Alumnus’ gift honors late wife
A Syracuse University alumnus will give back to his alma mater on behalf of his wife, who died in 2008. The school led them to each other and to their successful careers in teaching and research.
The donation from Charles Bishop, a 1942 undergraduate alumnus and 1944 graduate, and Beverly Petterson Bishop, a 1944 alumna, is helping expand the neuroscience program at SU’s College of Arts and Sciences with an endowed gift creating a professorship in the name of Petterson Bishop.
After Petterson Bishop graduated from SU with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, she became a nationally recognized neuroscientist and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1992, according to a Sept. 27 SU press release. She passed away in 2008, and this year, in her honor, her husband created the Beverly Petterson Bishop Professorship in Neuroscience.
‘We met at Syracuse, we got married in Syracuse, this place is really important to us,’ Bishop said. ‘This means that she lives on, promoting things that she was so excited about.’
The couple first considered the professorship before Petterson Bishop died, her husband said, because they wanted to send a message that people believed in the institution and the study that was so important to them.
Spearheading the initiative will be Sandra Hewett, the inaugural Bishop Professor in the biology department. Formerly a professor at the University of Connecticut, her research focuses on neural injury. Hewett’s goals as the recipient are to build neuroscience in the undergraduate and graduate level and focus on an interdisciplinary program through a cohesive unit of faculty.
‘The position means the world to me,’ she said. ‘I’m just excited to be able to be a part of something that is growing.’
The professorship will not only commemorate Petterson Bishop’s pioneering work in neuroscience. It will also give the university the chance to bring the program to the forefront of the field, said James Spencer, associate dean of Arts and Sciences.
With her excitement and energy for neuroscience, Hewett will shape the course of the program, Spencer said.
Hewett is focused on pooling faculty members that are already on campus, many of whom, she said, don’t even know they are neuroscientists. By uniting professors with a specific focus in departments like psychology and nutrition, Hewlett said she hopes to form a ‘strong nexus’ by playing to already existing strengths.
‘What’s so exciting about Syracuse is though we’re not a medical school, we literally can go from molecules to mouse to human,’ she said. ‘I see myself looking at what’s missing in the curriculum and developing that and growing it to a point where we can offer graduate degrees.’
An induction ceremony will be held to celebrate Hewlett’s appointment Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. in the Life Sciences Complex Lundgren Room.
‘It’s a big day for Beverly, and she would be very excited about it,’ Bishop said. ‘It’s the people that really make the difference, and I think Sandra Hewett has the fire to do it. I’m looking forward to really seeing Syracuse on the map in terms of neuroscience. That would make Beverly very happy.’
Published on October 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm
