UIW Community Mourns Passing of Carlos Alvarez
The UIW community mourns the passing of Carlos Alvarez, a dear friend and supporter of the University. An entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist, Alvarez passed away on Tuesday, April 9 at the age of 73.
In 2018, through the Impetus Foundation, Carlos and his wife, Malú, established the Carlos and Malú Alvarez Endowment Student Scholarship at UIW to support high-performing, under-resourced students, who would come to be known as Alvarez Scholars. At $1 million, it was the largest endowed scholarship the University had received to date.
For Alvarez, it was not enough to know that his philanthropic gifts were positively impacting the lives of young, hard-working students. He wanted to see the impact at work whenever he could and made it his goal to personally connect with the Alvarez Scholars at UIW. Since welcoming the first class of scholars in 2019, receptions and luncheons gave every scholar the opportunity to share with Mr. Alvarez all that he had made possible. He, in turn, offered his own wisdom through stories of entrepreneurship, struggles and perseverance, lessons learned, and journeys yet to undertake.
Alvarez's significant contributions also included impactful gifts to the Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions and the Feik School of Pharmacy. Born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1950, he was also keenly interested not only in the work of UIW in the U.S., but in the development of UIW’s campuses in Mexico, Centro Universitario Incarnate Word and Campus Bajio, and how the University worked as an international system.
In 2019, Mr. Alvarez shared these wise words to commemorate the first class of Alvarez Scholars: “Higher education will always be the most important spark for change. Adding the opportunity for students, through this scholarship program, to shoot even higher makes it transformational. We, as a family, are blessed to be given the opportunity to start these UIW students down a path that has proven to be successful in supporting them to not only being leaders in their chosen fields, but to possibly leaving a generational legacy that can help change our communities.”
The legacy of Carlos Alvarez and his family will truly be felt and celebrated for generations to come.