Memorial Scholarship Honors Husband, Longtime Faculty Member
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Dr. Ralph Ford, director of the School of Engineering, and Marcia Grode. |
In honor of her late husband, Marcia Grode has created an estate gift to establish the John Neal and Marcia Nelson Grode Memorial Scholarship at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. The scholarship will be available to all undergraduate students pursuing a degree in engineering or education at Penn State Behrend and gives preference to students from Erie County.
John was a longtime engineering faculty member at Penn State Behrend and Marcia taught in the School District of the City of Erie. Both are Penn State alumni.
“Both John and Marcia have been committed to Penn State Behrend and the Erie community for years,” said Dr. Jack Burke, chancellor. “John was a tireless advocate for academics and athletics. He was dedicated to providing student support both in and out of the classroom.”
John began his tenure at the college in 1966 and served as a faculty member until his retirement in 1997. He received the Council of Fellows Excellence in Teaching Award and the Guy W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Academic Advising as well as the first Richard Dill Outstanding Service Award, which is given annually to the individual who has provided outstanding service as a lay volunteer to the Penn State Behrend athletics program. John also served as the college’s faculty athletic representative for 25 years. In 1998, he was inducted into the Penn State Behrend Athletics Hall of Fame.
Marcia taught French, Spanish and English as a Second Language (ESL). Throughout her more than 32-year career, she taught at Memorial Middle School and Central High School, which are now known as Central Tech, plus Academy High School and Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, from which she retired in 2002. Marcia is a member of Pi Lambda Theta, an international honor society and professional organization in education, and Delta Kappa Gamma, a professional honor society of women educators, and served as its president for 4 years.
John and Marcia each graduated from Penn State’s University Park campus. John earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering. Marcia earned her bachelor’s degree in secondary education and French and a master’s degree in curriculum design.
“John always said that the two of us bled blue and white. We never missed a Penn State Behrend activity if it were physically possible for us to attend,” said Marcia of her decision to create this estate gift. “Penn State and Penn State Behrend, alike, will always be in my heart.”
The couple married in 1967. John died in June 2005 at their home in Surprise, Ariz. Marcia splits her time between residences in Erie and Surprise.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 34 bachelor’s, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,600 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams and 19 intramural sports. Penn State Behrend is named in recognition of a donation by Mary Behrend, widow of Ernst Behrend, who founded the Hammermill Paper Co. in Erie in 1898. The Behrend family lived on the 400-acre Glenhill Farm, which is the core of the Penn State Behrend campus today. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.