When hundreds of Beaver community members gathered on a snowy Saturday morning in February 2026 to celebrate the life and legacy of Yolanda Wilcox-González, there was a profound sense that the passing of this revered faculty member should be memorialized in a meaningful way.
It wasn’t long before a group of parents, alumni, faculty, and staff established the Yolanda Scholars—an endowed scholarship program that will expand access to a Beaver education for students whose perspectives and voices are essential to the life of this community and the wider world.
Officially named The Yolanda Wilcox González Endowed Scholarship Fund, this endowment was created to make that vision permanent: providing tuition assistance for students with demonstrated financial need, with a particular focus on students from the Boston area who demonstrate an interest in social justice, politics, advocacy, and pressing social concerns—values that were central to Yolanda’s life and teaching. These students will be able to attend Beaver and receive special programming and mentoring that will help the spark that is within them.
For me, writing about her legacy is particularly personal. I had the privilege of being mentored by Yolanda and learning from her as an educator and colleague when I came to Beaver as a student teacher. Like so many people at Beaver, I am better for having known her. There are so many lessons from Yolanda that I carry with me, but one I think about often as I work with young people is something she practiced every day: Teachers are human. If we can’t be human in front of our students, are we really doing them a service? Sometimes our ability to feel things in their presence is more important than being able to know things.
To the many who knew her, Yolanda played so many crucial roles—teacher, advisor, coworker, teammate, confidant, neighbor, friend—and she was among the very best at all of these. As teachers, as students, as the community that loved her, it’s now our responsibility to make sure that her work as a teacher and community member continues to live and evolve on our campus.
This scholarship fund will be a lasting reflection of who Yolanda was, what she stood for, and the 14 years of service that she gave to the Beaver community. This service took so many forms and helped shape the journey of countless young people. As a history teacher and department head, she had an unmatched ability to meet everyone—students or peers—exactly where they were, but then set a standard for them that was slightly ahead of that. Her teaching was rooted in empathy and dignity, not only toward her students but in the way that she shaped her curriculum. Culturally-responsive, justice-oriented, differentiated—these are all terms that many educators talk about and aspire to. Yolanda walked the walk, and every decision she made within Beaver’s walls prioritized the experience of her students. Among the most powerful qualities of her teaching was that it was always rooted in humanity. There was purpose, connection, and soul in her classes.
“In her classroom, conversations didn’t feel like school. They felt important. Real. Sometimes uncomfortable. But always meaningful”, says Lino Sanchez ‘26, one of Yolanda’s former students. “You didn’t sit in her class and passively learn. You were part of it. You were asked to think harder, dig deeper, and consider perspectives you may have never thought about before.”
Humanity was central to Yolanda’s Theories of Justice and Theories of Punishment classes, history electives designed to explore the justice system and prompt students to consider what reform might look like. It was through the latter of these classes that she forged a partnership with Project Youth, a program at MCI Norfolk
correctional facility that has given Beaver students the opportunity to meet with incarcerated men, hear their stories, and learn more about the prison system, allowing them to see the humanity of those within it and equipping them with a new level of empathy.
On Beaver’s first trip back to MCI after Yolanda’s passing, one of the regular panelists, like so many others, felt truly seen by Yolanda and broke into tears. He left Beaver’s visiting group of students with a card that was signed by a number of men at MCI—his note read, “Yolanda was an amazing person who had a heart of gold. She will be greatly missed by me and all of us here at Project Youth. I will never forget her and all that she did for me.”
For so many who experienced a Ms. González class, the lessons learned from within resonated far beyond. Former student Skylar Volman ‘20 was so drawn to these classes that during her time at Beaver, she collaborated closely with Yolanda to build the Theories of Punishment course. Volman is now in her second year of NYU Law School, on the path to pursuing a career in Civil Rights Law with a particular focus on the criminal legal system.
“A question that I’ve been asked a lot over the past year or so in my applications for law school, interviews for summer internships, and around the dinner table at family holidays is ‘why did you go to law school?’” Volman says. “Each and every time, my answer begins with ‘I had a teacher named Ms. González …’ because my story would truly be incomplete without her.”
It was no wonder that there has been an outpouring of quiet, personal philanthropy from people who want to ensure Yolanda’s influence at Beaver continues.
In the weeks following her passing, Paula and Art Rabe P’22 made a lead endowment gift of $1 million to establish the Yolanda Scholars Fund in gratitude for the profound influence and ongoing mentorship Yolanda had on their son, Logan ’22.
As a middle schooler, when Logan wanted to create something Beaver didn’t yet offer, Yolanda helped him make it happen. She supported him in launching Beaver’s History Bowl Club and later advised an ambitious, four-trimester Student-Directed Project focused on polling, data visualization, and the 2020 presidential election, connecting him with faculty and experts who could help take his learning further. And after graduation? She cheered him on from afar and kept tabs on his work in college. Looking back on the opportunities Logan found at Beaver, and the teachers like Yolanda who made them possible, the Rabes described it simply: “This is what school should be.”
Their gift provided the launching point. The response of so many others since then has begun to show what this fund could ultimately become.
A note from Director of Philanthropy & Engagement Erica DeRosa
Teachers are at the heart of Beaver. Across our history, there are certain educators whose names become part of the story of this school: Mme Fourel, Beatrice Van Ness, Cam Titcomb, Ann Grayson, Nancy Jane Moore ’41, Bea Kleppner, Jane Moulding and countless others. People whose influence reached far beyond the years they spent in the classroom and who are still remembered by generations of students and colleagues. Yolanda is among them.
My hope is that one day there will be a Yolanda Scholar in every grade at Beaver. To make that possible, we need to grow this fund into the largest endowed scholarship fund in Beaver’s history. That is an ambitious goal, but it feels entirely fitting for Yolanda, who believed that anything was possible for her students and for their futures. I am grateful to Art and Paula for establishing this fund, and I am eager to nourish it with support from all corners of our community. I cannot wait to hear every story and reason that drives our community to participate in honoring my dear friend and colleague.
There is something incredibly powerful about imagining a student arriving at Beaver decades from now as a Yolanda Scholar—knowing her name, learning something about the teacher she was and what she stood for, and becoming part of a legacy that this community built together in her honor.
— Erica DeRosa, Director of Philanthropy & Engagement