Meet a Member
by Murray Lopdell-Lawrence Bequests Manager at University of Otago
Coming Full Circle – A Kiwi’s Journey Home!
In August 2019, Murray Lopdell-Lawrence finished his OE.
He was a little delayed – it took him some 30 years to complete!! And he brought back with him a wife he ‘picked up’ along the way.
Murray does admit that many times these past months he has felt like Rip Van Winkle – waking up after 30 years!! He has returned to a New Zealand that is different. Some of the changes are dramatic, others incremental; often surprising. Murray and his wife are enjoying discovering, learning, and adapting to their new life as they reunite with family, forge new friendships, travel and discover new sights, and explore the NZ music scene.
Murray moved back to take up the newly formed position in the Development and Alumni Office at the University of Otago – Bequest Manager. There have been bequests left to the university since its beginning, but he is the first fulltime person devoted to building a bequest program. Otago founded the first university in NZ, in 1869, and it is believed that the first bequest was left by one of the first professors who died tragically young during a tramping expedition in 1888. Murray is enjoying setting up this new position, rejuvenating the program, and building on its history.
Born and bred in New Zealand, in the north island, Murray left for his OE and now has returned with extensive advancement experience in tertiary education, private school education, and the performing arts. Trained as a teacher in New Zealand, Murray taught in England and the USA., and went on to be head of school for four private schools in four different states throughout the USA. In these latter positions, he had to devote about 40-60% of his time to fundraising and advancement work. And since leaving his last headship, he has been working fulltime in advancement. Immediately before returning to NZ, he held the same position as he now occupies here at Otago with the Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.
Prior to Princeton Seminary he served as Vice President for Advancement at American Boychoir School, Princeton, New Jersey. Additional arts administrative background includes working for touring performing arts organizations such as Music Federation NZ (now Chamber Music New Zealand) and the San Francisco Opera Center.
Through his work in education and the arts, Murray has successfully supervised a wide variety of advancement and development activities, that include cultivation, solicitation, annual appeals, major giving, planned giving, capital campaigns, building endowment, event planning, marketing, branding, publications, and strategic planning. Planned giving, i.e. bequests, became a specialty.
Murray is enjoying being back in God’s Own, exploring the south – the land of his mother’s upbringing. Her grandfather had settled in Southland with a large family that spread all over Otago and Southland, before heading north. There is a lot of family lore here in the south and Murray is eagerly exploring and recording it. But Murray acknowledges that he returned at a good time. He feels lucky to have escaped the political and social madness. And how lucky to have been here in New Zealand during the pandemic.
And so, this Kiwi is back. Murray has come full circle – he finally returned home. His OE is over!
