UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Having witnessed firsthand the ways that the University has indelibly impacted multiple generations of their own family, Penn State Dickinson Law alumni Patrick Hewitt and Jennifer Wilson Hewitt have stepped forward with a $3 million estate commitment to expand opportunity and elevate excellence across multiple units of the institution.

The Hewitts’ gift will be divided equally among three endowments: the Wilson Hewitt Excellence in Trial Advocacy Program at Penn State Dickinson Law; the Wilson Hewitt Professorship in Biology in the Eberly College of Science; and the Wilson Hewitt First-Year Experience Endowment in the Schreyer Honors College. While the endowments will not be funded until Hewitts’ bequest is realized, they have “early activated” each fund by committing to annually funding them for the next five years with a total of $268,750 in additional support.

“Excellence and service are at the heart of everything we do as a university, and this estate gift from Pat and Jennifer reflects their commitment to these shared values we hold dear as Penn Staters,” said Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. “Through their profound generosity, Pat and Jennifer are helping advance excellence in the classroom, opportunities for our students, impactful research and a culture of belonging and inclusion. I am deeply grateful for their vision, leadership and support, which will continue to benefit our University and our students for years to come.”

The Hewitts’ decision about where to direct their support was guided by the significant benefits they experienced firsthand as students at Penn State Dickinson Law in the 1980s, as well as by the constructive experiences their oldest child Michael reported as a Schreyer Honors Scholar in the Eberly College of Science.

The Wilson Hewitt Excellence in Trial Advocacy endowment at Penn State Dickinson Law will help to expand and enrich the existing courtroom training program, which was then led by Emeritus Dean Gary Gildin and greatly impacted Hewitts’ own success in the legal profession. Specifically, the funding has the potential to enable:

• A faculty member appointment to guide and oversee the trial advocacy and moot court program.
• A dedicated staff person or fellow to coordinate logistics for the National Trial Team.
• An increase in the volume of participating adjunct faculty.
• More individualized training and more opportunities for competition and skill-honing exercises.

The second fund, the Wilson Hewitt Professorship in Biology in the Eberly College of Science, makes available resources at the discretion of a select faculty member in the Department of Biology to advance and accelerate teaching, research and public engagement, which may take the form of conference travel, laboratory projects or on-site field experiences.

The third fund, the Wilson Hewitt First-Year Experience Endowment in the Schreyer Honors College, supports the New Scholar Experience Program, a structured curriculum that combines peer mentorship, orientation to campus resources, special awards and other efforts designed to foster a sense of inclusion and belonging.

The Hewitts had previously created the Hewitt Family Educational Equity Honors Scholarship in the Schreyer Honors College. In recognition of their generosity, the couple recently were inducted into Dickinson Law’s John Reed Society, a lifetime giving society honoring the law school’s high-level donors. Their estate gift also qualified them for membership in the Atherton Society and elevated them to the status of Laurel Circle members in the Mount Nittany Society.

'Education, Education, Education'

Jennifer earned her bachelor's degree from Lehigh University in 1982, followed by her juris doctorate from Penn State Dickinson Law in 1985. While there, she met Patrick, a 1980 graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania who graduated from Dickinson Law in 1983. Patrick went on to serve as a U.S. Army JAG Corps member before becoming a founding member of Riley, Hewitt, Witte and Romano, P.C., a legal firm that provides legal expertise to corporations and manufacturers in business litigation, contract and business tort litigation. Jennifer also forged a career as a successful litigator. Both credit their families with instilling in them a love of education the propelled their achievements.

Patrick’s determination to earn a degree was formed in the shadow of what fate denied his own parents, he said. His mother, Shirley, felt obligated to work in her parents’ restaurant when she came of working age. Patrick’s father, Royce, was raised by working-class parents on a farm in the panhandle of Florida. Already struggling financially, the family reached a tragic crisis in the aftermath of the Great Depression when Royce’s father became disabled, forcing Royce to leave school in seventh grade to work on the farm in support of his mom and eight brothers and sisters. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Army by lying about his age, and sent his earnings home to the family. Royce, who rose to the rank of sergeant first class in a 22-year military career, eventually earned his GED, but Patrick grew up acutely aware that his father’s chance to attend college had been thwarted by the obligations abruptly foisted upon him.

