It’s been nearly three decades since Patricia Miller Zollar graduated from North Carolina A&T State University and she wants to make sure students – present and future – carry on the legacy of excellence.

“When I think of North Carolina A&T State University, words that come to mind are pride, commitment to excellence and belief in every student,” says alumna Patricia Miller Zollar.

Zollar, a 1984 graduate, has become one of the university’s major donors and paid in full a whole life insurance policy valued at $1 million.

“I want the university to live on in perpetuity. I want my gift to contribute to the success of A&T long after I am gone,” she said.

Her planned gift will be used to support an endowed professorship in the School of Business and Economics in the future.

She attended N.C. A&T on a full scholarship and said it is her responsibility to give back to the university and help secure its future.

“I wanted to provide a gift that was equivalent to my capacity; to provide a legacy gift emblematic of my commitment to a university that has been one of the formative institutions of my life,” Zollar said.

She is a managing director of Neuberger Berman, an independent asset management firm, and the president of Northbound Equity Partners where she runs the Northbound Emerging Managers Private Equity Fund.

Prior to joining Neuberger, Zollar co-headed and co-founded the Lehman Brothers Partnership Solutions Group (“PSG”), a Wall Street business focused on developing strategic opportunities with women- and minority-owned financial services firms.

Before rejoining Lehman Brothers in 2004, she spent six years in asset management with Goldman Sachs, where she was a vice president in the asset management division.

She attributes a large part of her success to the demand of the academic program at A&T, which prepared her for the workplace, earning a M.B.A. from Harvard University, and becoming a certified public accountant.

In July 2007, Zollar was appointed to A&T’s board of trustees and reappointed to a second term in 2011. She is currently the vice chairwoman. She also serves on the Executive Leadership Council and the board of the National Association of Investment Companies.

Zollar and her husband Al have one daughter and split their time between New York City and Greensboro, N.C.