Elfriede Massier: Endowed Fund Is a Way of Giving Back to Cornell College

Mrs. Elfriede Massier '62 and Larry E. Schrader have established the Emil and Rosa Massier Faculty Development Fund for the Social Sciences. The endowment honors Elfriede's parents, who, as WWII European refugees, had the courage and foresight to immigrate in 1951 to the U.S. so their five children could have better lives. The family settled in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Emil and Rosa Massier had very limited educational opportunities, but all their children went to college.

Elfriede is now a retired gerontology professor, while her husband, Larry, continues as a research professor at Washington State University, directing a research program to improve quality of apples and cherries. Both benefited from scholarships as students and believe it is time to give back to their alma maters.

“The heart of any campus is the faculty. We wanted to do something that would encourage Cornell faculty by providing an opportunity to engage in creative scholar-ship, and we designated the social sciences because those faculty, especially teaching faculty, often have limited access to funds for scholarship.”

Elfriede chose Cornell for her under-graduate education and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri–Columbia. “Cornell had a profound impact on my life. It was the right place for me, and it gave me a jump start on graduate school. My experience at Cornell helped me set future goals and opened doors to achieve those goals,” says Massier.

“The liberal arts education at Cornell provided me with an environment to explore new areas of knowledge and taught me critical analysis and problem solving. Those skills can be applied to any field of endeavor. In addition to academic content,” she says, “I was also taught the value of fine arts and to be an informed and contributing citizen to the community and larger world. Several of the Cornell faculty became role models for my own academic career.”