Opening Doors: Couple Creates Endowment for Need-Based Scholarships
It all started in a freshman chemistry lab course at Penn State. The year was 1990. Stan Chia ’94 Biology and Fan-Li Chou ’94 Molecular and Cell Biology were lab partners, working together to discover for themselves the properties of thermodynamics, stoichiometry, and acids and bases. Before long, they became friends, but it took two more years for them to start dating.
“I burned a hole through Fan-Li’s sweater with acid that first year in chemistry lab,” said Chia, now the Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. “Maybe that’s why she wouldn’t go out with me at the time!”
Married in 1998 and now with two young daughters, the couple is giving back to the University where they met and where they formed so many fond memories. They are creating an endowment in the Eberly College of Science to support need-based scholarships for students. The couple knows the importance of such aid; they each received a scholarship to attend Penn State at a time when they needed it.
“Both of us came from families that were low income at some point, so scholarships really meant a lot to us,” said Chia, whose parents were first-generation immigrants from Taiwan. Chou’s parents too had moved to the United States from China when she was in elementary school. “I am the first person in my family to get a college degree, and financially it was hard for me,” she said. “Stan and I had always talked about putting together a scholarship for students at Penn State because we both
had a really wonderful experience there. It’s taken awhile to feel comfortable enough in our financial situation to take this step, but it feels good to be able to help someone alleviate their financial stress so they can enjoy the college experience.”
Chia received a Braddock Scholarship to attend Penn State. At the time, he also had been accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He chose Penn State for the promise of financial assistance, but it was the quality of the education he received there that made him successful.
“Looking back, I am 100-percent sure I made the right decision,” he said. “I think I became a much more well-rounded person by going to Penn State.”
According to Chia, scholarships today are even more important than they once were. “A college education means more at this time than at any other time in history, in my opinion,” he said. “It used to be that you could get a high-school education and be able to find a well-paying job, but now you pretty much need a college education to get your foot in the door. It would be a shame for somebody to lose out on that opportunity because of financial struggles.”
Upon graduation, Chia attended the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “I was intimidated going in,” he said. “When I looked at the roster of students it was pretty much all people with an Ivy League education. What I learned was that the education I got at Penn State was just as good, if not better, than those other ‘top-tier’ schools. My Penn State education was extremely valuable.”
Meanwhile, after graduating from Penn State, Chou went to the University of Pittsburgh to
obtain a Ph.D. degree in molecular biology. She then completed her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego, while Chia did his residency training there. Eventually, Chou learned that bench research wasn’t her calling and the couple moved to Washington, D.C. when she
accepted an American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, which brings in people with Ph.D. degrees from around the country to receive training in policy and government. Chou now is a senior science advisor for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural
Service, where she works in trade policy.
Chia and Chou both agreed that Penn State played a large role in their success. “Penn State is part of our story,” said Chou, “and we feel that now is the right time to give back.”