GREENVILLE, Pa.-- Thiel College recognized the generosity of Greenville-area community leader and philanthropist Daniel Spence and his late wife, Dorothy, at the College’s 2022 Academic Honors Convocation Friday in the William A. Passavant Memorial Center.
Spence and his wife have each provided $2 million of a $4 million total gift to renovate the Academic Center. In their honor, the building will be re-named the Daniel and Dorothy Spence Academic Center. Spence said the motivation for their gift was to help generations to follow and to honor his family’s longtime ties to the College.
“Dottie was always a very kind and generous person. In the final days of her life, she suggested that I should help people,” Spence said. “It is my hope that this gift to help renovate the Academic Center will satisfy Dottie’s wish and will in fact help students for generations to come.”
“Dan and his beloved wife, Dottie, have been good friends of the College for years,” Thiel College President Susan Traverso, Ph.D. said. “They shared together a deep belief in the positive influence of education. This gift honors the life and values that Dan and Dottie shared. One of the largest gifts in the history of the College, the Spence gift is inspiring the generosity of others, who like Dan and Dottie want to invest in the success of students at Thiel.”
Daniel’s mother, Betty Harter Spence ’37, graduated from Thiel at the age of 16 with a degree in mathematics. Daniel’s uncles, William Harter ’33 and Rev. Dr. Nathan F. R. Harter ’41, were also Thiel graduates. William was inducted into Thiel’s athletic Hall of Fame in 1986. Rev. Dr. Harter taught classics at Thiel in the 1950s.
Daniel’s grandfather, Nathan Warren Harter, came to Thiel in 1911 as professor of mathematics, astronomy and geology and to coach football, golf, and tennis. He was known to meet arriving students at the train station, help them get jobs, and, during the lean times of the Depression, work without pay in order to help keep Thiel afloat. Spurred by a “unanimous resolution of the student body,” according to the Greenville Record-Argus, Harter Hall was named after him when he died in 1952. The second-floor atrium of the Haer Family Science and Arts Connector, also a gift of the Spences, is named the Nathan Warren Harter Atrium. Dan’s grandmother, Besse Harter, was also active in the Thiel community, including, at one point, running the Ridgeway Hall dining hall.
Daniel graduated from Grove City College and worked as a senior systems analyst for Westinghouse, Viacom, and CBS in Pittsburgh before moving back to Greenville.
Dorothy worked full-time as a telephone operator while earning her undergraduate degree in mathematics and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. She reported that she studied at bus stops. Rising through the ranks she eventually became Verizon’s Manager of Outside Plant Engineers for the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas. After marrying Dan in 2013, she moved to Greenville and was active along with Dan in Kiwanis before dying of a short, unexpected illness in 2021.
Jamin Wentling ’22, a 2018 Greenville High School graduate and a neuroscience major, was selected as the student speaker at the event recognizing student academic achievement.
Academic Honors Convocation has been celebrated at Thiel College annually since 1928. The event marks the academic accomplishments of Thiel College’s top students. Members of the top academic honorary society, Alpha Chi, will be recognized as will the achievements in scholarship, leadership, and innovation by other students.
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