By Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington ’89
Scott Brewington ’87 and his wife, Libby, want Wofford students who benefit from the newly established Dr. Constance Dean Armitage-Antonsen Endowed Scholarship Fund to “see wonderful things.” Really see — and experience — them!
The fund will provide scholarships for students with financial need to study abroad in Italy for a semester, summer or Interim.
“Much of who I have become these last 35 years is a direct result of the influence of Constance Antonsen,” says Brewington, who was Antonsen’s student assistant for two years. “Her lectures were tremendous, but it was the time in her office while I was filing slides that I learned so much. Discussing her many travels and views on current events or her simply wanting to know how I was doing made me feel a part of her life.”
After graduation, Brewington, who was an economics major, traveled to Italy with a friend. There he stood before Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” at the Uffizi in Florence and “saw it sparkle and come to life.” Upon his return, he told Antonsen about the experience. “She smiled and said, ‘Now you can say that you really love art. My job is complete. You love Botticelli,’” says Brewington. “I want the income generated from this fund to allow others to visit Florence and have a similar experience. I want them to walk the streets of the city she loved.”
Brewington, a financial advisor and avid Ironman triathlete, and Libby, an attorney, both champion the liberal arts and lifelong learning.
“Dr. Antonsen engendered curiosity. I sat in awe of her stories. To know her was to understand what it was to be passionate about art and architecture. She was fascinating and interesting and also kind and so open and willing to share,” says Brewington, who undertook an ambitious architectural history of Washington, D.C., during his senior year inspired by Antonsen. “It’s the experiences I had because of her and the intellectual curiosity she helped me develop that we honor in this scholarship.”
Brewington has now traveled to Italy multiple times with family and friends, sharing Florence and other regions Antonsen loved.
“When I’m there, I feel her presence,” says Brewington. “Dr. Antonsen taught life.”
And she experienced it. Antonsen came to Wofford in 1963 after a remarkable career that included undercover work for U.S. Naval Intelligence prior to World War II thanks to her ability to speak 13 languages. She competed with the U.S. national fencing team and seconded the nomination of Barry Goldwater from the floor of the Republican National Convention in 1960. At Wofford she taught fencing and art history while serving as chair of both the National Federation of Republican Women and the White House Conference on Aging. She pioneered Interim study abroad, taking her first group to Italy in 1968.
“For me, she will live on in the stories I tell my children about the monuments of Washington, D.C., passion for beautiful art that she cultivated in me and the love of history, which she had a unique way of bringing to life,” says Brewington. “I’ll always remember a riveting lecture in which she once told of Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. In a hushed voice and in the glow of a slide projector in the Daniel Building, she spoke of the excitement of Carter getting close to the treasures and of his response back to his expedition party when they inquired ‘Can you see anything?’ As I sat engrossed in the story, she gave Carter’s historic reply. ‘Yes, wonderful things.’ In Constance Antonsen, I saw wonderful things.”
To make a gift to the newly endowed scholarship fund honoring the legacy of Dr. Constance Dean Armitage-Antonsen, supporting student study abroad opportunities in Italy, visit wofford.edu/give.
To learn more about endowing your own scholarship or professorship at Wofford College, contact Molly Merrill, assistant vice president of philanthropy, at merrillmp@wofford.edu or 864-597-4217.