Dr. Charles Adair’s gift honors memory of wife and Farmingdale alumna Violet Loy Adair ’59
(Photo courtesy of Farmingdale State College)
Farmingdale State College (FSC) recently announced that a generous gift from a longtime FSC professor and dean will support first-generation college students at the college. Dr. Charles Adair, Dean for the School of Arts and Sciences, has donated $100,000 to establish the Violet Loy Adair Endowed Scholarship Fund in his late wife’s memory.
Adair, who has been a part of the FSC community for more than 46 years, said that he wanted to leave a lasting legacy for students whom, like his wife Violet, are forging new paths for themselves and their families as first-generation college students.
“My hope is that this can be transformative for students for whom the opportunity to earn a college degree would have been unavailable or out of reach,” Adair said. “Violet was the daughter of Chinese immigrants and the first in her family to attend college. I would like to think she’d be very pleased to know that others will be helped on their own journeys with this gift in her honor.”
Violet Adair was born in Brooklyn in 1939 and earned her associate degree in biotechnology-horticulture from Farmingdale (then known as the Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute), her bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University and her master’s degree in horticulture (orchid cytogenetics) from the University of Hawaii.
She and Adair met in Ithaca, where he was a graduate student at Cornell and she was a lab technician. Drawn together by a mutual love of plant biology, the pair traveled the globe and taught at universities in Guam and Singapore before settling on Long Island. Violet was a devoted mother of two and grandmother of four. She was among the early casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, passing in late May 2020.
“Farmingdale set Violet on her life’s path and the college meant a great deal to her,” Adair said. “It has been my professional home for five decades now and our lives were deeply linked to the college. I have no plans to retire, so I look forward to the immediate impact this will have on students. I hope to meet some of those it helps and share with them Violet’s story.”
“Dean Adair’s generosity in his beloved wife’s memory is truly moving,” FSC President Dr. John S. Nader said. “This is a gift that will keep Violet’s spirit alive on campus for a very long time. We are deeply grateful Dean Adair has chosen to give back to the community and the college in this way. He is a role model for FSC faculty, staff and philanthropists who care about ensuring our college’s status as an engine of opportunity for young people.”
—Submitted by Farmingdale State College
