Isobel Kleinman ’67 Creates Scholarship That Will Be Fully Funded in the Future

Isobel Kleinman ’67

Isobel Kleinman ’67 always knew she wanted to be a physical education teacher, and after getting her degree at SUNY Cortland she did exactly that for her entire 32-year career. Now she is giving back by funding a scholarship for physical education majors with annual gifts from her IRA, which will also be used to fully endow the scholarship upon her passing.

“Making the decision to fund this gift feels very good,” Kleinman says of the scholarship that bears her name. “I’m glad to provide others the same joy at Cortland that I had.”

Kleinman grew up in New York City and still lives in Queens. She was clear as to which college she wanted to attend because “Cortland was the best physical education teaching college around.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in education in 1967, with a physical education major. She immediately began teaching junior high physical education and also earned a master’s in education with a focus on school psychology from Queens College.

For the next two decades she wrote curriculum and coached virtually every junior high sport. Later in her career she also taught at the high school level, where she created and ran a performing arts dance group. After retiring in 1999, she wrote a book of physical education lesson plans for grades 5-12 and also wrote a novel, Too Dangerous to Teach, about a woman physical education teacher working in an unethical school district.

Kleinman has attended almost every five-year reunion and has also been an annual donor to Cortland. In addition to the education she received, she really appreciated the Cortland culture.

“I liked how warm and open everyone was,” she says. “I don’t feel like I would have found that inviting atmosphere anywhere else.”

Kleinman never married or had children, and that contributed to her decision to create the scholarship.

“I have the ability to make a gift that will grow in perpetuity,” she says. “Having no children, I want to leave a lasting legacy at Cortland — where my name will live on.”