don’t want to have a big, block ‘S’ on our ears.’

In the future, when the scholarship is given out, will you get to meet with the recipients?

Yes. It’s something that when I was a student they didn’t do. Now, once a year, they invite anybody who has endowed a scholarship to come, and they invite every student who was a recipient of an endowed scholarship, and they have a luncheon together, and we get to meet them. I always felt sad that I never got to meet the people who made my education possible. I know their name because it was on the scholarship fund, but I never knew who they were. That’s something that I really look forward to — getting invited to that luncheon and meeting that student.

klross01@syr.edu

Published on February 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Kristin: klross01@syr.edu | @kriskross22