This story originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Town&Gown magazine.
“Many of the first things that happened in our life happened at Penn State.”
Neither Roger Williams nor Karen Magnuson can remember a time in their childhood before Penn State. Magnuson grew up next door to the university, going to see baby lambs being born at the Penn State Sheep Barn and eating ice cream at the Creamery when it was still up two flights of steps in the Borland Lab. One of Williams’s first photos is of him sitting on his porch with his dad, wearing a T-shirt that reads “Penn State, Class of 19??.”
“I lived in Huntingdon and knew what was just over the mountain,” he remembers, “and I just wanted to be part of it.”
Being “part of it” is an understatement for the couple, named this year’s Renaissance Fund honorees for their immense impact on both Penn State and the Centre County community. They say it’s a life’s work and privilege.
“I think it’s one of the reasons we are put on this earth,” Williams says. “It’s to do what we can, in our own small ways, to improve our community, to improve our university and to improve our world. To me, that’s a sacred trust.”
‘In the shadow of Penn State’
“Roger and I are very different people, but we always laugh at how similar our upbringings are,” Magnuson says.
She was born in State College to Edward Magnuson, a World War II veteran who worked in research and development at HRB Singer, and Helen Magnuson, a stay-at-home mother who was deeply invested in volunteering in the community. Karen remembers being raised “in the shadow of Penn State” and understanding the importance of education from a very early age.
Williams was born just twenty-five miles south of State College, on the other side of Tussey Mountain, in Huntingdon. He grew up on a hill overlooking Juniata College and calls the bells that chimed to mark each quarter hour “the aural backdrop of my childhood.” He remembers an idyllic childhood being raised by his father, Herbert Williams, also a World War II veteran, who taught music and was supervisor of music for the Huntingdon Area School District, and his mother, Grace Williams, who served in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, earned her bachelor’s degree in 1965 from Juniata College as the school’s first returning adult student and went on to teach kindergarten.
Magnuson applied to and was accepted at the Moore School of Art and Design in Philadelphia but found the prospect of spending four years confined to a large building in the center of the city to be daunting. Instead, she opted for Penn State, where things were much more familiar. She was accepted into the School of Visual Arts, where she says she benefited from the broad array of courses and opportunities at the university.
“I worked in the cafeteria at the Hetzel Union Building, hung student exhibits in the Zoller Gallery and did part-time sign lettering for ag engineering exhibits. It was a busy time, but I loved being a student.”
With an eye on Penn State, Williams worked as a paperboy, then as a part-time proofreader at the Huntingdon Daily News, and played in rock bands throughout high school and college. He got his bachelor’s in history and then decided to go back to Penn State for his master’s in journalism in 1975. Along the way, he says he fell in love with higher education. In 1978, he was hired as a writer-editor in Penn State’s Department of Public Information and Relations. In the ’80s, he was accepted into the doctoral program in higher education at Penn State and went to classes part-time while he worked on campus. He received his D.Ed. in 1988 and a year later won the Dissertation of the Year award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education. “I loved every minute of it,” he says.
‘What is it about Penn State?’
Magnuson’s career at Penn State would go on to span thirty-seven years, including multiple roles in the Office of University Relations (now Strategic Communications). She oversaw the introduction and use of the university’s first systemwide graphic identity system in 1988, and throughout her tenure continued to be the key contact person for matters pertaining to the university’s visual standards. She also oversaw the University Editor Representative System, a network of internal communicators representing all of the colleges and campuses, to ensure consistency with the university’s visual and editorial standards as well as new marketing initiatives and campaigns. In 2015, she retired as assistant director of University Marketing.
In addition to working at Georgetown University, the University of Arkansas and Dick Jones Communications, Williams held multiple roles at Penn State, including executive director of University Relations from 1986 to 1995. He ultimately became executive director of the Penn State Alumni Association from 2003 until his retirement in 2015.
With Williams at the helm, PSAA’s membership increased by 21% to a total of 177,307, and student membership rose to 9,151, with a gain of 285%. (Magnuson says he was known to join in some alumni celebrations and tickle the ivories—playing Johnny B. Goode was a particular favorite). He also held an affiliate faculty position in the College of Education’s higher education program and authored three books focusing on the university’s historic land-grant mission and leadership: The Origins of Federal Support of Higher Education: George W. Atherton and the Land-Grant College Movement, Evan Pugh’s Penn State: America’s Model Agricultural College and Frederick Watts and the Founding of Penn State.
