For Barbara and Edgar Farmer, giving to others—in kind and of their time and talents—has always been a part of life.

As newlyweds in the 1970s in Hampton, Va., where they both worked as schoolteachers, the Farmers bought dresses and tuxedos for students who couldn’t afford to go to prom. As they advanced in their academic trajectories—Edgar earned a master’s in educational administration and supervision from Hampton University and a Ph.D. in vocational industrial education from Penn State, while Barbara obtained an M.S. degree in education administration and supervision from North Carolina A&T State University and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina—and their careers, they mentored high school and college students. Before she was named principal of the Houserville/Lemont Elementary School in 1997, Barbara volunteered for the State College Area School District. Edgar ’78 DEd Edu, now a Penn State professor emeritus of education, has helped many graduate students perfect their research skills. To many of Penn State’s African American students, the couple has been mother and father, aunt and uncle—and long after their retirement, they are still sought out for their support, their counsel, and for a home-cooked meal.

Their generosity did not go unnoticed: In 2023, the Farmers were named honorees of the Renaissance Fund, one of Penn State’s longest-standing scholarship programs for academically talented students with the greatest financial need. The news came as no surprise to the Farmers’ family and their many friends—but the Farmers themselves were stunned. 

“The things that they recognized us for are just a part of the things we do daily,” Barbara says. “We were not sure if we were worthy of being rewarded for the life that we live.”

But as first-generation college students from humble backgrounds, to be recognized as honorees of a scholarship program benefiting bright students in financial need was nevertheless deeply meaningful to the Farmers. “Our parents were not educated, but they were profoundly intelligent, and they wanted the best for us,” says Edgar. “That belief has been important to us in giving back, in knowing that we do better when we support one another.”

Set up as a nonprofit in 1969 by five members of Penn State’s Board of Trustees at the time—Jesse Arnelle ’55 Lib, ’62 JD Law, Michael Baker Jr., Frederick Close II, Ralph Dorn Hetzel Jr., and Helen Dickerson Wise ’49, ’52 MED Edu—the Renaissance Fund was a precursor to federal aid programs for low-income students. In 1977, Penn State trustee and Renaissance Fund board member Mimi Barash Coppersmith ’54 Com proposed the idea of an annual Renaissance Fund dinner that would honor Penn State and wider community members who already had made a significant impact on the university and in the lives of others. Raising funds in their name would, she believed, ensure continued funding for the Renaissance Fund program—and it has. To date, Renaissance Fund dinners and associated events have raised more than $14.6 million across the university. Outside of those dinners, giving to the fund continues year-round: As of June 2025, the Renaissance Fund endowment stood at more than $26.2 million.

Its impact has grown accordingly: In 1969, $24,550 was awarded in scholarships; in the 2024-2025 academic year, the $1,711,000 raised generated scholarships for 891 Penn State students.

Scholarships abound at Penn State, but Roger Williams ’73 Lib, ’75 MA Com, ’88 PhD Edu says there’s something special about the Renaissance Fund program that sets it apart and contributes to its impressive growth—and to the continued support it gets from alumni, the wider Penn State community, and past scholarship recipients. Williams, former executive director of the Penn State Alumni

Association, believes the Renaissance Fund is quintessentially Penn State, an embodiment of the university’s land grant origins and imperative.

“Universities like Penn State were set up to provide an education to the families of farmers, shopkeepers, day laborers, mill workers—the so-called industrial classes,” Williams says. “To me, the Renaissance Fund program underscores our land-grant mission more than any other scholarship program.”

The Renaissance Fund also underscores the inexorable link between town and gown, says Williams: “The annual dinners, for which attendance is always so high, bring together university members, business owners, volunteers from other nonprofits, connecting everyone in a way that few other initiatives can—and they generate considerable money for the fund.”

Williams and his wife, Karen Magnuson ’75 A&A, were named Renaissance Fund honorees in 2024. The couple, who met at Penn State, were active in both University Park and State College during their working lives and continue to be in their retirement. Williams, current president of the Centre County Historical Society, has written books on Penn State’s land-grant mission and its past presidents and has served on the boards of Penn State’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Schlow Library Foundation. Magnuson grew up in State College, and after retiring from Penn State as assistant director of university marketing, she served as president of Interfaith Human Services, a State College nonprofit supporting low-income families she spent many years volunteering for. Lifelong philanthropists, Williams and Magnuson have supported initiatives in the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Education, and the Palmer Museum of Art. They also committed $30,000 for a Renaissance Fund scholarship in their names.

