FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dann Hayes, Director of Media Relations 641-269-4834

March 6, 2002

Alumni endow scholarships for Grinnell College chemistry department

GRINNELL, Iowa - Two Grinnell College alumni have pledged $50,000 to endow two scholarships for chemistry students with high academic achievement and a demonstrated financial need.

The scholarships, endowed by Dean F. Martin '55 and Barbara Bursa Martin '56, were established as the Bessie Bursa Scholarship Fund and the Barbara and Dean Martin Scholarship Fund.

"Grinnell College has been very good to us," said Dean Martin, the Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Fla. "We saw a need for the scholarships and we wanted to see the benefits of these funds while we still can."

Barbara Martin is an assistant professor of chemistry (courtesy) at the University of South Florida.

"We chose chemistry because that is where our major research interest lies," Dean Martin said. "And the quality of the Grinnell College chemistry department, its faculty, and the students, is very good."

The Bessie Bursa Scholarship Fund was established with a pledge of $25,000 and is named after Barbara Bursa Martin's mother, who was born in Chicago in 1910, and passed away in Tampa, FL, in 2001. Bessie Bursa was the grandmother of six, including Eric Martin, a 1991 graduate of Grinnell College, and the great-grandmother of four.

The Barbara and Dean Martin Scholarship Fund was also established with a pledge of $25,000. Both Barbara and Dean were chemistry majors at Grinnell College, and both completed their graduate work at Pennsylvania State University. Dean also grew up in Grinnell and was a 1951 graduate of Grinnell High School.

The Martins have previously endowed the Martin Travel fund, established in 1996 to enable chemistry students to attend national chemistry conferences, and the Martin Book fund, for use by Burling Library administrators to purchase books for the library.

Lovers of books, the Martins also established an endowment for the Stewart Library, Grinnell, in the summer of 2000, to purchase books for the community library.

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