Liberal Arts alumna gives $350,000 to establish undergraduate endowments

University Park -- Nancy Betts, a 1973 honors English graduate of Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts, will establish two endowments through her estate plans. The Nancy Betts Scholarship in Liberal Arts, to be endowed with a $250,000 gift, and the Nancy Betts Internship Endowment, to be endowed with a $100,000 gift, will help Penn State liberal arts students meet tuition expenses or take advantage of internship opportunities.

Since the endowments will be established through her will, they are not immediately active. Therefore, Betts has pledged to make annual gifts to her scholarship immediately, enabling students to receive awards this year.

Betts is a vice president with Goldman Sachs, a global investment banking, securities and investment management firm, in New York City. She chose to honor her mother by creating the two endowments, noting that while she was growing up in what was then the working-class neighborhood of Kensington, in Philadelphia, her mother worked a day and night job, in two accounting offices, to help support her only child. They were fortunate enough to be able to live with Betts' maternal grandparents so she was never a "latchkey" kid. Through a combination of scholarships and financial aid, Betts was able to attend Penn State. For that reason, she has expressed her preference that, whenever possible, the scholarships and internship awards be provided to undergraduates from single-parent homes.

Appreciating her mother's sacrifices and hard work motivated Betts to create the two endowments.

"Needless to say, single-parent families are near and dear to my heart," Betts said. "With these funds, I want to create scholarships for students with superior academic records and provide others with real-life internship opportunities since that is critical to making future career choices."

Indirectly, Betts' mother also helped her arrive at her current vocation. During summers and holidays, Betts worked alongside her mother and learned a fair amount about accounting and bookkeeping. After college, she drifted into the financial field, eventually working with Penn State alumnus Frank Smeal. Smeal, a Goldman Sachs partner, and his wife, Mary Jean Smeal, later became the benefactors and namesakes of Penn State's Smeal College of Business.