Philanthropy Elevates the Liberal Arts at Saint Mary’s
Longtime Donors Susan and Joe Pichler Endow a Faculty Chair
By JENNIFER HENGEHOLD
For Susan Eyerly Pichler ’61 and her husband, Joe Pichler (ND ’61), establishing an endowed chair in the humanities was a natural extension of many of those things the couple holds most dear: a shared passion for art and great books, their longtime relationship with Saint Mary’s College, and an abiding belief in the power of education to lift up students and communities.
Their Saint Mary’s story dates to the 1950s, when a teenaged Susan watched as her beloved older sister, the late Jane Eyerly Kozuszek ’58, left their home in Des Moines, Iowa, for parts then unknown. “I’m not sure how she found out about Saint Mary’s,” muses Susan, “but once I visited her there, that was it. I just fell in love with the place.”
Though much has changed in the intervening years, Susan is as drawn to the College as she ever was, moved by both its immutable values as a Catholic liberal arts college for women and its responsiveness to the changing landscape of higher education and the world at large.
“A lot of small Catholic colleges have closed since I was a girl,” says Susan, who served for a number of years on the College’s Board of Trustees. “But Saint Mary’s remains. They are thriving because they have been able to move with the times. They have had incredible leadership under people like Carol Mooney and now Katie Conboy, and the number of majors and opportunities for students just keeps growing.
A Gift of Extraordinary Impact
The Susan and Joe Pichler Chair in the Humanities, which the couple endowed with a $2 million gift in 2025, will help continue the College’s forward momentum. The chair is only the ninth endowed faculty position at Saint Mary’s.
Endowed chairs, which are among the highest honors bestowed on a faculty member, confer significant benefits to the holder and to the institution, including underwriting the salary and benefits of the chairholder, funding scholarly research, supporting academic programs related to the chairholder’s area of expertise, and providing related scholarship and research opportunities for students
At a small college like Saint Mary’s, chairs afford the prestige and resources that a faculty member might expect to find at a larger university. In doing so, they aid Saint Mary’s in attracting and retaining a level of intellectual talent that elevates teaching and research in a way few other gifts can match.
Sarah Noonan, Ph.D., will be installed as the inaugural Susan and Joe Pichler Chair in the Humanities this fall. Noonan is chair of the Department of English and program coordinator for the Digital and Public Humanities program at Saint Mary’s. A specialist in medieval English literature and manuscript studies, she is leading a major project to digitize and describe pre-1600 manuscript collections across the American Midwest, thereby making it possible for scholars all over the world to access and study these precious collections.
“Being named the inaugural Susan and Joe Pichler Humanities Chair is an extraordinary honor,” says Noonan. “Humanistic inquiry has long been foundational to the liberal arts education that Saint Mary’s College provides to its students. Humanities disciplines, such as English, history, philosophy, art history, religious studies, and modern languages, teach us what it means to be human and how to live meaningful lives alongside others in a world full of both joy and suffering, both beauty and horrific injustice.
“These disciplines expand our capacity to think logically, structurally, and creatively about how to solve the most complex problems of our current moment. I am deeply grateful for the Pichlers’ generosity which will support current and future community members as they explore more deeply the rich stories, ideas, and questions found within our shared past to better understand ourselves and each other and to respond to the needs of our world in the present.”
Joe played a key role in the couple’s decision to endow a chair at this time. While he retired as a business executive, Joe began his professional career as a professor and later dean at the University of Kansas. It was there, he says, that he came to understand the wide-ranging impact that an endowed chair can have.
“Kansas had some important scholars at that time,” he recalls. “And the endowed positions kept them there, on the faculty. Those chairs supported their research and teaching. They were critical in our ability to keep high-quality faculty.”
These disciplines expand our capacity to think logically, structurally, and creatively about how to solve the most complex problems of our current moment.
- Sarah Noonan, Ph.D., inaugural Susan and Joe Pichler Chair in the Humanities
Philanthropy Rooted in Lived Experience
The Pichler Chair is only the latest chapter in the story of this pair’s extraordinary generosity to Saint Mary’s. They have also established the Frank and Jeannette Eyerly Endowed Scholarship, named for Susan’s parents and designed to support first-generation and limited-income students, as well as the Eyerly-Pichler Study Abroad Assistance Grant, a fund that allows students of limited means to enjoy the life-changing opportunities of international studies.
In addition, the Pichlers have supported the Office for Student Empowerment, which was created to address the particular challenges that first-generation and limited-income students face in the college environment. It provides mentorship, services, and access to resources to ensure every student is able to fully engage in the college experience.
Like so much of their philanthropy, these gifts trace their origins to events and circumstances in the Pichlers’ lives that shaped them profoundly. An English major and voracious reader who praises the novels of celebrated Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende as her most recent literary discovery, Susan taught high school English in South Bend and inner-city Chicago. She has also volunteered as a librarian and writing tutor for years in the urban parochial schools of Cincinnati, where the couple eventually settled with their four children. Her experience as a witness to some of the barriers and challenges faced by many communities, especially during the volatile years of the Civil Rights Movement, fostered in her a deep sense of justice and a lifelong belief in the power of education as a great equalizer.
For his part, Joe says the loss of his parents at a young age—and the consequent role that scholarships played in funding his education, from high school through graduate studies—forged in him a resolve to help other young people in need. “I want other kids to have the same opportunities that I had,” he says.
The couple remains excited about their giving—and deeply optimistic about all that the future holds for this institution. “I want to go to college all over again!” Susan says, pointing to the work of professors like Sarah Noonan and the growth in high-quality academic programming in fields from English to engineering. “Who would have thought that all this was possible?”
May 22, 2026