Every year, Penn State’s Office of Student Aid provides the Renaissance Fund board with a diverse roster of scholarship recipients selected on the basis of academic merit and financial need. Renaissance scholars are represented at every Penn State campus and college—and those selected are, more often than not, surprised to learn they’re recipients.

That they’ve been chosen for this scholarship—that the university believes enough in them to award them money to finish their college education—is a huge morale boost for these students, Williams says, and it also encourages many of them to give back to Penn State and to the Renaissance Fund.

That’s certainly true for Sam Bernstine, who spent the first two years of his undergraduate degree at Penn State Shenango and received a Renaissance scholarship in 1976 during his initial year at University Park. The scholarship not only encouraged Bernstine to work hard and ensure his GPA remained at the Renaissance Fund’s requisite 3.0 level, it also inspired him to actively fundraise while a student for the program and for other Penn State causes.

“I always say, ‘Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care,’” says Bernstine ’78 H&HD.  “For me, people cared because they raised money to help us as students. I felt an obligation to the university afterwards to be a giver rather than a taker, and I have stayed committed.”

Bernstine—who in 2018 contributed $30,000 to establish the Sam, Pam, Aaron, Ilia and Dierks Bernstine Open Doors Scholarship at Penn State Shenango and served on the Renaissance Fund board for over 20 years—is also grateful for the close-knit nature of the Renaissance Fund community, and for the nurturing he received from individuals connected with the fund, such as Barash Coppersmith, Dave Colton ’52 Com, and Helen Dickerson Wise. “It was about so much more than the money—those relationships, contacts, associations, and experiences that contributed to my maturation process have done a lot for me,” he says.

For the Farmers —who have endowed scholarships at their respective alma maters, Norfolk State and Hampton University—being Renaissance Fund honorees felt like a true homecoming. The 2024 dinner in their honor helped raise $193,364, including contributions from more than 160 first-time donors—one of the most significant first-year donor totals in Renaissance Fund history.

“It solidified the fact that our journey has had some impact,” says Edgar, “it makes us want to continue doing the things we’ve always done.”  

Financial Freedom

When Christian Soura opened his tuition bill the first semester of his junior year, he was pleasantly surprised to find that a portion of it was being taken care of by a Renaissance Fund scholarship. “Many students take on loans to get through college,” says Soura, “and that means having to make sacrifices to pay off that debt, which can limit your opportunities after graduation by pushing people to choose work they find less fulfilling.”

For Soura ’99 Lib, ’03 MPA Hbg, receiving the $2,500 Renaissance Fund scholarship was liberating. He wanted to go to graduate school—and he did, at Penn State, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and at Duke University. But he was resolute that he would not go until he paid off his undergraduate debt. “I still had debt, but I had less of it because of the Renaissance Fund scholarship, and I was able to get to grad school sooner,” he says. “I didn’t have to spend as long doing a job I knew I wasn’t going to do in the long run in order to help pay down the bills.”

After earning his undergraduate degree, Soura—who grew up in Chester County, Pa., and followed his older brother to Penn State—first worked for The Vanguard Group (“That’s where I made the money to pay off my debt,” he says) and has since built a successful career in health policy and administration. A former secretary of administration for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he also served as board chair of PEBTF, Pennsylvania’s largest group purchaser of health insurance, and as deputy chief of staff for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. He is currently the CFO of McLeod Health in South Carolina. 

In 2024, Soura—who has served two terms on the fund’s board—and his wife, Emily ’09 Bus Hbg, endowed a $30,000 Renaissance Fund scholarship in the name of Justin Athens, her younger brother who died years earlier. “I think we associate the Renaissance with an awakening in society—a new way of thinking about the social contract, and about our relationships to each other,” he says. “I believe the fund provides assistance to folks who have some sense of that worldview, who understand that the scholarship doesn’t come with a commitment to give back, but who have a sense of obligation to continue the ripple effect.”

Family Ties

At the end of each of the four years she received the Annette Searson Rohrbeck Renaissance Fund Scholarship, Penn State Behrend student and Unionville, Pa., native Lauren Packer Webster wrote a thank you letter to the Rohrbeck family. She looked forward to doing this and enjoyed describing her academic accomplishments, the highlights of her college year, and the activities she participated in, including water polo and softball. Packer Webster ’04 Com was also the editor-in-chief of her campus newspaper, The Behrend Beacon, and in her letters to the Rohrbecks, she shared her desire to one day work as a sports journalist. The Rohrbecks listened—and introduced her to a media specialist in Penn State’s athletics department. “They helped me get a weeklong experience working for the women’s Final Four in Cleveland,” Packer Webster says, “and that helped me progress towards my career goal of working in athletics communications—and to where I am now.”

