Giving at ISyE: The Richard K. and Harriet S. Fein Fund
Posted on 14. Dec, 2011 by admin in Focus on alumni
Harriet and Richard Fein
Two UW-Madison alumni are having a big impact on the careers of ISyE graduate students. Richard and Harriet Fein established the Richard S. and Harriet K. Fein Fund in 1997 to support graduate students making a difference in the real world.
Dick, who earned a PhD in chemical engineering in 1949, says he and his wife, a 1948 physics grad, established the fund because they wanted to give other people a chance to have the education they did. “We got a great education at the University of Wisconsin, and it led me to a very interesting and productive career,” he says. “We thought that we ought to give back and help the university to propagate what it does well.”
His career with Texaco, a company that matched the couple’s original donation to the department, led him to research surface wear and lubrication, bone joint lubrication, and environmental issues such as atmospheric pollution. “I had a very interesting career and did hardly any classical chemical engineering,” he says.
Dick’s wife Harriet initially used her physics education to teach science and math in junior and senior high schools. Harriet went on to do graduate studies in psychology. She worked in a child guidance clinic, then in a mental health center, and lastly worked in vocational and rehabilitation services. “Education certainly stood me in good stead,” Harriet says.
The two, who live in New Paltz, New York, support ISyE because they want to support students whose work is interdisciplinary and helps improve everyday life. “It expands the view of what engineering does,” Harriet says. “Both of us feel that engineering is important, and it’s only important as it relates to people.”
The fund awards several scholarships per year to graduate students based on faculty nominations. Previous recipients have gone on to research in fields such as patient safety in healthcare, and quality control in manufacturing, at institutions around the world. “The scholarship encouraged me to work harder and achieve a faculty position, where I am applying what I learned at UW-Madison to continue my scientific pursuits and hopefully make an impact on society,” says Nan Chen, who is now an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore after receiving the scholarship in 2009. “The Fein Scholarship has helped me and other ISyE students achieve their dreams.”
“Recipients have typically gone on to excellent jobs after graduation,” says Professor and Chair Vicki Bier. “As an indication of how much the scholarship means to them, many of them continue to list it on their resumes years after they have already graduated.”
Harriet compares the scholarship to the GI bill that allowed military veterans to receive college funding when she and Dick were in school. “Dick had some financial support from a WARF Fellowship,” she says. “A lot of people today don’t have that. It’s hard to deal with all the issues of being a student plus having to have enough money to keep going.”
She says they hope the money, awarded to ISyE graduate students who are already close to finishing their degree, will be a little extra push to “get over the hump.”
Several recipients, in letters to the ISyE department, said the funding had been not only financially useful, but gave them encouragement as young researchers to continue working hard, and helped them know they were on the right track in their studies. “It’s the kind of thing you hope they pass along,” Harriet says. “We hope they’re going to be productive members of the community when they get out. And hopefully the fact that they got encouragement will spark them to try to give back when they’re on their own two feet.”
