His name remains a familiar one on the Fairfax Campus through the Finley Building, named in his honor in 1972. The current holder of the Finley postdoctoral fellowship is Greta de Jong, a visiting assistant professor who is conducting research on the history of the civil rights movement. Last fall, she taught a course on the African American freedom struggle, and this semester she is teaching about the development of modern America and the 20th-century South. De Jong recently earned her Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. The popular Finley Lecture Series, an annual campus event, is free to the public thanks to funding from the Finley endowment.
Attendance remains strong and reaction positive.
Through Cecile Finley's estate gift, the interests she and her husband espoused in life live on, coupled in perpetuity with their names.