Nicholls President Bruce Murphy (right) and his wife Jeanne pose with a picture of Murphy’s parents, Dr. George L. Murphy and Ruth Amrhein Murphy. Murphy is establishing a scholarship in their name to honor his parents’ lifelong commitment to higher education.
THIBODAUX — To honor his parents’ lifelong dedication to the pursuit of higher education, Nicholls State University President Dr. Bruce Murphy and his wife, Jeanne, have donated $10,000 to the Nicholls Foundation to establish a scholarship in their names.
The Dr. George L. and Mrs. Ruth Amrhein Murphy Endowed Memorial Scholarship in Honor of the Parents of Dr. Bruce Murphy will be made available to any full-time Nicholls freshman who is TOPS qualified and achieved the status of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America or received the the Girl Scout Gold Award. The scholarship recipient may receive $250 for eight consecutive semesters if he or she maintains a 3.25 GPA.
Murphy’s mother, Ruth Amrhein Murphy, was one of the first female graduates of the bachelor’s degree program in industrial design at Carnegie Mellon University, which was then known as Carnegie Tech. His father, Dr. George L. Murphy went on to get a doctorate in criminology from the University of Pittsburgh with assistance from the G.I. Bill, which paid for the education of soldiers returning from World War II, and a generous benefactor. Thanks to his education, Dr. George L. Murphy went on to a long career as a human-factors engineer in the aerospace industry, working for the U.S. space program and traveling the world to give presentations on his work.
“My parents were very big believers in the power of education, and they were both college graduates,” Murphy said. “It has really impressed onto me the value of affordable, accessible public education — something that Nicholls is all about. Jeanne and I decided that offering a scholarship to make education attainable for another generation of students was a great way to honor their memory and serve Nicholls.”
