June 2, 2023 | By Eve Tolpa

Inspired by the Santa Fe Class of 2018 and named in their honor, the SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund covers those seemingly small life expenses that end up making a big difference down the line.

“Koina ta ton philon” is a phrase from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that translates to “The things of friends are common.” It’s also the inspiration for a philanthropic project created by father-daughter team Dale and Alexandra “Lex” Gentsch (SF18).

The Gentsches established the SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund in 2019 with a five-year gift to the Freeing Minds campaign. The fund provides up to $10,000 a year to Santa Fe Johnnies for those seemingly small, day-to-day incidental expenses that help them thrive—and sometimes have the potential to create a chain reaction of hardship when left unfulfilled.

Distributions, which take the form of monthly stipends or one-time emergency sums, cover everything from study snacks that sustain students during a stressful week of late nights to car repairs so they can get to seminar on time. (Fees for room and board, however, are not eligible; neither is health care, except for optical and dental.)

Because the fund dollars are not invested, the full amount of the gift is available for immediate distribution to students each year. Any remaining balance from one year carries over to the next, and although the SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund was created before COVID-19 unleashed uncertainty into the world, the support it offers Johnnies in need became especially pronounced during the pandemic.

The fund represents a continuation of the dynamic that Lex and her friends shared throughout their four years at St. John’s, loaning—and sometimes outright giving—each other money to handle unexpected costs. “Some of us came from wealthier backgrounds, some of us didn’t,” she says. “A lot of different groups in my grade year helped each other out like this. It’s just the right thing to do.”

Lex characterizes the class of 2018 as generous and supportive. “We embodied the sentiment ‘The things of friends are common’ in how we conducted ourselves,” she explains in the gift agreement. “After we had all graduated, my father and I recognized the necessity of helping students at St. John’s in a similar fashion, even if we did not know them personally. The fund was created to do that.”

For the Gentsches, philosophy is not an abstraction but something practical and actionable: the first step in bringing personal values to life. When Lex was a student, she often hosted groups of friends at her father’s home in Santa Fe, where they spent countless weekends discussing philosophy with Dale, who earned a BA in the subject from the University of Missouri.

Inevitably, he became aware of some of the students’ financial challenges, many of which were familiar to him. “I saw my experiences in [my daughter’s] friends, so one by one, I helped them with what they needed to get by,” he says. “Sometimes they needed a monthly amount; sometimes it was a one-time thing, like new glasses. One time it was a bag of quarters to do laundry.”

“Things were less expensive in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” he continues, recalling his own college days. “I had a scholarship to cover tuition, student activity fees, and books. I worked every summer to earn enough money for rent and utilities, but that still left food and miscellaneous expenses to cover. The fund is meant to fill the gap that both many Johnnies and I have experienced that makes achieving graduation more difficult.”

Chief among Dale and Lex’s goals for the SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund was to make as large an impact as possible for as many students as possible. Beyond that, they hoped that the fund’s resonant mission and potential for immediate, tangible results would inspire participation from St. John’s family, friends, and alums. According to Lex, many recent graduates have felt energized to support the fund, especially those who benefited from it.

“My generation is not the wealthiest generation, and this was something where they could give $50 to $100 and it would actually be utilized toward the students directly,” she says. “It was a way of knowing that $50 would save somebody and keep them in school. That’s the difference of what it can be sometimes.”

St. John’s College issues periodic updates to the Gentsches, citing examples of the sort of disbursements that have made exactly that kind of difference.

Monthly stipends are often distributed to students in extraordinary circumstances: a senior whose family suddenly became reliant on disability benefits or an international Johnnie who had both parents lose their job due to the pandemic. The one-time emergency grants, on the other hand, fund things like dental work, computer repair, and postage fees for mailing Program texts home after graduation.

“We appreciate that my father and I get reports about how the money was actually being utilized,” says Lex, who adds that in a school like St. John’s, small financial interventions can make a big impact. “Sometimes it’s eight or ten students that need that [help], but for a school this size, that’s a significant increase in the graduation rate.”

Lex sees the college’s curriculum as “an intensive program that’s meant to take everything you think you believe and make you question your whole reality,” and says, “For a lot of people, that’s very destabilizing.” She notes that while the Program’s intensity can have an impact on student retention, “the community at St. John’s is quite tight-knit, and there are a lot of good people who want to keep everybody there.”

The SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund contributes to that effort while at the same time revealing the values behind the Gentsches’ actions.

“If you believe that society should be fair and equitable, you do what you can to make it fair and equitable,” says Lex. “I also think the way you talk about things, the way you think about things, changes the world in the simplest of ways, but also in long-term ways. I find that basically to be what magic is: the willing of something into being.”

Dale agrees. “We are creators of reality,” he says and states his credo, one that he repeatedly shared with Lex and her friends during their student years: “If you don’t take philosophy personally, you are missing the point.”

Please email development(at)sjc.edu for information on how to support the SF18 Koina Ta Ton Philon Student Support Fund—or create a special gift of your own.