Private
Giving Private
Giving By Anne Danahy
University Relations
Intending
to attract academically talented students to Penn State programs in sciences
and engineering, the USX Foundation has given $1.25 million to the College of
Earth and Mineral Sciences.
The gift will endow support for one graduate fellowship and more than 20 merit-based undergraduate scholarships. Each of these will be awarded for one year, with the possibility of refunding.
The endowment will be divided equally among three areas within the college: petroleum and natural gas engineering; metals science and engineering; and other energy related programs such as fuel science, geology and geophysics.
USX, the nation's largest producer of steel products, has headquarters in Pittsburgh and is a worldwide producer of oil and natural gas. Marathon Oil Co. and U.S. Steel are the two separately operated divisions of USX. Both are top employers of Penn State Earth and Mineral Sciences alumni.
The USX/Marathon and USX/U.S. Steel scholars will participate in internships and summer cooperative education programs at USX's businesses.
These programs provide students with a hands-on learning experience and help USX's recruitment of graduates.
The program will be handled cooperatively by Earth and Mineral Sciences and the Schreyer Honors College. Students in the Schreyer Honors College who receive the USX scholarship have the unique opportunity to take part in specialized education in both areas.
The first awards will be given in fall 2000.
The University invests endowed gifts and uses part of the annual income for the purposes designated by the donors. The remaining income is returned to the principal to protect it from inflation.
The gift is part of Penn State's Grand Destiny campaign, a seven-year effort to raise $1 billion in private support to strengthen the University's mission of teaching, research and service. The campaign involves all 24 Penn State locations and is scheduled to end June 30, 2003.
An orthodontist and his wife have contributed another $800,000 to Pennsylvania College of Technology, bringing to more than $1 million the total of their back-to-back gifts.
The latest contribution from Dr. Marshall D. Jr. and Mary Welch, which comes on the heels of $236,000 in conjunction with renovations at the Herman T. Schneebeli Earth Science Center, will add to the family's scholarship funds. In recognition of their significant follow-up endowment, the hangar at the college's Kathryn Wentzel Lumley Aviation Center in Montoursville will join the diesel-training facility in Allenwood in bearing the family's name.
From the Welches' standpoint, the aviation-related programs in the college's School of Transportation Technology added to the decision that "this would be a good place to put our money."
Marshall Welch builds experimental and ultralight airplanes as a hobby and is a pilot who often flies across country and to British Columbia. At his peak, he logged 250 to 300 flight hours per year, but that has dwindled in the past few years. He is active in his woodworking and metal shops, and is a member of the Dunwoody hunting club.
Mary Welch, a former Sun Oil Co. employee, is a native of Ohio who migrated to the Philadelphia area, where she met her husband. She also is a former teacher at a private school in Chambersburg and currently volunteers with the James V. Brown Library and at her church. The Welches have three sons: William P. "Scott," who serves on the heavy-equipment faculty at Penn College; Graham, a chiropractor in Lancaster, Ohio; and Marshall III, a financial entrepreneur in Lafayette, Colo.
To be eligible for scholarship money, a student must be enrolled full-time in an aviation program and must have applied for and be eligible for financial aid. First-time awardees must have a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or a high school average of at least a B. Preference will be given to Lycoming County residents, and students are eligible for continuing awards in subsequent years if a cumulative 3.0 GPA is maintained.
A pioneer in the discovery of many new bacteria has helped to create a graduate fellowship that will support food safety and research at Penn State. Earl Casida, professor emeritus of microbiology at the University, and his wife, Veronica, of State College have given $125,000 to endow the fellowship.
The fellowship will assist outstanding graduate students in the Department of Food Science whose studies emphasize microbial food safety -- including such topics as food processing and storage, and food handling to prevent contamination by illness-causing microorganisms like E.coli and salmonella. The department is based in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Earl Casida, a native of Madison, Wis., earned his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin in the early 1950s. Before joining the Penn State faculty in 1957, he worked for Abbott Laboratories, Pabst Laboratories and Charles Pfizer and Co., where he developed and patented the first commercial fermentation process in the production of a L-lysine, which is an amino acid required in human and animal nutrition. At Penn State, his teaching and research focused on soil microbial ecology and industrial microbiology.
The University invests endowed gifts and uses part of the annual income for the purposes designated by the donors. The remaining income is returned to the principal to protect it against inflation.
The gift is part of Penn State's Grand Destiny campaign.
Honeywell, the diversified technologies and manufacturing company, has pledged $109,000 in support of the proposed School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) building at the University Park campus and for IST student scholarships.
Most of the gift, $100,000, will help support construction of the IST building -- now in its initial design stages and slated for completion in 2002-2003. The remainder of the IST gift will be for three student scholarships to be awarded annually.
Honeywell is a U.S.-based, $24 billion diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, home and industry; automotive products; power generation systems; specialty chemicals' fibers; plastics; and electronics and advanced materials.
The company employs approximately 120,000 people in 95 countries. Its stock is one of 30 that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is a component of the Standard & Poors 500 Index. Additional information about the company is available on the Web at http://www.honeywell.com/.
The School of Information Sciences and Technology welcomed its first class of 425 bachelor's- and associate-degree students this year at 13 University locations around the Commonwealth. Certificate programs also were launched. Graduate degrees will be added to the school's offerings by fall 2001 and the total statewide student population is expected to grow to 2,000 within five years. Web-based courses are being developed as well as executive education programs.
The University has selected the internationally recognized Rafael Viñoly Architects, P.C., to design IST's new building. It will be erected at the intersection of North Atherton Street and Pollock Road. The building also will house the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
A gift of $100,000 contributed by Penn State alumna and retired University staff member Mary Swartz Neilly of State College has endowed the first lecture series in the Department of Art History in the College of Arts and Architecture. Neilly's gift honors the late art professor Harold E. Dickson and his service to the University. He served on the faculty for 41 years, retiring in 1964. He died in 1987.
The Dickson Lectureship will provide the Department of Art History with funds to bring distinguished speakers and scholars to campus to lecture and work with students and faculty.
In addition to his teaching, Dickson played a prominent role in developing the art history program at Penn State, and worked closely with faculty, students and alumni groups to commission Henry Varnum Poor's land-grant frescoes in Old Main and Heinz Warneke's sculpture of the Nittany Lion Shrine.
A Bellefonte native, Neilly received her bachelor's degree from Penn State in journalism in 1947. She spent 13 years with the Alumni Association and retired after 10 years with the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as assistant for public relations to the dean of the college.
In 1986, following the death of her husband, Virge Neilly, she established the Virgil E. and Mary S. Neilly Endowment for Music Education in the School of Music.