Francis Troyer Science Education Scholarship
My grandfather, Francis C. Troyer, cannot easily be described in only a few words. Born in 1915 in Shipshewana, Indiana, he spent several years of his youth living with his widowed grandmother in order to help with small chores at her farm. Naturally inquisitive and curious, he spent much of his free time exploring and figuring out how to solve various problems. After graduating from Shipshewana High School in 1933, he worked the summer in Colorado, returning home to Indiana by catching rides on freight trains in order to attend Goshen College that fall. Though he was a physics and biology major, he also edited The Record before graduating in 1937.
He worked on the ferries in New York Harbor for three years before serving his alternative service at Duke Hospital in North Carolina during World War II. During this time he also married Shirley Holaway and they began their family. They returned to Elkhart, where he began his teaching career in 1946. Through his 33 years of teaching science at the elementary and high school levels, he earned the respect of his colleagues, which was particularly evident when he was selected to serve on a statewide committee to determine the science curriculum for Indiana schools from kindergarten through high school. His concern for the environment and love of nature exhibited itself in his passion for the mountains and valleys of Colorado, where he and his family spent most summers.
He graduated from college just 10 years after the development of quantum mechanics and 15 years before the structure of DNA was explained. Throughout this scientific explosion of knowledge, he continued to grow and learn, using his summers to continue studying at the University of Colorado, including taking a science class taught by noted nuclear physicist George Gamow. After completing a master’s degree in education in 1963, he did additional coursework at the University of Northern Colorado. Long after retiring, he has displayed his natural curiosity and desire to learn more about the world, whether by quizzing me about high-energy physics and string theory or by hypothesizing about the purpose of an obscure piece of machinery.
He is connected to Goshen College not only as a student but also as an instructor, having taught an evening class to other teachers on how to teach science effectively. After his retirement, he served as the director of Merry Lea Environmental Center for the first year after it was donated to the college.
He has encouraged his children and grandchildren to explore the world around them, to observe natural phenomena and hypothesize about their causes, and to be faithful stewards of the earth God has entrusted to our care. Whether by setting up his microscope for me to observe Brownian motion, or by simply working together in the garden, he has taught me to look at the world through the lens of science and logic. It is my hope that this Francis C. Troyer scholarship will aid its recipients to do the same with the many young people they teach.