Ginny Hansen '74 Paves the Way for the Next Generation of Mathematicians

When Ginny Hansen ’74 first arrived on the Queens College campus in the fall of 1970, she already knew something about the school made it special.

Ginny had visited several universities as she weighed her options for college. “At larger schools, you were a number,” she recalls. “You weren’t an individual. You weren’t a person.” Having spent most of her childhood in Charlotte before moving to New Orleans, she knew of Queens, and even had a family member who attended Chicora College before it merged with Queens College in 1930.

So Ginny made the decision to attend Queens, and this decision is one that she is forever grateful for.

A Royal From the Start

From the mandatory study hall that helped her build good habits, to the sophomore mentor assigned to help her get acclimated and the professors who went out of their way to be accommodating, Ginny found exactly the kind of warm, personal environment she’d hoped for.

“The professors at Queens couldn’t have been nicer,” she says. “They wanted to teach you as much as you could absorb.”

She still smiles at some of her favorite memories: the fall mixer with Davidson College’s freshman class, where students were matched by interest form and sorted onto the bus in alphabetical order, Boar’s Head, and the glow of the Yule Log burning in the back circle each year at Christmas.

“Queens just did so many wonderful things to make students feel at home,” she says. “That this was as much their place as it was the university’s.”

Ginny graduated in 1974 with a degree in mathematics — a subject she’d grown to love largely because of her father, a civil engineer who believed deeply in the sciences and passed that passion on to her. She’d briefly considered a path in teaching, even tutoring students at local junior high schools during her time at Queens. But when it came to managing a full classroom, she knew her strengths lay elsewhere.

Instead, she excelled in her internship with the State of Georgia, where she helped create a formula that tracked employment rates for the state, examining individual counties and varying categories.

A Career Built on Problem Solving

After graduating, Ginny returned to Atlanta and began a career in federal service — first as a Veterans Administration benefits counselor, helping veterans and their families navigate and access resources available to them. When she relocated to Charlotte after marrying her husband, she found her way back to public service through a role as a tax auditor for the Internal Revenue Service. This was the perfect fit for her.

“It was much, much closer to my math background,” she says with a laugh. She spent 23 and a half years at the IRS Charlotte office, earning numerous performance awards over a long and distinguished career.

Her love for math went back even further than her time with the IRS, college classes, or involvement in state-run formulas. In high school, Ginny had a math teacher — also the football coach — who believed women simply weren’t cut out for the subject. It didn’t discourage her. It motivated her.

“That was another reason I went into math,” she says. “I wanted to show him that women were just as smart as men, and we could do it.” She never got the chance to tell him what she’d accomplished. But she accomplished it all the same.

Giving the Gift She Was Given

In recent years, Ginny’s life has brought challenges as profound as any she’s faced — the loss of her husband of nearly 42 years, followed just four months later by the loss of her vision. Rather than stepping back, she stepped forward. She now leads a low vision and no vision support group at The Sharon retirement community, and she’s preparing to present at the American Society on Aging in Atlanta on how technology can empower people with disabilities to live independently. She stays connected to Queens through the Learning Society, attends lectures, and cheers on the Royals with unmistakable pride.

“I couldn’t be more proud to tell people I went to Queens,” she says. “It’s definitely kept up with the times, and I think that’s fantastic.”

That pride is now coming to life in a tangible way. Ginny is endowing a mathematics scholarship at Queens — a gift she describes as a blessing to be able to share.

“I was fortunate that when I was at Queens, I didn’t have to worry about anything,” she says. “My parents wanted me to do one thing: focus on my education. Not every family can always do that for their children.”

She knows what it means to start a career unburdened by heavy loans. She knows the difference that freedom made for her. And she wants to provide this opportunity to students who might not otherwise be able to attend Queens — ideally, those who share her love of math. With the Ginny Lee Hansen ’74 Endowed Scholarship, she will make a long-lasting difference in the lives of the many students who will benefit from her generosity.

“If it can make getting an education a little easier for someone,” she says, “that means the world to me.”

One can’t help but notice the connection from Ginny’s relative, who attended Chicora College, to the Queens motto adopted from the school, “Not to be served, but to serve.” A thread throughout our alumni’s lives going back generations, with each one continuing to build a better future for the next.