Bowdoin Receives $3.5 Million Gift for Student Scholarships

Story posted July 06, 2005

In early May, Bowdoin received a bequest of more than $3.5 million from the estate of Robert Louis Millea Ahern '33. The Gift will endow the Robert L.M. and Nell G. Ahern Scholarship Fund, providing financial assistance to Bowdoin undergraduates studying English, history, or a similar liberal-arts field of study.

"Robert Ahern was a lifelong, generous supporter of the College," said President Barry Mills. "His bequest will play an
enduring part in the continued strength and success of the College by benefiting many Bowdoin students for generations to come."
Robert never forgot that in 1931, when the family experienced financial hardship following his father's sudden death, the College provided work-study opportunities and scholarships to both Robert and his brother Philip '32 so they could complete their education. The indebtedness he felt toward Bowdoin for this financial assistance was the primary motivating factor for the establishment of the scholarship fund, according to a family spokesman. A native of Boston, Robert Louis Millea Ahern attended Huntington School and Newton (MA) High School before coming to Bowdoin, where he majored in history, was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity, and graduated with honors in 1933.

Following Bowdoin, Ahern worked as a clerk with Leviseur and Company in Boston before spending four years as a field representative with the Gallup Poll of Princeton, N.J. In 1937 he took a job as a stock boy at The Boston Globe. When he injured his back lifting boxes, he drew on his polling experience to conduct media research for the paper, launching a nearly four-decade career in research, promotion and development at The Globe. He was named vice president of Affiliated Publications, Inc., The Globe's parent company, in 1975.

Like many of his generation, Robert was also a veteran of World War II, serving in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945. He and Nell Giles were married in 1947.

Nell Giles Ahern, a native of Oklahoma City, OK, was a graduate of Hendrick College. An author and journalist, she wrote for such publications as The Ladies Home Journal, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, and Better Homes and Gardens, and was a prolific contributor of travel essays for The Ford Times.

She later became a writer for The Boston Globe, and created "Susan Be Smooth," an advice column for teenagers, and was the author and editor of several books.

Robert Ahern died in 2002, at the age of 92, and Nell Ahern followed him a year later, at the age of 95.

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