MIT and the family of Richard Guy II have announced MIT's establishment of the Rick Guy Fund. The fund is named for a former MIT student who died tragically on Aug. 31, 1999. Guy is survived by his parents, Richard A. Guy Sr. and Janet V. Guy of Mission Viejo, Calif., and a sister, Suzanne, also of Mission Viejo.
Each year, the Rick Guy Fund will provide financial assistance to enable five or more incoming freshmen to attend one of the preorientation programs that MIT offers for the purpose of assisting incoming freshmen in their adjustment to college life.
MIT began offering preorientation programs to incoming freshmen in 1996, when it began the Freshman Leadership Program. Over the years, MIT has added the Freshman Urban Program, the Freshman Arts Program and the Freshman Outdoors Programs. In addition, preorientation programs are offered by seven of MIT's academic departments or programs: biology; civil and environmental engineering; earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences; history; mechanical engineering; nuclear science and engineering; and ocean engineering.
The Rick Guy Fund is a tribute to Rick's promise as a gifted student, an outstanding athlete and a young man who cared deeply about others and about the academic opportunities that were afforded to him at MIT. MIT's establishment of this fund also resolves a lawsuit that the Guy family filed in August 2002. The lawsuit was filed in order to preserve the family's rights to pursue claims arising out of their son's death. The Guys did not pursue those claims and instead worked with MIT to develop this fund to assist other MIT students in making the adjustment to college life, and thereby serve as a tribute to their son. With MIT's establishment of the Rick Guy Fund, the lawsuit has been dismissed.
The Rick Guy Fund will be dedicated at a ceremony at MIT at a date not yet determined.
