Although they never had kids of their own, Gregory Shafer and Bernadette Gongora helped raise 39 foster children and soon will have a positive impact on the lives of countless students at Michigan State University for generations to come thanks to the $1.638 million gift they made to MSU’s College of Arts & Letters.
Married for 30 years, Shafer and Gongora say they are not rich, which makes their gift all that more impressive. Shafer teaches English at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan. Gongora, a Cuban-American and first-generation college graduate, not to mention heart transplant survivor, is semi-retired after also teaching at Mott. Both are graduates of Michigan State University — Shafer has a B.A. and an M.A. in English and Gongora an M.A. in French, all from MSU.
They have generously made annual gifts to MSU’s College of Arts & Letters for some time, including a $10,500 donation in 2022. They decided to take things a significant step further when making their estate plans by choosing MSU as a top priority in the legacy they want to leave behind.
Their $1.638 million gift will be used to create two scholarships — the Gregory Shafer and Bernadette Gongora Endowed Scholarship and the Maria Lourdes Rios and Israel J. Gongora Endowed Scholarship — and a fund to support MSU’s Department of English, named the Gregory Shafer Endowed Fund.
The Maria Lourdes Rios and Israel J. Gongora Endowed Scholarship, which honors the memory of Gongora’s parents, will benefit undergraduate students with majors in the College of Arts & Letters who have demonstrated financial need with preference given to those who have experienced hardships as a result of war, conflict, or political oppression.
“These endowments will directly support the educational dreams and aspirations of our students and help the Department of English enhance our research and teaching strengths by recruiting and retaining world-class faculty.”
Justus Nieland, Chair of the Department of English
Gongora’s father, who was born and raised in Cuba, was just 16 when he was brutally tortured as a political prisoner after participating in Fidel Castro’s failed plot to overthrow dictator Flugencio Batista in July 1953. After escaping and fleeing to Venezuela, then Jamaica, he eventually returned to Cuba where he married Gongora’s mother before they came to the United States.
“They instilled in me the importance of education and always being curious,” Gongora said about her parents. “My two siblings and I all have master’s degrees, two that were earned at MSU.”
The Gregory Shafer and Bernadette Gongora Endowed Scholarship also is for undergraduate students with majors in the College of Arts & Letters who are in financial need and good academic standing.
Through both these scholarships, Shafer and Gongora hope to help students achieve their goal of earning a degree who may not be able to afford it.
This year, the College of Arts & Letters will award four $2,500 scholarships thanks to Shafer and Gongora’s generosity in establishing these two scholarships.
Meanwhile, the Gregory Shafer Endowed Fund will support activities and efforts to enhance the national and international reputation of MSU’s Department of English, such as research support, faculty recruitment and retention, and new programming initiatives. Shafer, who also has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan, said he had some “wonderful professors” during his time at MSU and wanted to give some money to MSU’s Department of English to help elevate its national standing.
“The Department of English is delighted by Mr. Shafer and Ms. Gongora’s generous gift to our students and faculty, and to the College as a whole,” said Justus Nieland, Chair of the Department of English. “These endowments will directly support the educational dreams and aspirations of our students and help the Department of English enhance our research and teaching strengths by recruiting and retaining world-class faculty.”
Fostering Hope and Education in the Next Generation
Shafer, who has taught at Mott Community College since 1997, also has taught migrant workers and prisoners. In addition to publishing a few textbooks and numerous journal articles, he published his first novel in 2020, titled Nick Christopher: Time Traveler.
Gongora taught French at Mott for many years. Throughout her career, she has enjoyed several multicultural experiences overseas, including a study abroad to France, working abroad as an au pair for a French family, working in the marketing department for a subsidiary of Caterpillar in Bogota, Columbia, and taking 25 students to Tours, France, for three months after earning an assistantship in MSU’s French program.
The couple has faced many challenges throughout their lives, including having their condo in Florida totally destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. And, despite Gongora’s congenital heart issues that led to a pacemaker, defibrillator, open heart surgery, and finally a heart transplant in 2004, Gongora and Shafer have opened their home to fostering more than three dozen children, ranging in age from 7 to 17. They also have taken in young immigrants and refugees for periods of three months to several years, until they could be permanently placed.
“These were kids who came in on the top of a train or in the compartment of a bus,” Shafer said. “Their stories are incredible.”
Gongora, who was raised in a Spanish-speaking household and who completed all the coursework for a master’s degree in Spanish but was too ill to take the exit exam, says she was able to communicate with the children since most of them came from Spanish-speaking countries. The couple also welcomed children of other ethnicities into their home, including an orphan from Afghanistan whose parents were victims of cancer and the Taliban.
“I knew I wanted to leave something to the English Department and Arts & Letters because the professors were so accommodating. Those were just some of the most wonderful years of my life.”
Gregory Shafer
Though their message didn’t always resonate with the teens they fostered, particularly the girls who had grown up with strongly embedded cultural beliefs that they should marry and have children young, Gongora and Shafer have always emphasized the importance of going to college. They showed them MSU’s campus, took them to MSU basketball games, had them sit in on Shafer’s classes at Mott, etc.
“When I went to Michigan State as an English major, it was such a nurturing, home-like environment,” Shafer said. “It’s a Big 10 university but it seems so personal. I knew I wanted to leave something to the English Department and Arts & Letters because the professors were so accommodating. Those were just some of the most wonderful years of my life.”
