Generous alumni benefactors support mathematics at Penn State
The Department of Mathematics at Penn State has two new tools with which to attract the most-promising faculty members: Alumni Susan Wynn Grove and Gary and Beverly Mullen have bequeathed funds through their estates to create two future professorships to support outstanding new faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers.
Susan Wynn Grove
Through her estate, Susan Grove has established the future Cada R. and Susan Wynn Grove Early Career Professorship in Math to honor her late husband, Cada. While the estate gift provides future funding, Grove has also provided current funds for the professorship, allowing the college to immediately begin using this important recruitment tool to attract new faculty to the Department of Mathematics. The college expects to award this professorship soon.
“Junior faculty candidates who excel not only in scholarship but also in teaching, mentoring, and service are small in number and highly sought after,” said Doug Cavener, Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly College of Science at Penn State. “Early career professorships offer a solution to this dilemma by providing funds to help attract the brightest faculty members to Penn State.”
Susan Grove, a first-generation college graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Penn State in 1966. She remembers what it was like to be an undergraduate student whose education depended on the quality of the teaching provided by her professors.
“I was fortunate, as a mathematics major, to be in a calculus section where the subject was presented through the perspective of historic, practical questions that could not be exactly answered until the calculus had been developed,” she said. “That approach helped students to better understand the mathematical tool.”
In addition to the professorship, Grove’s estate gift will establish the future Susan and Cada Grove Endowment for the Center for Excellence in Science Education, supporting the center’s efforts and initiatives.
Gary and Beverly Mullen
An estate bequest from Penn State alumnus Gary Mullen and his wife, Beverly Mullen, will create a new endowment in the Department of Mathematics, named the Gary L. and Beverly B. Mullen Career Professorship. This new professorship will provide the department with future resources to attract and support outstanding faculty in the early stages of their careers.
According to Cavener, these professorships offer seed money to assist rising stars in jump-starting their teaching and research programs, thus forming the foundation of successful academic careers, and they also directly benefit students.
“Their flexible funding allows for curricular development, which makes for better teaching, and they also provide research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, which is a high priority for our college,” he said.
In addition to the career professorship, the Mullens’ estate gift will provide extra funding to the existing Boyd A. and Bernice K. Mullen Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was activated in 2006 in memory of Gary’s parents.
In addition to their estate gift, the Mullens have established a charitable remainder unitrust. Upon termination, the funding from the trust will create the future Gary L. and Beverly B. Mullen Mathematics Scholarship, to benefit undergraduate students majoring in mathematics.
“As an undergraduate student at Allegheny College, I was fortunate enough to receive funds from a number of scholarship programs,” said Gary Mullen. “At that time, I made the commitment that I would establish a scholarship to help other students if I was ever in a position to do so.”
He was especially touched, he said, when he heard from one of his own scholarship awardees that she intends to do the same.
A history of giving
These benefactors have had long and active associations with Penn State.
Grove, who made her career working for AT&T, spends most of her time at her home in Onancock, Virginia, but she also maintains a home in State College. In addition to her financial contributions to Penn State, she is generous with her time, serving on the Eberly College of Science Development Committee, Dean’s Advisory Board, and Math Advisory Committee.
The Mullens have long been members of Penn State’s Atherton Society as well as enthusiastic supporters of the Eberly College of Science. Gary earned a master’s and a doctoral degree in mathematics at Penn State in 1970 and 1974, respectively. He returned to Penn State and served as the head of the Department of Mathematics from 1997 to 2003 and again from 2009 to 2010. He also has served as the head of the college’s faculty-staff campaign and currently sits on the Eberly College of Science Development Committee. Beverly is retired from Tyco International and is currently a board member of the Penn State University Women’s Club.