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Faculty Members Create University Legacies Through Planned Gifts

Pamela Foster Brady

Pamela Foster Brady EMBA’11, director of the Executive MBA and Global Leadership Executive MBA programs in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, is giving back to the University with a planned gift.

Several UT Dallas faculty are going beyond their contributions in the classroom, making planned gifts to benefit students, centers, research and academics at the University. 

For Pamela Foster Brady EMBA’11, director of the Executive MBA and Global Leadership Executive MBA programs in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, supporting UT Dallas is a way to honor the achievements of her mother, Shirley Foster, and other first-generation college graduates. Through her planned gift, Foster Brady will assist students who are the first members of their families to pursue college degrees. 

After high school, Foster Brady’s mother, the daughter of a coal miner, paid her own way through secretarial school before pursuing collegiate studies. 

“Supporting first-time college students is extremely meaningful to me,” Foster Brady said. “I want to continue my mother’s legacy and help to reduce some of the financial stress that comes with pursuing a postsecondary education.” 

During Dr. Ross Roeser’s 40-plus-year journey at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders, his passion for helping people led to notable roles, including executive director and audiology program head. 

Before his career at Callier, Roeser was afforded educational opportunities with the help of scholarships. He believes it is important to extend such opportunities to others, opting to make a bequest to benefit students at the University. 

Roeser

“I want others to have an advantage, to have the experience of attending a conference, to find a mentor, to affect one person who will, in turn, affect many others,” said Dr. Ross Roeser, the Howard B. and Lois C. Wolf Professor for Pediatric Hearing.

“The future is based on young minds,” said Roeser, the Howard B. and Lois C. Wolf Professor for Pediatric Hearing. “I want others to have an advantage, to have the experience of attending a conference, to find a mentor, to affect one person who will, in turn, affect many others.” 

Roeser understands the power of gifts like his. “One person can affect many people,” he said. “One moment can change a person’s life. That is why my wife, Sharon, and I made this gift.” 

For former UT Dallas faculty members Dr. John Van Ness and his wife, Nancy, preserving their daughter’s memory has been a priority. 

John Van Ness, past chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, and Nancy, a retired senior lecturer in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, are supporting the University financially while celebrating the life of their daughter, Julia, who died of Ewing's sarcoma in 1988. Through their estate plans, the Van Nesses will add to a scholarship created in their daughter’s honor. 

Dr. Stan Liebowitz, one of the world’s authorities on the network effects, path dependence and the economic impacts of piracy, has spent nearly 25 years in UT Dallas classrooms and recently added the University to his estate plans. 

“I see the benefit of giving to a young, improving university because you get to see something grow,” said Liebowitz, Ashbel Smith Professor of Managerial Economics. “UTD is ambitious. I am not interested in just helping to support the status quo.” 

Faculty and staff who make gifts to the University are members of the Trellis Society. All planned giving donors also belong to the Legacy Society. Learn more about UT Dallas giving society benefits here.

Media Contact: The Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [email protected].

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