UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Health and Human Development (HHD) recently received a $50,000 gift from Suzanne "Suzie" Heininger Janss to endow the Heininger Family Millennium Scholarship to celebrate her family’s love for Penn State and to support students participating in the Millennium Scholars Program (MSP), a University initiative designed to recruit high-achieving students from diverse backgrounds who are planning to pursue doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields and careers in scientific research.
Born Suzanne Heininger to Howard and Elizabeth Heininger, Janss spent much of her early life traveling. Her father was in the U.S. Navy, and during her childhood, the family would frequently move. However, the need for a permanent address to register to vote kept the family tied to Pennsylvania. Janss explained, “Penn State was where I always wanted to go because it was our state school.”
Janss earned her bachelor degree in history from Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts in 1972. After graduation, she moved to Florida, where she met her late husband, Brad Janss, started a family and began a 30-year career as an educator, but she always kept in touch with the friends she made at Penn State.
“The most important thing about Penn State is the traditions and the love our alumni have for the University. I still keep up with five of my sorority sisters from Penn State, and when we talk, it’s like time hasn’t passed. As a Navy family, we moved every two years, so the friendships I made at Penn State have been the only ones that have proven to be long lasting,” Janss said.
One of those lifelong friends is Suzanne "Suzie" F. Martin, a 1974 consumer related studies graduate of HHD. The two were sorority sisters and roommates in Delta Gamma and have stayed close ever since. When Janss attended a HHD Philanthropy Council meeting as the guest of Martin, she was immediately impressed with how involved the board was. Martin and her husband, J. Allen Martin, were active participants in the recent campaign, “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” and Janss explained that she was inspired by their philanthropy.
“The HHD Philanthropy Council was welcoming, passionate and caring, and through that group, I felt a connection to the University that I hadn’t felt since I was in my sorority,” Janss said. Soon after the meeting, she reached out to express her interest in giving to HHD and learned that the college had recently joined the Millennium Scholars Program, and the Heininger Family Millennium Scholarship soon followed.
During her time as an educator, Janss worked with students who were identified as accelerated learners, and throughout the years she began to notice a disparity in which students were selected for the advanced programing. “We had a group home not far from our school, so I taught a lot of foster children, many of whom came from historically underrepresented communities. I saw the kind of support that they needed, but did not always get, so I would always push to have those students tested to participate in the program. When it came time to decide how to best support the University, I realized that this was an area that has always spoken to me,” Janss explained.
Although HHD only recently joined the Millennium Scholars Program, it is already having a positive impact on the college. Craig J. Newschaffer, Raymond E. and Erin Stuart Schultz Dean of the College of Health and Human Development, said, “The Millennium Scholars Program has been an incredible addition to the College of Health and Human Development. During the 2022-23 academic year, we admitted two Millennium Scholars and had three transfers to HHD from other colleges. All five students have taken advantage of the opportunity to engage throughout their respective departments. We are excited to continue expanding the program in semesters to come. Scholarships like the Heininger Family Millennium Scholarship will ensure the program continues to flourish well into the future.”
The program helps promote college and University initiatives focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Nicole Webster, Health and Human Development’s Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, serves as HHD’s liaison to the program and has been following HHD’s first scholars closely.
“HHD has integrated wonderfully into the Millennium Scholars Program. Our students have expressed on multiple occasions that they have found an academic home like no other here in our college. The scholars support one another, and the HHD faculty has gone to great lengths to ensure they feel welcome,” Webster said.
Janss hopes that this scholarship will help the next generation of STEM leaders launch successful careers. She credits her own success to her family and everything she learned from Penn State, saying, “I had a family that was supportive and people around me who took care of me. I wanted to do something like that for people who will impact the next generation. And that’s why I chose to name the scholarship the Heininger Millennium Scholarship, because that’s how I attended Penn State. And my sister attended Penn State as a Heininger. So, I wanted the fund to represent the family that raised me to be the person that I am today.”
MSP is modeled after the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland; Penn State welcomed the first cohort of students into the MSP in the summer of 2013. As of the fall 2022 semester, the program has served 297 Penn State scholars, dispersed across 10 cohorts, with a 92% graduation rate and 167 participants successfully transitioning to either graduate school or a doctoral program.
Donors like Janss advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients, and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.