Mary Baldwin University to honor former president Cynthia Tyson

A $1 million gift from the Robert Haywood Morrison Foundation will endow the building that houses the Mary Baldwin University Program for the Exceptionally Gifted in honor of President Emerita Cynthia Haldenby Tyson.

MBU will dedicate the Cynthia Haldenby Tyson Hall with ceremonies Thursday at 3 p.m. on SMA Worth Field, located on the main MBU campus in Staunton.

MBU President Pamela R. Fox will provide celebratory remarks.

The school will also mark the 25th anniversary of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership – the nation’s only all-women corps of cadets.

This year also marks the 35th anniversary of PEG, a program that allows gifted girls as young as 13 to work toward their college degree.

Tyson was instrumental in supporting both VWIL and PEG as president of Mary Baldwin from 1985 to 2003. She began her tenure at the same time that the first class of gifted young women entered the new PEG program in 1985, and she ensured the program’s ongoing development and success.

Tyson also made the decision at the request of the Commonwealth of Virginia to establish the VWIL program in 1993.

VWIL welcomed its first class of students in August 1995.

Toward the end of her presidency, Tyson led the way for the construction of a state-of-the-art residence hall for PEG students. Now the $1 million gift from the Robert Haywood Morrison Foundation, based in Charlotte, N.C., will endow the building in perpetuity as the Cynthia Haldenby Tyson Hall.

Tyson serves as president of the foundation, a non-profit, charitable organization that supports higher education, the arts and culture, and the natural environment.