Packer Webster, director of athletics and recreation at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., says her connection with Charles Rohrbeck and his family became all the more meaningful after it transpired that Charles Rohrbeck ’54 Sci, a State College native and founder and president of the OB-GYN Group of State College, had delivered her sister. “My mom kept saying, ‘The name sounds familiar, I think he delivered your sister,’” Packer Webster says. “It seems he kept a book of all the babies’ and moms’ names and in one communication, he wrote back saying, ‘I checked my baby book—and I did deliver your sister.’”

Her communication with the Rohrbecks, which began as handwritten letters and then switched to email, not only fostered a closeness with the family who funded her scholarship, it also inspired Packer Webster to become a part of the broader Renaissance Fund community: She now serves on the Fund’s Board of Directors.

Being the first in her family to go to college came with a lot of unknowns; their scholarship and the personal interest the Rohrbecks took in her helped Packer Webster feel confident about higher education. “Receiving the scholarship exposed me to the generosity of Penn Staters and the power of philanthropy,” she says.

Personal and Career Mentorship

For Lisette Garcia, a first-generation college student, the $500 Marjorie Dunaway Renaissance Fund Scholarship she received each semester made a meaningful difference in her undergraduate years. But beyond the financial assistance, the scholarship gave Garcia a certain kind of confidence: People she did not know saw her potential and were invested in her success.

Born in Emerson, N.J., Garcia ’96 Lib chose Penn State for its academic reputation, vibrant campus community, and the many opportunities offered both inside and outside the classroom. What made her experience particularly meaningful was her relationship with Marjorie Dunaway, the 1986 Renaissance Fund honoree who served as a member of the board and its president. 

“Marge made a point of getting to know each of her scholarship recipients,” says Garcia. “She also took the time to get to know my mother, helping to reassure her that I would be supported. As the first in my family to navigate the college experience, that personal encouragement is something I have never forgotten.”

Dunaway also brought her scholarship recipients together two or three times each year, Garcia says, often taking them to dinner so they could share their experiences and talk about their goals. “Those dinners were my introduction to networking,” she says. “They gave me the opportunity to learn, build relationships, and gain confidence in talking about my aspirations and accomplishments.”

For Garcia, the Renaissance Fund helped shape both her educational experience and her career path. The impact of that, has inspired her to make an annual gift to the Marjorie Dunaway Renaissance Fund.

After graduation, Garcia worked in higher education; her roles in financial aid and admissions gave her the opportunity to help other first-generation college students pursue educational opportunities that might have otherwise seemed out of reach. After obtaining an M.S. from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. in sociology from Ohio State, Garcia transitioned to the nonprofit sector and currently serves as COO for the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.

Peer Inspiration

Kennedy White had heard about the Renaissance Fund from working Penn State Lion Line, the university’s student-staffed telefunding line, and she was thrilled to receive a scholarship in her third year. But it wasn’t until she went to the annual Renaissance Fund dinner, and got a sense of the caliber of students selected with her that year, that she realized how special the Renaissance scholarships are. 
“It was amazing to learn about all the amazing things they were doing,” says White. “I knew then that I was getting a great scholarship. I loved being with like-minded, hardworking students.”

For White, who grew up in Hershey, Pa., scholarships were important in financing her Penn State education. The $2,500 Renaissance Fund scholarship, which selected students receive without applying for, was a great bonus, she says—but it also fueled her resolve to work harder in college. More importantly, and in the context of her tenure with Lion Line, receiving the Renaissance Fund scholarship led White to a career in higher education development that she loves. 

In the summer after her third year at University Park, White ’24 Com interned with Penn State’s Division of Development and Alumni Relations; after graduation, she joined the Office of Annual Giving as assistant director of annual leadership gifts. “I love connecting with people, hearing their stories, and being that bridge between the donor and the student,” she says. 

Her experience—White was the selected student speaker at the 2023 Renaissance Fund dinner honoring Barbara and Edgar Farmer ’78 DEd Edu—and her enthusiasm led to an invitation to join the Renaissance Fund board in 2024 and an opportunity to give back. Last year, White worked closely with fellow board member Rebecca Farmer Force ’23 MBA Bus, director of alumni relations for the College of Health and Human Development and Edgar and Barbara’s daughter. They launched an annual pizza party that brings together scholarship recipients who haven’t yet graduated. “Having an opportunity to emphasize to the students that receiving this scholarship is an honor and something to be proud of is important,” says White, now an assistant director of development at Duquesne University.