$1M Gift Establishes Denise M. Trauth Endowed Presidential Research Professorship

SAN MARCOS — Mrs. Miriam McCoy of San Marcos has donated $1 million to Texas State University to establish the first endowed Presidential Research Professorship.

At Mrs. McCoy’s request, the endowed presidential professorship will be named in honor of Texas State President Denise M. Trauth, recognizing her on-going leadership as the university’s ninth president.

Since Trauth became Texas State president in 2002, the university has been designated a Texas Emerging Research University; has been reclassified as an “R2: Doctoral University – Higher Research Activity” under the Carnegie Classification system; vastly increased its ethnic diversity; moved to the Football Bowl Subdivision of NCAA Division I; and experienced its largest construction program since being founded in 1899.

“I am humbled and honored by this generous gift and gesture,” said Trauth.  “The endowed Presidential Research Professorship reflects the quality of our world-class faculty and the enduring support Miriam McCoy has given our students and the university.”

The endowed presidential professorship will promote and encourage research and creative expression among tenured faculty members who hold the rank of associate or full professor at Texas State.

It is a special academic appointment, with the selection made by the university president following a university-wide competition, recognizing a faculty member engaged in compelling and transformational research that can include creative expression.

The faculty member selected for this professorship will hold the appointment for three years.

The generosity of the McCoy family has benefitted Texas State students since 2004 when Mrs. McCoy and her late husband, Dr. Emmett F. McCoy, established the $20 million McCoy Foundation Endowment to support chairs, professorships, fellowships, scholarships and faculty, program and student development in the Emmett and Miriam McCoy College of Business Administration.

The endowment was established with a donor matching program designed to encourage new gifts. In recognition of their support, the college was named in their honor, and in 2007, the couple was presented with honorary doctorates by the university.

In 2016, Mrs. McCoy gave the McCoy College a $2 million gift to establish the Emmett and Miriam McCoy Scholars Endowment to support the McCoy Scholars Program.

The program provides scholarships of excellence and distinction for high-achieving undergraduate and graduate students in the McCoy College.

Earlier this year, a $1 million gift from Mrs. McCoy, matched by the McCoy College of Business Foundation, established the Eugene E. Payne Endowed Chair in the McCoy College of Business.   

In 2018, Brian McCoy, son of Miriam and Emmett, and his wife, Wetonnah, gave the McCoy College a $1 million gift to establish the Dean Denise T. Smart Endowed Chair in Business.