University Park, Pa. -- Terry and Carolyn Piper have made considerations in their estate to make a $60,000 gift to endow the Terry and Carolyn Piper Scholarship in Education, which supports undergraduate students in Secondary Education at Penn State University Park who have achieved superior academic records or who manifest promise of outstanding academic success.
Terry (1973, secondary education) and Carolyn (1972, social welfare) met at Penn State. They were first generation college students from blue-collar families. A college education was not necessarily expected of them, but their educations were a critical difference for them, said Terry, who died in May 2010. Their endowment in Penn State's College of Education is one of the ways that are extending their hope that others can benefit from the critical difference that education makes.
Carolyn, who attained a her master's degree in social work after Penn State, has maintained her work as a social worker in Nevada, focusing primarily in the areas of mental health and mental retardation. Terry began his career as a K-12 educator before moving into student affairs. At the time of his death he was vice president of student affairs at California State University Northridge.