Advancing the vision
Each year, more than 90% of McDaniel students receive some form of financial aid. With more than 350 endowed and annual scholarships funded by donors, our alumni, families, and friends truly make a McDaniel liberal arts education accessible for students who might not otherwise be able to spend four years on the Hill.
As funds invested in the college’s endowment, endowed scholarships continue to produce income over time that can be awarded to students for years — or even decades — to come, increasing the impact of an initial gift.
Three such alumni-funded endowed scholarships that have been established in the past two years will ensure students studying Counseling, Teaching, Mathematics, Accounting, Economics, and Business Administration are given greater opportunities to shine on the Hill, and change the world beyond it, just as the Hill changed the lives of the donors.
Many on the Hill know Ronald “Ron” F. Jones ’55, M.Ed. ’61 simply as “Coach.” Having served as a coach for Green Terror football, tennis, and track from 1958 until 1981, it’s an integral part of his personality. In a 1980 interview with The Evening Sun, he said, “I was born a teacher. Teaching is all I ever wanted to do. Coaching is just a more intense form of teaching.”
In addition to relationships built as a coach and teacher on the Hill, Jones treasures the friendships formed with Mike Rentko ’53 and Leroy Merritt Jr. ’52; was honored to have his marriage to Suzanne officiated by his friend and teammate Ira Zepp ’52, Hon. D.H.L. ’15; and proud that his stepdaughter Debbie Taylor Meagher ’81 (grandchild of David Taylor ’25 and former trustee Caroline Wantz Taylor ’26) continued a legacy of education on the Hill.
As first-generation college graduates, Jones and his wife, Suzanne Lussier-Jones ’63, know what a burden paying for college can be on not just the student, but their families. “I was almost unable to return to college for my senior year,” Jones recalls. “At my wits’ end, I talked to my football coach, Charlie Havens ’30, and he helped arrange a work scholarship for me to work part time for Dean Bill David during my senior year. I stayed in touch with both of these fine men for the rest of their lives.”
Jones says that when he returned to the college as a coach, it was a privilege to pay it forward and help his student-athletes stay on course to complete their degrees.
Now, the Joneses are ensuring that they will be able to help students do that for decades to come through the Ron and Suzanne Jones Endowed Scholarship Fund. Established in 2021, the scholarship is awarded annually to a student enrolled in Graduate and Professional Studies, preferably in Counseling or Teaching programs.
“For most, our degrees have not come easily, but are a result of hard work, financial hardship, and the devoted support of families, friends, teachers, and all those who helped make our educations possible,” Jones says.
“It is our hope that our scholarship will help financially struggling students complete their education, and that they will have models and mentors from the Hill in their lives as we have had in ours.”
Growing up in a hardworking, blue-collar family, Robert “Bob” M. Gagnon ’71 says that college wasn’t really on the radar for his family, but he always felt it was in his future. He was accepted to many colleges though he couldn’t afford most of them. It was when his grandmother mentioned that she knew the president of then Western Maryland College (WMC), Lowell Skinner Ensor, that he thought it might become a reality. He was the first in his family to attend college.
“I was a co-op student before WMC even had a co-op because I simply couldn’t afford it,” Gagnon recalls. “I couldn’t make enough money in a summer or even in a semester to pay for the next year, so I’d go a semester and then work a semester. President Ensor single-handedly helped me maintain my student deferment so I wouldn’t get drafted to Vietnam while I was working to try to get back into school.”
He remembers the summer of 1968 being the turning point in his life. He was a Fortran programmer assistant for Vitro Laboratories and his supervisor, Commander Reynolds, noticed Gagnon having trouble walking. He ended up needing a back operation, which would take up every dollar he’d saved for the next school year. As he was recovering in the hospital, he received a phone call from President Ensor saying that the Board of Trustees had met and found the money to ensure he would be able to pay for school the next year.
