Back in the day, Northfield Mount Hermon literally travelled across the globe to find Jaehyang So ’80. Now she’s ready to reach back in a big way, by starting a new scholarship fund.

Born in Korea, Jae was the oldest of four siblings living in Saudi Arabia, where their father worked for the UN Development Program. School for expats stopped at 8th grade, and Jae and her siblings were gearing up for boarding school in Europe.

The family had found a school in the UK that would take all four siblings but were startled when they received that school’s dress code and lunch menus detailed down to the day, exceeding the broadest stereotypes of strict British boarding schools.

And then they remembered that Howard Jones, president of NMH, had recently showed up in Riyadh to boost his school, the only American boarding school they’d heard of. “From what Dr. Jones was saying, NMH seemed just a much better place to learn and grow,” Jae said.

Drawn by Jones’ global perspective and a scholarship covering half her tuition, the family sent 13-year-old Jae alone to a faraway school they’d picked sight unseen.

She felt welcome from the get-go. She was picked up at the airport by the parents of classmate Lynelle Kucharski ’80, who immediately took her out for her first American meal, at Friendly’s. She still remembers that banana split.

It was quite a jump from Saudi Arabia to New England. The 1976-vintage casual culture here took some getting used to, such as the encouragement to call her dorm parents in Hibbard by their first names.

“I remember thinking for hours: Is there a way I could formulate my sentences and questions so that I didn't need to say the name of the teacher out loud?” she said.

Whether she called them by their first names, she remembers the teachers, such as photography teacher Chris Green, who fostered a passion for photography that she carried to Stanford, where she worked at the Stanford Daily, though her career would branch elsewhere.

But what has stuck with her most about NMH was the sense of belonging, an essential when your family is halfway across the world. Watching “The Holdovers,” which was filmed in part at NMH, or reading Jhumpa Lahiri's stories about Indian students in America in the 1970s, “Interpreter of Maladies,” Jae never felt the isolation of those characters.

"I never had to stay in the dorm over a holiday break,” she remembers. “I was always invited home to one or more of the students' homes."

The global perspective and culture of service she absorbed at NMH would shape her career. Armed with a bachelor’s and MBA from Stanford, she spent close to three decades at the World Bank, mobilizing over $250 million to expand access to clean water and sanitation and overseeing $45 billion in donor funds supporting sustainable global development. Now semi-retired in Washington, D.C., she chairs the Technical Committee of the Global Water Partnership, advancing water resource management across 179 countries.

Other than attending a single reunion in 2015, Jae largely lost touch with NMH over the years. That changed when the same Lynelle Kucharski who’d welcomed her in 1976 nominated her for the Alumni Council’s Distinguished Service Award last year. Attending her second reunion since 1980, she was moved by the school's continued commitment to diversity and equal opportunity. A conversation with Lydia Weis ’80 planted the seed for a Class of 1980 scholarship fund as part of This Place, This Moment: The Campaign for Northfield Mount Hermon. Jae’s five-year pledge is timed for the class’s 50th reunion in 2030 and will support a student with demonstrated financial need. Her gift qualified for a dollar-for-dollar match for contributions to financial aid. The Class of 1980 Scholarship Fund is also available for contributions from other donors.

“I received scholarships throughout my four years, and I wanted to enable others to have this opportunity,” she said. But no more recognition dinners for her, Jae said: This fund will simply bear the name of the Class of 1980, the group of students who first made her feel at home in 1976.