Ric and Sharon Struthers of Greenville, Del., are promoting learning and diversity in The Smeal College of Business Administration through new undergraduate scholarships.
An endowment of $250,000 will be created, with half the funds being donated by the Struthers family, and half by MBNA America. Ric Struthers, who earned his bachelor's degree in business management from Penn State in 1977, is MBNA's senior vice chairman. The company employs more than 500 Penn State students and alumni at its State College office and other locations across the country.
Support provided by the scholarships will be equally divided between students from Wilkes-Barre and students from Delaware whose ethnic, cultural or national background would contribute to the diversity of the Penn State student body.
Struthers explained that because he is a native of Dallas near Wilkes-Barre and because he began his college career in 1973 at the Penn State Wilkes-Barre campus, he and his wife want to benefit students from that region.
The new scholarship is in addition to one created by the Strutherses in 1994 for the support of sophomores and juniors in The Smeal College.
MBNA is the world's largest independent credit card lender and specializes in marketing financial services to consumers who have strong common interests, such as colleges, universities, sports organizations and cause-related organizations. Ric Struthers is responsible for MBNA operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada, plus its insurance, retail deposits, travel business, corporate card and motorsports divisions.
He was recently named a Penn State Alumni Fellow, the highest honor the Penn State Alumni Association bestows on a University graduate.
A $150,000 gift from Raymond and Diana Tronzo of West Palm Beach, Fla., is the first designated for a facility that will house Penn State's new School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). The school is devoted to cutting-edge training in the development and uses of global information technology.
Although the facility for the program will not be started until further fund raising has been accomplished, IST will open this fall for 100 incoming freshmen with a baccalaureate degree program at the University Park campus. In addition, either the associate or baccalaureate degree programs will be offered at a number of other campus locations beginning in fall 1999. The graduate programs will begin accepting students in fall 2000. Within five years, plans call for about 800 baccalaureate IST students and 200 graduate students to be enrolled at University Park and about 1,000 enrolled at other Penn State campuses.
A native of Punxsutawney, Dr. Raymond Tronzo recently retired from Palm Beach Orthopedics. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Penn State in the early 1950s, served in the Air Force for two years as a Medical Service Corps officer and earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical University in 1957. He held the position of associate professor of orthopedics at the University of Pennsylvania. He later moved to Florida and taught at the University of Miami Medical College as a clinical professor of orthopedics. He edited two editions of Surgery of the Hip Joint and pioneered the development of the total hip joint replacement surgery.
His wife, Diana, is a certified public accountant. She graduated from Florida State University. The couple divides its time between a farm in Stewartstown, Pa., and Florida. The Tronzos also have supported the Sue Paterno Renaissance Scholarship Fund.