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Home > About SI > Giving to SI > Scholarships & Fellowships > Marylouise Meder Scholarship
Marylouise Meder Scholarship
(Jan 2001) Alumna Marylouise Meder (Ph.D. '64) is looking out for students again, just as she has throughout her professional life. This time, it's students she hasn't met, and in fact, may never meet, even for a cup of hot tea on a chilly afternoon. Just the same, she'll feel a kinship with them, and the students will have reason to be thankful for her foresight and generosity.
Last fall, Meder established a scholarship fund at the School of Information. It's Meder's way of capping a lifetime of working in libraries and teaching future librarians. "I don't have any children of my own," she says, and she wants to help SI.
To Meder, giving to the School was a natural thing to do. Since 1949 when she accepted her first job working in the Ohio State University library until her retirement from Emporia State University in Kansas, she has dedicated her life to helping others. Meder remembers fondly that first job, where she says she worked "four years, one month, and 18 days" in the catalog department after earning her Master of Library Science from Carnegie Institute of Technology. Liking what she did at Ohio State, she recounts, she moved on to what was then Teachers College of Connecticut for nine years. She earned a second master's in 1962 from Trinity College.
"I decided if others could have a doctorate, I could, too," Meder says. In 1964, with enough course work already completed at Trinity that counted toward her U-M degree, she left Ann Arbor with a doctorate after only two years. "I was a fast operator," she jokes.
Later, Meder taught at Drexel, Rutgers, and Texas Woman's College before heading to Kansas, where she made her home in 1971. She taught cataloging, reference work, and history of books and printing at Emporia until retiring in 1991.
Former students remember her well for organizing study trips to Europe. For 16 straight years, Meder took a dozen or so students to such places as the British Museum and the Oxford and Cambridge libraries.
Meder had an influence in professional circles, as well. She organized the Beta Phi Mu chapter at Emporia (and still serves as treasurer) and has been active in the Kansas Library Association and the American Association of University Women.
What has been a lifetime of giving to others continues, now in a different form. Meder is also providing scholarship funds to Trinity and Mary Washington, a small school in Maryland. Meder's reward for helping future scholars, she says, is simply "having students remember me."
Last updated: Sep 13, 2005
Home > About SI > Giving to SI > Scholarships & Fellowships > Marylouise Meder Scholarship
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