UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State has received a bequest of $11.75 million from the late Alvin L. and Jean Y. Snowiss, longtime donors to the University. The gift builds upon their support for the Palmer Museum of Art, which spans four decades, and expands the endowment of an already-established scholarship in their name.

Alvin, an attorney and lifelong resident of Lock Haven, died in May 2025. He was preceded in death by his wife, Jean, in 2016, who was also a lifelong resident of Lock Haven. The gift from the estate of the Snowisses, who were both named honorary Penn State alumni in 1998, will have lasting impact on the arts at the University while offering financial support to Penn State students for decades to come.

Gift to the Palmer

Museum of Art

The bequest provides $3 million to establish the Alvin L. and Jean Y. Snowiss Endowed Directorship for the Palmer Museum of Art. It also completes a $1 million pledge from the Snowisses for the new Palmer Museum of Art and provides the museum with a significant collection of American art.

The expansive gift of art includes 86 works that complement the museum’s current holdings and expand its mission-driven capability to serve the campus and public. It includes artworks by artists such as John Singleton Copley, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, and Childe Hassam and Pennsylvania artists Thomas Eakins, Charles Willson Peale, John Sloan and Andrew Wyeth. The collection also features a notable group of works representing subjects from the American West, an area of particular interest to the Snowisses.

“The Alvin L. and Jean Y. Snowiss Endowed Directorship for the Palmer Museum of Art empowers the holder to make leadership decisions that will shape exhibitions, programs and public engagement for generations,” said B. Stephen Carpenter II, the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture. “By endowing this directorship, the Snowisses have helped us advance the college’s mission and strengthened the University’s commitment to education, creative activity and research, curatorial responsibility and cultural stewardship.”

Janine Yorimoto Boldt, the Palmer’s curator of American art, said the Snowisses’ collection provides exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary engagements with American art and culture.

“For example, several of the 19th-century paintings deal with economic issues — such as income taxes and inflation — that feel very timely,” Boldt said. “I look forward to incorporating these and other works from the bequest into the galleries.”

The Snowisses’ support for the Palmer Museum dates to the late 1980s when both served on the museum’s National Advisory Council and were leadership donors to the first campaign to expand the museum.

With their first major gift to Penn State, the Snowisses named the Benjamin and Lillian K. Snowiss Gallery of American Art for Alvin’s parents. A gallery still bears their name in the new Palmer Museum of Art in recognition of the Snowisses’ support.

Throughout their marriage, the Snowisses were avid art collectors and amassed a robust collection of American art. During their lifetime, the couple gifted 15 works of art to the Palmer, including pieces by Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, Marsden Hartley and Charles Demuth. The gifts, appraised at a value of more than $2 million, greatly enhanced the museum’s collection of American art and helped establish the Palmer as the most significant university art museum in the state.

“Growing up in Lock Haven, Jean and I never had an art course,” Alvin Snowiss said in 2018. “And when I was a student, I never went to an art museum. We contribute to the museum because we feel that art is something to be seen. We want people to see it and enjoy it as we have.”

Amanda Hellman, director of the Palmer Museum of Art, said the Snowisses’ contributions over the last 40 years helped to shape the Palmer into the impactful organization it is today.

“We are grateful their names can be featured prominently across the museum, but their meaningful contributions over their 40-year legacy are actually embedded in everything we do,” Hellman said. “It is an honor to hold the position endowed by such longtime supporters of both the Palmer and the University.”

Gift to the Office of

Undergraduate Education

The bequest also provides $8 million to enhance the endowment of the Alvin L. and Jean Y. Snowiss Scholarship, established with a $1 million commitment in 1999, to benefit incoming graduate and undergraduate students to Penn State’s University Park campus who have demonstrated financial need and achieved outstanding academic records and who graduated from schools in Clinton County, Pa.

To date, more than 100 students from Clinton County have benefitted from the Snowiss Scholarship. The University estimates that through the enhanced endowment, more than 120 students will receive financial support from the Snowiss Scholarship over the next decade.

Matt Melvin, vice president for Enrollment Management, said the Snowiss Scholarship will help to ensure academically talented students from Clinton County have access to a Penn State education, a cornerstone of the University’s land-grant mission.

Melvin explained that scholarship support helps offset financial stress that often impacts a student’s ability to fully engage in the types of curricular and co-curricular experiences that add value, and are valued, by employers. The opportunities and experiences Penn State offers provides students with an advantage in an increasingly competitive job market, Melvin added.

“Scholarship support is critical to achieving our long-term institutional goals related to both access and student success,” Melvin said. “We are incredibly grateful to the Snowisses for their longtime support of Penn State and look forward to serving current and future Snowiss Scholarship recipients from Clinton County.”

Alvin Snowiss graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952 with a bachelor of arts degree and in 1955 with a juris doctor degree. He practiced law for more than 50 years in the Lock Haven firm of Snowiss, Steinberg & Faulkner LLP. Jean was executive secretary at General Armature Plant in Clinton County and subsequently a legal secretary-assistant before retiring and becoming a domestic engineer.

Donors like Alvin L. and Jean Y. Snowiss 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.