Maegene Nelson

Born in Ohio in 1943, Maegene Nelson grew up in Lubbock. With the encouragement of her parents, Jack O. and Rose Mary Nelson, her interest in the arts began at an early age. Piano studies, begun as a child, developed skills which led to her enjoyment of music throughout her life. Viola studies, begun in elementary school, led to her membership, as a violist, in the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra while in high school. Nelson was also an avid student of watercolor from her youth through the latter years of her life.

Following graduation from high school, Maegene enrolled in Texas Tech and became the first Latin major to graduate from the University. While at Texas Tech, she became a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. Following her graduation from the University, Nelson began teaching Latin, English and French at Glendale High School in Arizona. While a teacher, Maegene undertook graduate studies at Arizona State University and Université Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France.

After receiving a masters degree from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird), Nelson began a new career in banking. For the next twenty-seven years, Maegene was a commercial lending officer with Chemical Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase) in New York City and Bank of Montreal in Houston and Chicago. Nelson was an opera lover and, because of her employment posts, she was able to enjoy many performances by some of the nation’s great opera companies. Following her retirement from BMO, Maegene returned to Lubbock in 2001, where, for several years, she was a Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank.

From the time she returned to Lubbock until her death in 2008, Nelson was active in various organizations, including the Lubbock Women’s Club, Executive Women’s Forum, the Lubbock Master Gardeners Club and Lubbockview Christian Church. Nelson was also a member of the Texas Tech Alumni Association, the Thunderbird Alumni, the National Ranching Heritage Center and the Texas Tech Friends of Music.

The Maegene Nelson Visiting Scholar Program in Cross-Disciplinary Arts

The Maegene Nelson Visiting Scholar Program, established with funds from her estate, recognizes her interests in multiple arts and her pleasure in extending support to others. The endowed program underwrites expenses for visits of scholars whose research experiences embody varied types of cross-disciplinary involvement with arts and other disciplines. Diverse combinations of expertise will provide exemplary case studies in combining multiple disciplines at high levels of achievement for students in the College of Visual & Performing Arts’ flagship Fine Arts Doctoral Program. These students combine a multi-disciplinary core of coursework in art, music, theatre, and philosophical aesthetics with a specialization in one of the arts disciplines. Maegene Nelson Visiting Scholars, in addition, will stimulate TTU faculty members by integration of visiting scholarship within existing curricular offerings, and will enliven campus and community discourse by means of public presentation(s).