Private Giving
Penn State Intercom......June 7, 2001

Gift will provide for
restoration of Carnegie

The Carnegie Building on the University Park campus holds memories for generations of Penn Staters -- from its beginnings as a library, to having served as a "second home" to hundreds of Daily Collegian staffers, to its current presence as the edifice that represents the College of Communications to thousands of current and former students.

With the building's centennial anniversary just around the corner, a gift from Lawrence G. and Ellen Miller Foster will preserve the building's status as one of the grand old buildings central to the University -- both physically and sentimentally. The Fosters have given the college $515,000 to restore Carnegie Building's entrance, lobby, conference room and student-services area.

The largest single cash gift ever given to the college by its alumni, the funds will provide an array of improvements, while retaining the structure's elegance.

Among the planned improvements are the removal of the existing entrance's vestibule, giving increased space to the lobby; improved signage; refinished walls, floor, and ceiling; new light fixtures; new furniture; and artwork for the walls. A remodeled conference room will include hardwood shelving for books by college faculty and alumni, new flooring and carpet, and furnishings. The student services area will be expanded and will include hardwood casework, wainscot and paneling, new flooring and carpeting, and furnishings.

Renovations will begin this summer and are expected to be complete by spring 2002.

Lawrence and Ellen Foster are readily recognizable names with a strong history of giving to the University. In addition to having established a communications scholarship, the couple gave $500,000 in 1997 to establish the Foster Professorship in Communications, held by Gene Foreman, to support new strategies for improving students' writing skills. The Fosters also have supported the University Libraries through the Larry and Ellen Foster Communications Librarian Endowment and funding to build the Foster Auditorium, a tiered, 134-seat facility in Pattee Library.

Lawrence Foster, a 1948 graduate with a degree in journalism, Distinguished Alumnus and Lion's Paw Medal recipient, retired in 1990 as vice president of public relations at Johnson & Johnson. In 1999, he was named to the Top 10 of PR Week magazine's "100 Most Influential PR People of the 20th Century." That same year, he published the 673-page Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel.

Foster served on the Penn State Board of Trustees from 1980 to 1989, and was president of the Alumni Association and the Penn State Fund Council. Before joining Johnson & Johnson, he was a reporter, bureau chief and night editor of New Jersey's Newark News.

Ellen Miller Foster, a 1949 graduate in arts and letters has, along with her husband, been committed for many years to philanthropy at Penn State. It was she who reminded Lawrence Foster of how they used to meet at the Collegian office in the Carnegie Building during their courting days. While sentiment played a role, the couple said their primary motivation for the gift was to help the College of Communications become one of the best in the nation.

Couple gives $100,000 for
graduate fellowship in English

George and Barbara Kelly of Palo Alto, Calif., have given $100,000 to the Department of English. The George and Barbara Kelly Graduate Fellowship in 19th-Century English and American Literature will be awarded to an outstanding graduate student in that area.

The Kellys both are 1959 Penn State graduates. Barbara has been the book review editor of the Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin since 1994 and is a board member and secretary of the Emily Dickinson International Society. George is a retired partner from Deloitte and Touche, an international accounting firm, and serves on several corporate boards.

The couple's shared interest in 19-century English and American Literature led to their interest in supporting the department. Their previous support to the University includes creation of the Emily Dickinson Lectureship in American Poetry, an endowment for library support and a professorship in American Literature. The Kellys are members of the Development Council in the College of the Liberal Arts.

Funds to support
hematology research

Mildred P. Squires of Shippensburg has established a $487,000 trust to support research in the field of hematology at The College of Medicine at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

Squires made the gift in honor of her late husband, Jack Squires, who died in 1999.

Hematology is the study of blood and disorders that affect it. Jack Squires suffered from a type of hematological malignancy and was treated for it at the medical center for more than two years.

This trust will have a significant impact on research and care in the hematology and oncology unit, according to W. Christopher Ehmann, associate professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology, and Jack Squires' primary physician at the Medical Center.

Ehmann said he anticipates using the gift as seed money for research into hematological and similar disorders.

Alumnus creates
graduate fellowship

Alumnus Robert C. Daniels of Villanova has given $125,000 to fund a graduate fellowship in the Department of Economics in the College of the Liberal Arts. The Robert C. Daniels Graduate Fellowship in Economics provides the department with its first graduate fellowship.

Daniels, who has experience on the development boards of the College of the Liberal Arts, Duke University and Temple University Law School, graduated from Penn State in 1959 with a degree in arts and letters. He was a First Honor Graduate from Temple University School of Law in 1962 and later was a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Over the years he built a successful law practice in Philadelphia.

He has served as chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, chairman of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and as a member of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

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