Mary R. Lewis’s Legacy of Social Work Education Lives on Through an Endowed Professorship

Professor Mary R. Lewis hoped to be remembered as an educator who helped improve her profession while aiding society’s most vulnerable people. That is why she bequeathed her retirement assets to the University of Houston to establish an endowed professorship whose recipient will study the impact of public policy on children and youth.

Lewis joined UH in 1980 to help develop the Children and Family concentration in the Graduate College of Social Work (GCSW). She also championed family oriented public policies and led the creation of the College’s first international study abroad program.

Lewis met with UH’s Office of Gift Planning to establish the Mary R. Lewis College Professorship Endowment in Children and Youth. Income for this endowment supports either a full-time tenured faculty member or a visiting professor who studies the impact of social policies on the lives of children and youth. Professor Monit Cheung, whose focus is on children’s health, economic security, racial justice, education, and developmental and mental health, is currently holding the endowed post.

"I would really like to be remembered as a good teacher, as a faculty member who impacted people in the social work profession. That I somehow impacted the profession in a way that will benefit children and youth as well as other groups,” Lewis said when establishing her planned gift in 2010. 

Her legacy is now a permanent part of the GCSW. Through her designation of UH as the beneficiary of her retirement assets, the gift she created in 2010 has been fully funded and will remain a testament to her spirit and ideals for generations to come.