Magnuson says that in their various roles, it was imperative to deeply explore and understand what it truly means to be a Penn Stater. “In University Marketing, I was in a unit tasked with introducing new marketing campaigns and initiatives to the rest of the university. And when you do that, you have to really explore who and what you are as an institution. What is it about Penn State? What brings so many alumni back to the fold and makes people so proud of being a part of this institution?
“Much of the strength of Penn State is rooted in its early hard-scrabble beginnings and hard-fought fights to claim and retain its land-grant status. This tough, never-give-up character is the backbone of Penn State’s identity and one of the reasons Penn Staters have and continue to be noted for their strong allegiance to the institution.”
‘Giving back in itself is a joy’
Beyond Penn State, both Magnuson and Williams have invested deeply in the local community. Magnuson says her mother, Helen, whom she calls “the quintessential volunteer,” showed her how to give selflessly from an early age.
“Her volunteerism was so extensive it’s fair to say it was a career in itself,” Magnuson says. “She was known and recognized for years of service to the American Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, Special Olympics and so many other causes. My mother’s legacy is that she gave tirelessly to her family and others, especially those in need. I strive to pay some homage to her through my volunteer efforts and the way I live my life. She inculcated a sense that giving back in itself is a joy.”
Today, Magnuson carries her mother’s spirit with her in her volunteer activities (her mother died last year at the age of 93). She serves with Interfaith Human Services, a State College nonprofit organization supporting low-income families in Centre County. After retiring from Penn State in 2015, she joined the board of the organization and a year later was nominated to serve as president, a position she held for an unprecedented five years. She was awarded the Interfaith Human Services Volunteer of the Year award in 2022 for her service. She also volunteers with her home church, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Pine Grove Mills, where she facilitates monthly meetings of the Worship and Music committee and serves as sacristan, assistant minister and reader for Sunday worship services.
Williams’s love of history extends to his community involvement; he serves as president of the Centre County Historical Society, an organization that collects, preserves and promotes Centre County’s history. He serves on the Penn State All-Sports Museum Advisory Board and the Dean’s Development Council for the College of Education, and recently was appointed to the WPSU Board of Representatives. He has served on the boards of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Penn State and the Schlow Library Foundation. Both he and Magnuson are life members of the Centre County Chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association.
Together, the couple has also made philanthropic contributions to Penn State’s College of Education, the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Palmer Museum of Art. In 2015, their friends and colleagues established the Roger L. Williams and Karen L. Magnuson Program Endowment in Higher Education to celebrate Williams’s twelve years of service with the Penn State Alumni Association. As Mount Nittany Society members, Williams and Magnuson committed $25,000 from their estate to support this endowment, benefiting the higher education program in the College of Education. Additionally, they have allocated funds to the Burton S. Horne Memorial Scholarship Fund in the College of Agricultural Sciences, honoring the late grandfather of Magnuson’s children.
‘A call to action’
Williams and Magnuson have a blended family of four children: Nathan Williams, Andrea Weston, Jessica Horne and Philip Horne. All four have advanced college degrees, and three of the four are Penn State graduates. The couple says that their “why” for giving back is not just to honor their own past and Penn State’s heritage, but also to help the next generation of world-changers.
“A strong research university is inherently beneficial to society, and the best place to live is next to a large research university,” Magnuson says. “Through support to the university and service to the community, we are afforded continuing opportunities to learn, grow and, we hope, in some small ways, make life better for others. Most of all, we believe that helping the rising generation of thinkers, creators, visionaries and problem-solvers to achieve their full potential is a healthy investment in the future for all of us.”
She says that the past few years of rising political divisiveness, rising tensions around the world and constant concerns like global warming can make us wonder what we can do to make a difference.
“The Renaissance Fund, to us, is like an insurance policy to help guarantee that the most gifted young minds at Penn State reach their full potential,” she said in a statement to the university. “We are humbled to be this year’s honorees, but we also see this as a call to action.”
Williams agrees. “According to UNESCO, there are about 18,000 colleges and universities in the world, and Penn State is in the top 100. To be in that top 100 on Planet Earth, this great teeming encampment of the human mind that is Penn State—that is truly amazing. Karen and I have had careers that have enabled us to help move it forward in our own small way, and that has been the privilege of a lifetime.”
To learn more about making a gift to the Roger L. Williams and Karen L. Magnuson Renaissance Fund, visit raise.psu.edu/Renaissance2024, or contact Kathy Kurtz, associate director of annual giving, at [email protected] or (814) 863-2052. T&G
Cara Aungst lives in Belleville with her husband and five kids.
