Katherine Graves Overbey ’89: Thinking Critically About the Future
When Alumni Schools Committee interviewer Katherine Graves Overbey ’89 talks to prospective Princeton students, she tells them that they won’t earn a degree that simply prepares them for a particular career, such as accounting or business. Rather, they will graduate with a liberal arts education that will be valuable in whatever path they choose.
“Princeton teaches you how to think critically, and that is directly applicable no matter what you want to do in your life,” says Overbey, known as K-T, who majored in politics and is an assistant vice president at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in charge of operations and business development for its quality improvement division.
The mother of three teenagers and a dedicated community volunteer, she uses the critical thinking skills she honed at Princeton “every single day.”
Her Princeton experience had such a tremendous impact on her life that in her late twenties she named the University as a beneficiary in her will. She sees the bequest as a “personal statement of who I am and what I value.”
A Lifelong Connection
As a high school junior, Overbey initially wasn’t interested in the University because she had an impression of it as “uptight and snobbish.” But after visiting campus, she realized she had been “completely wrong.” And she wasted no time getting involved as a freshman, joining student government, and later becoming manager of the varsity football team: “It was like having a hundred big brothers on campus,” says Overbey. She treasures the friendships she made and the lessons she learned from professors who were “literally the world-class experts on their subjects.” She recalls faculty members such as Professor of Politics Emeritus Stephen Cohen, who had to cancel a Soviet politics class because he was called to the White House to offer advice.
In addition to volunteering with the Alumni Schools Committee, Overbey is a loyal Annual Giving supporter, former vice president of her class, and proud member of the 1746 Society. She believes that giving back to Princeton is the key to preserving the University’s strength, “not just for the next 10 years, but for the next 200 years.”
For more information on including Princeton in your estate plans or making another kind of planned gift, contact one of our philanthropic advisors in the Office of Gift Planning at 609.258.6318, or e-mail GiftPlanning@princeton.edu.
