The value of international students was felt so strongly that various student-led fundraising efforts caused the creation of new financial awards and fellowships.
In 1948, a student drive raised funds for two new scholarships for students from behind the Iron Curtain to honor Belgian student Marie Périer, x-class of 1949, who had fled Nazi occupied Belgium years prior, and died in a plane crash before her sophomore year. Every student organization and every class year donated to the drive, with the single largest donation of $600 coming from the senior class.
The first of these awards went to Helena Rathauska (Czechoslovakia), class of 1950. When a student from Poland initially chosen as the second recipient faced visa impediments from the Polish government, Mahile Partow (Iran), class of 1951, was chosen instead.