Jerry Witt Scholarship

The Jerry Witt Scholarship is created for students who have declared a major in Chemistry at WSU.

Criteria

A. Recipient must be enrolled full-time (minimum of 12 credits each semester) and in good standing at Winona State University.
B. Recipient must declare Chemistry as their major.
C. The spirit of this award is to help an average student with a minimum g.p.a of 3.0.
D. Preference for an international student.

Biography/Motivation

For many people, Dr. Soo Young Yang is a matchmaker and a good one at that. But shes not pairing people for blind dates or coaxing couples to tie the knot. Although, that might be easier.
Instead, Yang is in the tricky business of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue typing, which means matching the special markers on white blood cells that the immune system reads as good or bad. In other words, Yang finds the perfect bone marrow donor so that a recipients immune system doesnt reject the transplant. Yangs specific work in this field, called Immunogenetics, has opened new doors in cancer research and has helped save the lives of many patients.
Yang, however, never imagined her true calling would be to pioneer genetic tissue typing, and when she came to the United States from Korea during the sixties, she never imagined her journey would be so difficult.
I had every disadvantage you could think of,Yang said. There were language and cultural barriers, gender and social issues, and economic difficulties that stood in my way. I came to this country with practically nothing.
But Yang was determined to get a graduate degree, and she wanted to choose a university without being too far from her older siblings who were doing graduate work in different cities, Minneapolis and Madison. Yang decided the best university was Winona State University.
I chose Winona State because it was a convenient location. It was small, quiet and beautiful, Yang said. I am so lucky to have chosen Winona.
Yang said that luck came in the form of Dr. Fred Foss of the WSU chemistry department. When Yang arrived at Winona State, she wasnt sure which program of study she should be in. She originally wanted to pursue a doctorate in psychology, but felt it wasnt the right fit for her. Foss helped guide Yang into her real passion: chemistry.
I really wanted to be in chemistry and Fred Foss helped me to do it, Yang said.
Even in high school, she displayed an aptitude for chemistry.
My high school teachers always said I should pursue the sciences, said Yang. I told Dr. Foss that I wanted to change majors, and he encouraged me, but he said it could be time consuming, that I would have to start the major from the beginning. Thats just what Yang did. She took all the necessary chemistry courses for her degree, and she did well enough that Jerry Witt, another chemistry faculty member, asked her to tutor a student. Soon, Yang even became a laboratory assistant for Witt.
I remember my first time teaching as a lab assistant, said Yang. I was demonstrating to students how to construct glass tubing and I was so nervous. I could hardly speak. Dr. Witt helped me so much.
Yang quickly got over her teaching jitters, and in 1972 she graduated from Winona State University with a masters degree in chemistry education. As she looks back on those chemistry classes at Winona, she knows WSU was the perfect match for her, as it propelled her into the career shes enjoying today.
Winona State was the turning point of my career. That was the turning point, she said. The faculty at Winona State was dedicated to helping me and others. I learned all the principles of chemistry at Winona, and I apply them daily in my work.
Yangs hard work and determination at Winona State helped her get accepted into New York University, and in 1981 she earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Since earning a doctorate, Yang has been both a member and a professor at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and her research in immunogenetics has helped her achieve professorships at various institutions including Cornell University, New York Medical College and Harvard University. In fact, Yang was the fastest person to go from completing a Ph.D. to earning a Harvard faculty position in the history of Harvard. Not bad for someone who came to this country with practically nothing.
It was inevitable that Yang took the calculated risk of opening her own business laboratory, where she could take time to expand her own research and invest in her own technology. She is now president and founder of Histogenetics, an internationally successful, state-of-the-art business that is leading the way in HLA tissue typing and discovering how genetic diseases may be cured in the future. Yang said it was the best risk she ever took.
Giving up my academic position, that security, to make a business investment was a difficult decision, said Yang. But there was a demand for my research. [Histogenetics] is so satisfying; the intellectual exercise is so satisfying in my own business.
Yang said she feels fortunate to have such a rewarding and necessary career, how her work helps so many others.
I am very grateful that I can serve the patients and see the benefits of my work in my lifetime, Yang said. Many people never get to see that.
Yang said she’ll continue investing in her business, as immunogenetics may someday eliminate inherited diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and even allergies.
People think that at my age I shouldn’t still be working around in the lab that I shouldn’t have to. But I love it.

Jerry R. Witt was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1935. He was raised in Marshfield, Wisconsin, and graduated as valedictorian of the Marshfield Senior High School class of 1953. His undergraduate degree in chemistry was taken at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1957. The summer of 1957 was spent doing research at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, followed by an academic year teaching chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay.

Graduate school was at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He spent the summer of 1960 doing research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

His career at WSU began in the fall of 1962, teaching physics, general chemistry, physical chemistry, and advanced inorganic chemistry. In 1963 he taught organic chemistry, and that small class eventually produced three Ph.D. organic chemists. David Rislove, a friend and long-time member of the WSU chemistry department, was in his first physical chemistry class. An active member of campus committees, he was twice elected to chair the WSU Faculty Senate.

He always considered himself most fortunate to be at WSU, to have found an academic area to love, to have truly outstanding students such as Soo Young Yang, and to have wise, congenial, and light-hearted colleagues.

I wish to dedicate this scholarship in honor of Jerry Witt, my professor at Winona State University. He allowed me to work and teach while attending school, offering me his guidance and knowledge to pursue my degree. Dr. Witt encouraged me to be all I could be and helped provide me to aspire to become what I am today.