Cynthia “Cindy” Richter is looking at a photo of herself in Endicott’s yearbook from 1979, the year she graduated. There’s her friend, Robin Totman ’79, with whom she’s still in touch, and Professor David Broudo, who helped shape Richter’s distinguished career as an arts educator.
It’s been nearly 50 years since Richter flew the Nest—or the all-women’s school Endicott once was—to pursue a career in arts education. She started at the Winchendon School (“they called me mom,” she recalled of the “dorm parent” role she also had at the small boarding school. She later joined the Knox School on Long Island before spending more than three decades at St. Joseph High School in Trumbull, Conn., where she retired in 2021.
“About 15 years ago, they built an addition, and in the addition was going to be the art wing,” she said. “And they called me and said, ‘Design what you want.’”
Knowing most high school students would never encounter ceramics unless they pursued art in college, Richter saw an opportunity to broaden their creative horizons. She designed a curriculum that introduced every student to wheel throwing, hand-building, and sculpture. “At the end, everybody learned all three disciplines in pottery,” she said.
The program was, in many ways, a reflection of Richter's own education at Endicott, where she majored in crafts—a discipline that encompassed everything from jewelry-making to Professor Broudo's ceramics classes.
“When people ask me what I remember most about Endicott, I always say Professor Broudo,” Richter said. “He took students under his wing. He was straightforward, he cared about us, and he made me fall in love with ceramics.”
Broudo wasn’t the only faculty member who helped launch Richter’s career. His wife, Barbara Broudo, was influential, while Professor Barbara Burgess Maier encouraged Richter to apply to Skidmore College, where she entered as a junior and graduated on time thanks to Endicott’s rigorous preparation.
Now, Richter is ensuring that the kind of mentorship that shaped her own career will continue for generations to come. Through a generous gift, she established the Cynthia R. Richter ’79 Endowed Professorship in Studio Art, bestowed this September to acclaimed ceramic artist Kyungmin Park in Endicott’s School of Visual & Performing Arts.
For Richter, the gift is about ensuring that faculty who inspire students through the arts will have the resources to innovate for years to come.
“I often think about the mentors and teachers who believed in me and helped shape me into the educator and artist I am today,” said Park. “Their encouragement and support changed the course of my life, and I hope to have that same impact on my own students.”
Kyungmin Park, Cynthia R. Richter ’79 Endowed Professor Studio Art, with her ceramic art.
“As teachers, we’re really the core of education, and we don’t always get the credit we deserve,” Richter added. “Scholarships are wonderful, but professors are the ones who change lives every single day. My gift is about honoring the people who believed in me.”
That philosophy traces back even further to her father, whose education was made possible by a teacher who insisted that a bright student from a working-class family deserved a chance.
“Education is power,” Richter said, repeating the lesson she heard throughout her childhood. “My father always believed in paying it forward, and that’s become my philosophy, too.”
More than five decades after leaving Beverly, Richter still credits Endicott as the stepping stone to a colorful career in teaching and the arts.
“Endicott taught us independence,” she said. “A lot of people back in the day would’ve called Endicott a finishing school, but I think Endicott took it one step further. We learned more detailed information that we wouldn’t have learned in a university. We learned about a work ethic. It wasn’t the buildings that made Endicott special—it was the people.”
The clay she first shaped in Professor Broudo’s classroom has long since hardened. But the impact of the people who taught her—and the legacy she is now leaving for those who follow—continues to take shape.