Estate bequest of over $2 million to fund UMaine scholarship

Mrs. Veronica PendletonThe University of Maine Foundation has received more than $2 million from the Veronica Pendleton estate to fund the Raymond K. and Veronica Pendleton Fund at the University of Maine. Mrs. Pendleton created the fund several years ago with a plan to provide an eventual gift from her estate.

The bequest gift to the Raymond K. and Veronica Pendleton Fund was announced at the University of Maine Foundation’s annual meeting and luncheon Oct. 16 by foundation President Jeffery Mills.

The endowed fund will provide monetary support to students who choose to study forestry, agriculture or marine sciences in the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture. It is expected that the fund will provide $100,000 in scholarships annually.

“Our work at the foundation is very rewarding on a day like today, when you have assisted someone in planning a legacy and witness it become a reality,” says Mills. “University of Maine students will benefit from this generosity every semester, in perpetuity.”

The scholarship will be awarded to undergraduate students who demonstrate financial need or academic excellence. During even-numbered years, a preference shall be given to students studying agriculture or forestry, and during odd-numbered years to students studying marine sciences.

“The college is delighted to receive the Pendleton bequest. It will assist students who will become future natural resources managers in sectors important to Maine’s economy and quality of life,” says Edward Ashworth, dean of the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture.

Mrs. Pendleton, who passed away in August 2014, established the planned gift at the University of Maine Foundation. She and her husband, Dr. Raymond Pendleton, who attended UMaine, lived on Islesboro for many years.

Distribution of the fund, which will be administered by the UMaine Office of Financial Aid, will begin for the fall 2016 semester.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Westbrook Businessman Honors Son with University of Maine Endowed Professorship

Saunders Family

University of Maine Foundation President/CEO Jeffery Mills has announced that Westbrook businessman Henry Saunders has created the Kenneth W. Saunders and Henry W. Saunders Professorship in Engineering Leadership and Management at the University of Maine to honor the memory of his son, who passed away in January 2014.  

The gift of $250,000 to the University of Maine Foundation, from Saunders and his daughter, Leslie S. McManus will encourage a legacy of support for future engineers at the the university.

Henry Saunders grew up in his family’s business, Saunders Brothers in Westbrook, Maine. As a former president and business owner, he knows the value of leadership and management skills, and understands the value of the technical expertise he acquired as a 1950 engineering graduate of UMaine.

Saunders’ son, Kenneth, passed away suddenly in 2014 from viral pneumonia. Kenneth’s engineering career spanned almost 30 years, starting at MIT Lincoln Labs in Massachusetts. He was an acknowledged leader in various projects for NASA, including aircraft collision avoidance, the so-called “Star Wars” development for destruction of enemy missiles, and other government and private entities. For the last five years of his life, he was an engineer at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Kenneth received numerous awards for his achievements and academics, the latest of which were two New Mexico State University Research Achievement Awards for his work with rocket telemetry at White Sands Missile Range. Kenneth’s passion for engineering, learning and his natural leadership skills carried over into everything he did.

Kenneth was valedictorian of the Class of 1978 at Westbrook High School, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and received a master’s degree from Purdue University.

Dana Humphrey, dean of the UMaine College of Engineering, has been named the first Kenneth W. and Henry W. Saunders Professor, serving a five-year term. The focus is on helping engineering students go beyond technical competence to prepare for leadership roles in their fields.

Henry Saunders stresses the importance of developing stronger leadership skills in business and in government. These skills require improvements and greater competence in human relations, technical knowledge and managerial abilities; they include stronger levels of trust, greater courage and vision, and the ability to execute these seven leadership skills. He especially believes that UMaine Engineering students will gain a huge advantage in their careers by learning these skills in leadership and management and thinks Dean Humphrey is an excellent choice.

“Dean Humphrey is not only an accomplished academic leader, he is passionate about teaching leadership,” says UMaine Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Jeffrey Hecker. “He developed a minor in engineering leadership and management and teaches the foundational course in the curriculum. Funds such as the Saunders Professorship are important for UMaine because they provide awards to retain the best faculty and the support needed for them to continue to excel. The advantage of an endowed fund such as this one, is that the support is ongoing.”

Pictured from left, are the late Kenneth Saunders and his parents, the late Marjorie Saunders and Henry Saunders. Henry Saunders and daughter, Leslie S. McManus gifted $250,000 to the University of Maine Foundation to support future engineers at the University of Maine.

Professor Ed Grew Establishes Funds to Benefit School of Earth and Climate Sciences

Ed Grew Photo

Photo courtesy of UMaine

Professor Ed Grew has invested in his discipline in many ways. Grew has been at the University of Maine since 1984 as a research scientist and an educator and mentor to both undergraduate and graduate students.

In November 2014, he established two funds for the benefit of the department to which he has devoted his life’s work. The Edward Sturgis Grew Earth Sciences Endowment will be used to support the educational and research activities of students in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences. Funds will be available for educational field trips, field experiences and field camp, research, internships and networking events. The Edward Sturgis Grew Professorship in Petrology and Mineralogy will support a new tenure-eligible faculty position in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences.

