Even if she had been so inclined, Brandeis professor Milton Hindus’s frequent in-class pronouncements made certain that Ellen Lasher Kaplan ’64 would never become one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dreaded “little minds.”

During an American literature course that Kaplan took with the noted scholar in the early 1960s, Hindus often repeated one of Emerson’s famous quotes to his students: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

“He kept drilling Emerson’s words into us,” Kaplan remembered. “He wanted us to think on our own, be creative, and not be limited in our thinking.”

Consider the Hindus/Emerson lesson learned. Kaplan has resisted the conventional choices between work and family and forged her own path in a career that has been a success by all measures.

At a time when few women pursued business degrees, especially when they had young children at home, Kaplan returned to school to earn an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. After graduation, she worked as a major account representative for Xerox, and then co-founded, along with her husband, Bob, Strategic Cost Systems, a consulting and software firm, for which she was senior administrative officer. She now serves as an independent consultant, advising non-profit organizations on strategy implementation. Her work has been featured in several Harvard Business School case studies, including United Way of Southeast New England and Boston Lyric Opera.

“At Brandeis, I learned to think for myself, analyze and evaluate, focus on what’s important, and make informed judgments,” Kaplan said. “Those skills have guided me in business and in life.”

In recognition of the important influence that Brandeis has had on her both personally and professionally, Kaplan and her husband have been generous supporters of the University. Kaplan is one of 36 Brandeis alumni to make gifts totaling at least $1 million since the start of The Campaign for Brandeis in 2001, with the Kaplans’ largest gift made to the University’s International and Global Studies Program. They were also founding members of the Eli Segal ’64 Citizen Leadership Program (Segal was Kaplan’s classmate).

Kaplan has been as generous with her time as her financial resources in service to her alma mater. A longtime member of the Brandeis National Committee, she served on the organization’s national executive committee in 2008-09. She has also served on Reunion committees and gift committees, chaired the Annual Fund and Justice Brandeis Society Committee, and participated in a 1987 planning meeting that led to the establishment of the Brandeis International Business School.

Through their support of the International and Global Studies Program, the Kaplans want to expose students to the central role that global economic growth plays in alleviating poverty.

“Both my husband and I are convinced that understanding the conditions that facilitate economic growth is central to making the world a better place,” she said. “The best anti-poverty program ever invented is economic growth. Students need to study which economic policies succeed and which fail. Why are Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, which have no natural resources, economic success stories, while Nigeria, Argentina, and Venezuela, with abundant natural resources, such failures?”

When she arrived on campus in the fall of 1960 from insular Utica, N.Y., Kaplan was not sure she had the academic muscle to stay with her more sophisticated classmates from New York and Boston. An early encounter with professor John Van Doren did little to assuage her concerns.

“In one of my first classes, in front of 30 or 40 other students, he asked, ‘Ms. Lasher, what do you make of the Iliad’ ”? Kaplan recalled. “All I remember is my feeling of fear and intimidation. I don’t know what I said, but I know that at the end of four years I was much more prepared to answer. I realized I did have something to contribute. Brandeis was a time of intellectual awakening and an introduction to the wider world."