“He never complained, of course, but knowing how he struggled and sacrificed and set aside whatever he might have wanted for himself in life really put things in perspective as we were coming of age,” Patrick said. “My older brother earned two degrees from MIT. My younger brother went to the University of Pennsylvania and became an engineer. My sister became a public-school teacher in Florida for more than 30 years. And I earned a law degree. All of us felt an obligation, I think, to make the most of our university education and to seize the opportunities our parents created for us.”

A college degree was also out of reach for Jennifer’s mother, Beverly, who worked as an executive secretary at Seagram's. But Jennifer’s father’s business degree from Kent State University set him on a path to becoming an executive in Pennsylvania’s steel industry.

“All I heard from my father growing up was ‘education, education, education,’ and he really meant it,” Jennifer recalled. “He’d say to me, ‘Jennifer your education is something no one can ever take away from you.’ It was a lesson I took to heart.”

The trial advocacy programs at the law school ended up being among the most influential educational experiences for them both. Jennifer said she recalls working at a corporate law firm in Pittsburgh as an associate right after graduation, where, on assignment in Louisiana, she organized the exhibits list in a huge case involving an aluminum manufacturer and a ruptured gas line.

“I could tell you where every single document was because I’d prepared exactly as the program taught us,” Jennifer said.

For his part, Patrick went immediately on active duty following graduation.

“I wound up defending soldiers at court martial immediately out of law school,” Patrick said. “It was an intimidating feeling, for sure, to have these people, their freedom, their lives in your hands and resting on a knife’s edge — all at the age of 25. But I knew my training was thorough and rigorous, and that gave me the confidence to hit the ground running.”

The next generation of Penn Staters

The Hewitts’ child Michael, who uses they/them pronouns, fell in love with the ocean as a child while watching “Finding Nemo” and went on to follow in their parents’ footsteps by attending Penn State, where they became a Schreyer Honors Scholar studying marine biology. Michael interned after their sophomore year at the Moat Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida, which became the springboard for them to obtain a two-year undergraduate research position with Penn State Professor Todd C. LaJeunesse. Their research in that role formed the backbone of their Schreyer thesis and a conference presentation in Key West, Florida. Michael graduated in 2023 and now performs research and quality control at Taylor Shellfish in Seattle, Washington, one of the oldest shellfish hatcheries in the United States.

Because the Schreyer Honors College created a tight-knit community bound together by mutual care and a commitment to academic excellence, and struck by LaJeunesse’s enthusiasm for helping aspiring marine biology researchers, the Hewitts decided to strengthen the orientation programming for Schreyer Honors Scholars and endow a professorship in biology. Recently awarded to LaJeunesse, the Wilson Hewitt Professorship in Biology is now, because of early activation, benefiting students under his supervision.

“Neither of us has met Dr. LaJeunesse, but he played such a powerful role in furthering our child’s passion for marine science that we could not think of anything better than to honor and empower the Biology Department with this infusion of resources,” Jennifer said. “And we chose to support the Schreyer Honors College because it really gave Michael the welcoming community that they needed to thrive.”

In addition to their support for Penn State, Patrick and Jennifer sit on various boards in the greater Pittsburgh area and have been involved in charitable leadership through their church.

“We both recognize that we have been very blessed, and not just by a random stroke of luck, but because people who came before us took the initiative to philanthropically support Penn State’s mission and programming,” said Patrick. “We realized the time to pay it forward was now, and it’s been gratifying to see firsthand how our giving is impacting students. Our hope is that our story might inspire others who’ve been putting off making a gift to come forward and make a difference wherever their passions lie.”

Donors like Jennifer and Patrick Hewitt 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.