DePauw Stories

Alexandra Lutzow Cole ’76 decided to visit DePauw for a recruitment weekend during her senior year of high school. The ambitious teenager had her sights set on attending a top law school and becoming an attorney. Faculty and staff at DePauw convinced her that a DePauw education could help her realize those goals. They offered a scholarship and devised a way for her to graduate in only three years by taking additional classes each semester and during the summers.

“DePauw lived up to all the promises,” Alexandra said. “I received an exceptional, rigorous education that opened the door for my acceptance into a prestigious law school and set me up for my career.” Alexandra graduated cum laude from DePauw in 1976 with a degree in political science and went on to earn a law degree from the University of Chicago.

Alex fondly recalls Paul Kissinger’s “Physics for Poets” class, many English literature classes with professor Walker Gilmer, and particularly her freshman year winter-term class “Prisons and Prisoners” during which professor Stanley Caine took students to visit every prison in Indiana. “That course made me a lifetime believer in abolishing the death penalty,” she says. “There are too many bad forces in our system to ever allow that kind of mistake or decision to be made by a political body.”

Beyond the classroom, she developed lifelong friendships in Rector Hall and Alpha Chi Omega sorority. About those relationships, Alex says, “I learned how to work cooperatively and supportively in a group of women, and that has been a commitment of mine throughout my career.”

Alex is a respected attorney in Chicago with the law firm of Perkins Coie LLP, where she focuses on real estate transactions and development, hospitality, international real estate, project finance and construction law. She’d like more people to understand that "lawyers do so much good to advance various aspects of society, such as rebuilding Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. There are many lawyers who are doing very concrete things,” she says. “Pardon the pun."

She takes pride in knowing that her ambition and values have inspired other women to go into the legal profession, including her sister-in-law and two nieces. “So many talented women and diverse lawyers drop out because the structures involved in surviving big law get really tough, and women in particular look at those rules and decide they don’t want to do that. I have been fortunate to have a spouse who understood and was supportive of my career ambitions from day one. We have handed off the baton to each other many times throughout our lives, allowing each of us to have successful careers while raising three children.”

Alex and her husband Bill Cole met as eighth graders in their church confirmation class and became high school sweethearts. Some DePauw alumni very close to Bill, including his sister, Elizabeth Cole Dickerson ’72, and their mother, Elizabeth Phelps Cole ’46, helped persuade Alex to consider DePauw. While Bill’s family included several generations of DePauw graduates as far back as 1862, he followed in his father’s footsteps to attend Northwestern University. He earned two bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern, one in communication and one in mechanical engineering, and earned a masters in finance from the University of Chicago. Bill owned an insurance benefits agency for many years that he recently merged into a national firm.

Alex and Bill’s son, Andrew Cole, graduated from DePauw in 2007, making him the 25^th family member to attend DePauw since 1862. He met his wife, Carolyn Cole (2005) at DePauw and they have twins who will hopefully consider DePauw to keep the tradition going. The couple’s two daughters attended college in California, and Alex is delighted that all three of her children returned to Chicago to build their careers and families.

Alex and Bill are loyal, leadership-level philanthropic donors to DePauw. They encourage DePauw’s efforts to cultivate relationships in the business community with banks, incubators, tech companies and financial-services firms that value the perspective and skills of young employees and could commit to giving DePauw students entry-level positions that benefit business. The university’s new Gold Commitment aims for all graduates to obtain career-related employment, graduate school acceptance or a similar positive outcome within six months of commencement. “I’m very committed to supporting the school,” Alex says. “One of the reasons we keep giving is I do think there is a very great value in the education I got.”

If you are interested in assisting DePauw students with internships, job shadowing, networking or job opportunities, financial support, or in some other way, email HelpDePauwStudents@DePauw.edu or call 765-658-4622.