ALBANY — College of Saint Rose President Carolyn Stefanco has been awarded a Helen Gurley Brown Genius Grant, and the school will receive funding of more than $1 million during the next few years as part of an invitation to join the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network, a national effort to empower female college students to develop projects that will transform their campuses.

To honor Stefanco’s leadership of the college, the Pussycat Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the late and legendary Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown, has provided a $100,000 grant to the President’s Fund at the college. The BOLD grant of $1 million, also underwritten by the foundation, will fund a program to benefit women student leaders at CSR.

In its letter announcing the grant, the foundation praised Stefanco's "visionary leadership." It also commended her efforts to ensure student success: "You passion and tireless efforts to raise awareness around the struggles college students face, especially first-generation students, is inspiring and transformative."

Stefanco in a statement expressed her gratitude: "It is a tremendous honor for me, and for The College of Saint Rose. As a scholar of women's history and leadership, I know that we still have a long way to go for women to realize our potential. That knowledge, coupled with my own role as the first permanent woman lay president at Saint Rose, fuels my passion to continue the progress of those bold women who have gone before us, including Helen Gurley Brown."

The school is one of seven colleges and universities throughout the United States to participate in BOLD.

In the past two years, the foundation has identified 80 BOLD scholars.

The BOLD Women's Leadership Network currently operates at five colleges and universities: Ithaca College;, Middlebury College, Smith College, California State University, Fullerton; and Rutgers University, Newark.

In addition to CSR, the University of Connecticut has also been added to the network. Each partner institution is led by a woman president who has demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion throughout her career.