Madeleine Dreyfus says that when it came time to choose a college, she chose Brooklyn College. “I graduated from Erasmus Hall High School, and my family was humble. The only way I could go to university full time was to go to a free school. Today, I’ve found a new way to create that kind of experience for Brooklyn College students.
With her husband, Madeleine founded the Charles and Madeleine Dreyfus Student Success Fund at Brooklyn College. She and Charles are first-generation college students, graduates of the City University of New York (Charles is a Baruch alumnus), and deeply committed to giving back.
“We always felt that when the time came, if we were lucky enough, we would help make life a little easier for today’s students.”
The Charles and Madeline Dreyfus Fund for Student Success provides scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students with financial need. It also covers achievement and emergency grants, internship stipends, books and fees, transportation, and student research.
Madeleine Road
Madeline came to campus in the early 1960s knowing she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. She always loved school, her teachers and her children.
“You have to put everything in context,” says Madeleine. “Girls grew up thinking: ‘We are going to be nurses or teachers.’ There was no doubt that these were professions in which women could be easily employed.
Charles Dreyfus explains. “In those days, students majored in something that could get you a job after graduation. In Madeleine’s case, teaching. In my case, accounting.” Charles became a portfolio manager and managing director at Royce Investment Partners, and served in executive portfolio management positions at Lazard Frères & Co. (today Lazard Ltd.) and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.
Madeline says teaching was attractive because it had its advantages: summer vacation and the opportunity to travel outside her Flatbush neighborhood. Throughout Madeleine’s childhood, everything was “local.” She and her peers attended the nearest public schools. She rarely ventured to other neighborhoods, mainly because the 30-cent round-trip subway fare was out of reach. During her training as a teacher, she cared for children to provide fares to primary schools in Sheepshead Bay and Borough Park.
She says her experience at Brooklyn College was eye-opening, from meeting students from other parts of the borough to reading James Joyce Ulysses. “I never imagined I would read Joyce,” she says.
“My time at college opened me up to new things. I taught myself to play the ukulele as part of teacher training,” she says with a laugh. “We were asked to teach ourselves an instrument so we could teach the students. I played “Happy Birthday” on it for my grandchildren.
Brooklyn meets Baruch
For Madeleine, being open to new experiences wasn’t limited to Brooklyn College. Thanks to her future sister-in-law who knew “a nice boy from Baruch,” the education major found herself on a blind date at Jahn’s ice cream shop at Church and Flatbush Avenues.
There, she and Charles Dreyfus discussed the challenge of completing term papers, especially since Madeleine did not have a typewriter. “Charlie,” she calls her husband, “gave me a 1964 Olivetti typewriter for my 18th birthday.” The couple married in 1966, two months after they graduated.
Looking forward by giving
Today, the Dreifuses compare their experience with that of current Brooklyn College students. “The names and national origins are different, but the similarities are there,” Charles says of first-generation college graduates.
“However, the needs today are even more surprising,” Madeleine adds. She points to the tuition challenge she and her husband never had to face.
“But it goes beyond that,” says Charles. “It’s MetroCards, food insecurity, childcare, rent, all kinds of additional issues. My parents came from Germany. They worked in factories, but the cost of living was much cheaper in those days.”
Philanthropy is nothing new for the Dreyfus family, but until recently, they preferred to remain anonymous on the subject. “We felt like maybe it was too showy and immodest,” Charles says. “But then we listened to some smart people who told us that using our name might inspire more people to support our alma mater.”
Madeleine believes the Charles and Madeleine Dreyfus Success Fund is a form of pay it forward. “There is a Hebrew phrase, Pain vador, which means generation to generation. We hope that as the students succeed, they will attract others to their side. “That was our motivation. It was easy to set up the fund because it feels so good to be able to do it. We are so grateful.”