Oz Legacies

     The late Dr. Richard S. Shineman was a professor of chemistry at SUNY Oswego from 1962 to 1988. As the founding chair of the chemistry department, he guided its early development.      As a part of the college's history through the founding of the chemistry department and a part of its future through the proposed SUNY Oswego Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation, he was and is posthumously deeply engaged in the life of the college.
     His service to education and devotion to SUNY Oswego lives on with a recent $5 million gift – the largest cash philanthropic gift in SUNY Oswego's 150-year history – to the development of the new science center now under construction and set to open in fall 2013.
     Dr. Shineman's wife, Dr. Barbara Palmer Shineman, professor emerita of education, made the gift of $5 million, which includes $4 million from the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, in memory of her late husband.
     Dr. Shineman was born in 1924 in Canajoharie, N.Y., into the founding family of the Beechnut Corporation. His passion for chemistry and teaching began at Deerfield Academy, where the headmaster's wife taught chemistry, inspiring in him a love for the subject and for teaching. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Cornell University, after which he served in the U. S. Army. He earned his master's degree at Syracuse University and doctorate at Ohio State University, both in chemistry.
     Oswego college President Foster Brown hired Dr. Shineman in 1962 to be the first chair of chemistry. One of his first duties was to collaborate with the chairs of the physics and math departments as well as colleagues at SUNY Central Administration to design a new science building. As a teacher and mentor, Dr. Shineman positively influenced thousands of students' lives as he brought his love of science to life every day in and out of the classroom, embracing a "learning by doing" philosophy.
     During his years at Oswego, he was consistently engaged in educational, cultural and alumni endeavors. He was a founding member of both the Emeriti Association and the Oswego College Foundation and a charter member of the Sheldon Legacy Society.
     Dr. Shineman was modest about his accomplishments and shied from public recognition of his philanthropy. He insisted on anonymity during his lifetime with the exception of acknowledgement of his support of the Freshman Chemistry Scholarship Program, which awards four scholarships to incoming Oswego students each year. During his lifetime, he donated significant funds, totaling more than $300,000, to support scholarship, academic enrichment, campus beautification and capital projects, as well as cultural and literacy programs.
     "The college was a very important part of his life," said Dr. Barbara Shineman. "He had a very strong, committed, loyal feeling about Oswego — where it was going, what it was trying to do."
     An active member of Rotary International, both in Oswego and in the Shinemans' winter home in Naples, Fla., he served on the Rotary Foundation Committee and was named a Paul Harris Fellow for his generosity. He also had an allegiance to his community and the Oswego Hospital, and was devoted to his faith as an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
     Through his estate, Dr. Shineman established an estimated $25 million foundation to benefit the Oswego County area and his native Canajoharie by funding programs in the arts, education and music and to meet the general need. With his foundation's generous bequest to SUNY Oswego, the late professor will share his love for the college and the community with generations of students to come.
     His widow has gifted $5 million to SUNY Oswego from herself and the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, requesting that the college's newly renovated and constructed state-of-the-art Science, Engineering and Innovation Corridor be named in honor of her beloved late husband.
     In accordance with the Oswego College Foundation Campus Naming Opportunities Policy and in recognition of Drs. Barbara and Richard Shineman's lifelong engagement with and magnificent generosity to SUNY Oswego, President Deborah F. Stanley and the Oswego College Foundation have approved the naming of the Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation.
The Oswego College Council approved the naming terms for this historic gift on November 30 and, the matter will go before the SUNY Board of Trustees for a final determination in December 17.
     SUNY Oswego celebrates this historic, unprecedented act of philanthropy that will live on in perpetuity for generations of Oswegonians, and the college community acknowledges and honors Dr. Barbara P. Shineman and the late Dr. Richard S. Shineman for their generosity.