Grew describes the motivation for his gift, “I would like to keep up the tradition of mineralogy and petrology at the School of Earth and Climate Sciences for which the School is renowned. The School has excellent and well-maintained analytical instrumentation for studying minerals such as the electron microprobe and scanning electron microscope, which are available to students and faculty alike. In addition, supporting a professorship is a family tradition since I have common ancestors with both founders of the Sturgis Hooper Professorship of Geology at Harvard University. I hope to set a precedent to other faculty in the School to come forward and donate funds to further the internationally recognized research within the School.”

Grew received a B.A. degree from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. He served in post-doctoral positions at the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California at Los Angeles before joining the research faculty of the University of Maine in 1984. His distinguished career in mineralogy and metamorphic petrology have included fieldwork in southern India, Siberia’s Aldan Shield and Tajikistan, as well as 9 trips to Antarctica with expeditions supported by the U.S., Japan, Australia, and the former Soviet Union, including a winter-over at its Molodezhnaya Station. This research was funded by 24 research grants and has resulted in over 160 peer-reviewed publications, two edited volumes, and numerous presentations at national and international scientific conferences. Grew has also brought significant international recognition to the University of Maine through his contributing to the discovery of 17 new minerals. Two new minerals have been named in his honor; edgrewite and hydroxyledgrewite. In 2007, Grew was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of distinguished research on the role of lithium, beryllium and boron in metamorphism at high temperatures and pressures, with emphasis on the Precambrian of Antarctica.

The Edward Sturgis Grew Earth Sciences Endowment is held at the University of Maine Foundation and the Edward Sturgis Grew Professorship in Petrology and Mineralogy is administered by the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture.

“Dr. Grew’s gift is another fine example of UMaine’s faculty giving back to support and enhance ongoing learning for students,” says Foundation President/CEO Jeff Mills. “Along with the financial support, it is a tribute to the scholarship at the University of Maine.”

 

 

 

 

 

Laurence A. Jones, Jr. Memorial Service

Jones Memorial PlaqueThe annual memorial service held at the University of Maine honoring the life of Laurence A. Jones, Jr. was held on Nov. 20. A 1992 UMaine graduate who held a psychology degree, Jones was killed while he was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. Jones’ mother, Yong Jones, established a scholarship in his memory to be awarded to students who demonstrate excellence in psychology. This year’s recipient, Amber Rowley, spoke at the event that was held near the Laurence A. Jones, Jr. memorial tree on campus. “The recipient today — Amber Rowley — is also planning to study and also work in the field of psychology, we are hoping that she will continue on the living memory of Laurence,” said Jeffery Mills, president and CEO of the University of Maine Foundation. Yong Jones attended the memorial.

WABI covered the story.

Announcing the Sandy and Bobby Ives Fund

Ives ReceptionA new fund has been established at the University of Maine Foundation in honor of the late founder of the Maine Folklife Center Edward “Sandy” Ives and his wife Bobby.

The Sandy and Bobby Ives Fund will be used to provide financial assistance to full-time UMaine students engaging in ethnography, folklore or oral history fieldwork in Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. The UMaine Humanities Center director will oversee the awards to students.

The fund was established in 2014 with a gift from David Taylor and LeeEllen Friedland in recognition of Ives’ mentorship and friendship throughout Taylor’s academic experience at UMaine.

Ives was a popular UMaine English and anthropology professor from 1955–99, an internationally known folklorist and founder of the Maine Folklife Center. He was married to Bobby Ives for 57 years before his death in 2009.

Two undergraduate students who are studying folklore — Hilary Warner-Evans and Taylor Cunningham — recently spoke at a reception to announce the fund.

Warner-Evans of West Bath, Maine, is an undergraduate Honors student in anthropology and one of the first UMaine students to take the new folklore minor. Since 2012, she has volunteered at the Maine Folklife Center, where she has contributed to the center’s community outreach efforts by conducting research for its Maine Song and Story Sampler on Fogler Library’s Digital Commons.

Warner-Evans will present her fieldwork on songs written about the North Pond Hermit at the National Collegiate Honors Council conference in Denver this November. She also presented her folkloric research on Geoffrey Chaucer’s, “The Franklin’s Tale,” at Plymouth State University’s Medieval and Renaissance Forum last spring.

Taylor Cunningham of Massachusetts is an English major and Honors student with a minor in folklore studies. She is the coordinator of a new interdisciplinary humanities series of lectures on linguistics and culture, and has been working on the Maine Hermit Project for two years.

The Maine Hermit Project is a collaborative interdisciplinary humanities lab venture involving a team of undergraduate researchers working with Sarah Harlan-Haughey, an assistant professor in UMaine’s Honors College and  Department of English.

Cunningham has presented her work on greening the humanities in Honors at the National Collegiate Honors Council conference in New Orleans.

Both students are conducting research on songs and ballads written about the North Pond Hermit, as well as conducting interviews, for a book on the topic. The book — co-written by members of the Maine Hermit Project lab using the Maine Folklife Center archives, Fogler Library’s Special Collections and new fieldwork — will explore different facets of Maine’s interest in and valorization of hermits and outlaws, according to Harlan-Haughey.