When considering how his gift could best impact Kenyon, Richard S. Alper ’71 noted, because Kenyon is in a remote, rural area and has relatively high tuition, it seems difficult for disadvantaged students to consider the College. But having such students at Kenyon would be beneficial for the College as a whole. Because he believed Kenyon had hid its light under a bushel for a long time, he reasoned that “the Claiming Our Place campaign was a real opportunity to display the quality of the place to the public, and to provide a firm foundation for our aspirations to excellence. Alper believed that his gift to Kenyon’s endowment, providing opportunities for under-represented students, could have a great impact on improving the diversity of the College’s student body. So the Alper Family Scholarship Fund, which Rich Alper established in 2000, is designed to support able and promising minority students from west of the Mississippi River who could not otherwise meet the costs of a Kenyon education.