{"id":1109,"date":"2018-04-10T15:11:06","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T15:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2021-07-14T19:03:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:03:59","slug":"estate-gift-will-help-others-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/?p=1109","title":{"rendered":"Estate gift will help others rise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Susan
Susan McClary (left) and her parents, Dan and Toccoa McClary (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By\u00a0Rebecca Renshaw and Jeff Wilson<\/p>\n

Dan and Toccoa McClary worked to ensure that their daughter, Susan McClary, had every opportunity to succeed. She didn\u2019t let them down.<\/p>\n

Susan, a renowned musicologist and 1968 SIU graduate, is furthering her parents\u2019 mission by making a $400,000 estate gift through the SIU Foundation. The Don and Toccoa McClary Scholarship will benefit female Native American or African American students who enter programs focused on science, technology, engineering or math (commonly known as STEM).<\/p>\n

Her parents were SIU professors who taught microbiology and math. Her father, who was Cherokee, grew up in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. He served in World War II; through the GI Bill, he was able to attend college and earn his doctorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents were deeply committed to education, because the education they received allowed them to get out of the Dust Bowl,\u201d Susan said. \u201cThey made an enormous jump in life by the virtue of education.\u201d<\/p>\n

That drive was instilled in their daughter, and Susan took their ambition to another level. After earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in music from SIU, she received her master\u2019s and doctoral degrees in musicology from Harvard University.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents insisted on excellence in education. It was clear I had to make the best grades and always be focused on moving forward,\u201d Susan said. \u201cMy father wept when he learned I was going to Harvard.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went on to hold a number of positions in higher education, spending time at the University of Minnesota, McGill University, the University of Oslo and UCLA. Currently, she is a professor in the Department of Music at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with a program that brings kids from the inner city to campus,\u201d Susan said. \u201cMy parents would want kids who are disadvantaged to have the same opportunities I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her many accomplishments include being awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation \u201cGenius\u201d Fellowship from 1995 to 2000. In the spring of 2017, she received an honorary Doctor of Music Arts degree from SIU, the place her parents loved so dearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful area. My parents loved going to Giant City and Little Grassy,\u201d she said. \u201cThe landscape is just gorgeous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan and Toccoa McClary stayed in Carbondale until their deaths in 1984 and 2005, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite obvious that I wanted to reinvest in higher education,\u201d Susan said. \u201cSIU is a really good place for kids who are the first generation to get their degrees. It\u2019s where the money will have the greatest impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about the Forever SIU campaign, visit www.foreversiu.org<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Engage with us on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Rebecca Renshaw and Jeff Wilson Dan and Toccoa McClary worked to ensure that their daughter, Susan McClary, had every opportunity to succeed. She didn\u2019t let them down. Susan, a renowned musicologist and 1968 SIU graduate, is furthering her parents\u2019 mission by making a $400,000 estate gift through the SIU Foundation. The Don and Toccoa McClary … Continue reading Estate gift will help others rise<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,4,11,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donor-stories","category-higher-education","category-illinois-higher-education","category-philanthropic-women","category-siu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.siuf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}