Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Virginia, has announced a $25 million legacy gift from alumna and longtime supporter Bertie Murphy Deming Smith.

Topping the $15 million Smith gave the school in 2011, the largest gift in MBU's 176-year history will support the university's endowment and generate additional income for future priorities. Mary Baldwin, which became a university in 2016, is working to redefine itself as traditional women's schools struggle with declining enrollment.

Smith, who has been Mary Baldwin's top donor for more than fifty years, previously provided a gift to establish the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, while in 2006 her gifts helped launch the school's $80 million Ever Ahead campaign and bankrolled a series of enhancements to more than half the buildings on campus.

After two years as a student at Mary Baldwin — where she served as president of her sophomore class — Smith, who survives her late husbands, John Deming and Joe D. Smith, Jr., earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas. She served on the Mary Baldwin board of trustees for thirty years and is now a trustee emerita, while her daughter, Bertie Deming "Bebe" Heiner, also served as an MBU trustee.

"Mrs. Smith remains a visionary advocate whose leadership and philanthropy have, over and over again, nourished our mission and turned aspirations into reality," said MBU president Pamela Fox. "It is not an exaggeration to state that the Mary Baldwin of today is measured by Mrs. Smith's dedication and wisdom."