It was because of that act of care and generosity — something he doesn’t think he would’ve gotten at a “bigger, fancier” school — that Gagnon was able to complete his degree in Mathematics in 1971 and become commissioned as a second lieutenant into the U.S. Army Infantry from his time in ROTC on the Hill.
Gagnon went on to earn B.S. and M.S. degrees in Engineering, become a renowned expert in the field of fire protection engineering, and establish his own consulting firm, Gagnon Engineering, where he worked until retirement in 2015. Today, he still occasionally serves as an expert witness in lawsuits involving fire protection engineering.
But none of that would have been possible without the financial support he received to complete his bachelor’s degree at WMC. “Over the years, it developed in my mind that I should establish a scholarship dedicated to mathematicians on the Hill who really need the support,” Gagnon says. He established an annual scholarship in 1993, but this year decided to plan for the future by establishing a trust and funding the Robert M. Gagnon ’71 Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will be used for a scholarship for a sophomore, junior, or senior studying Mathematics.
“My hope is that this scholarship serves those who really have need, like I did,” Gagnon says. “And, boy, did I need it. I couldn’t even make it through at $1,250 per semester in the 1960s without the college’s help. You remember stuff like that, and this is how I can repay the college for all it did for me.”
In the fall semester of his sophomore year, Aaron Slaughter ’10 was enrolled in an Accounting course that he thought would fulfill his Humanities liberal arts requirement. On the first day of class, Professor Susan Milstein burst his bubble: the course wouldn’t fulfill that requirement. But she encouraged him to stick it out for a few weeks, and if it didn’t work out, she’d sign his drop request form, no questions asked. As the weeks went on, Slaughter says, “I ended up killing every quiz. We had a test, and I crushed it. She pulled me aside and said, ‘I told you so. Have you ever thought about being a CPA?’ I had no idea what a CPA was.”
Over the next three years, Milstein became a mentor to Slaughter as he found his way from not knowing what a Certified Public Accountant even was to an internship at Bond Beebe, an opportunity that came about through the college’s Interviewing Day his senior year. That internship led to a full-time job offer, and Slaughter has been with the firm (now Withum) ever since.
Slaughter has always wanted to give back to McDaniel, knowing that he wouldn’t be where he is today without the support of the faculty, staff, and coaches who helped him along the way. “There were people who went out of their way to make sure I never went without, that I had rides, had food, had a place to stay, had people come to football games to support me, and had people to keep me in check,” he says. “I remember thinking about how lucky I was to have this chance to further my playing career and get a great education. I also thought about how there were a lot of people back home who didn’t get the same opportunity. Being able to help someone else get there has always been a personal goal of mine.”
In 2021, Slaughter became a member of the Board of Trustees, but he still always had it on his list to establish a scholarship; he just kept putting it off for various reasons. In December 2022, there may have been a little divine push from Milstein, his longtime mentor.
On the day that he was flying home from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in celebration of making partner at Withum, Slaughter heard the news: Milstein had passed away. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to let her know that he’d made partner.
It was in that moment that he decided the time was finally right to establish an endowed scholarship, and that it should be in her memory. Wanting to help students like him, The Susan M. Milstein Endowed Scholarship will be given annually to a student with demonstrated financial need from Baltimore (where he was born and raised), with a preference for those studying Accounting, Economics, or Business Administration.
“She changed my life by encouraging me to take a chance and believe in myself,” Slaughter says. “I hope that this scholarship will provide a chance for a young person who wants to get across the finish line, but just doesn’t have the means. I know every little bit helps, so I hope this takes some of the stress off a student the way my scholarships and mentors did for me.”
Watch this video to hear more directly from Aaron about his special relationship with late Professor Susan Milstein.
Want to learn more about any of these funds or how you can contribute to increase the impact of the funds? Contact Chip Junkin M.S. ’15 at cjunkin@mcdaniel.edu or Justin Forget at jforget@mcdaniel.edu.