This Narrative for Margaret Palmer Gessaman was written by Marty Hamilton in February, 2021, based on information available from MSU records, UNO records,  and the internet.

Margaret Jean Palmer was brought up and educated in Montana. She graduated from Polson High School in 1952 and enrolled at Montana State College (MSC) the following fall. Margaret was the first woman to receive a B.S. degree in Mathematics at MSC (1956). Margaret Palmer married Paul Gessaman in 1965. From then on Margaret’s name was Margaret P. Gessaman. Her academic training and early professional experiences were described by her husband in a 2010 letter to Paula Lutz, Dean of the College of Letters and Science, MSU:

“Professor John Hurst, the Department Chairman, was her advisor. He provided both support and encouragement leading to her subsequent admission [1956] to Cornell University where she was to do graduate work under Professor Paul McCarthy, and to her being awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for a year of participation in Mathematical studies at the University of Munster in Germany. She elected to accept the Fulbright grant and following her time at University of Munster was granted a work permit (a visa) that allowed her be in the United Kingdom. Work in the operations research department of a steel mill in Wales, statistical analysis in a major farm marketing cooperative headquartered in London, and marketing research for the Nestle Corporation were her principal activities during the next 3½ years.

She then returned to MSU and a graduate teaching assistant position arranged by Professor Hurst who had recruited her for those teaching and graduate study roles. In the academic year following her return to MSU, she was the recipient of a NDEA [National Defense Education Act] Fellowship with a 3-year term in which she moved ahead toward completion of M.S. Degree and Ph.D. programs. ... Margaret taught full time at MSU throughout the 1966-67 academic year.

During the next three academic years, Margaret taught mathematics courses at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, while I completed the requirements for a Ph.D. Degree at Cornell University. We moved to Nebraska in the late summer of 1970 where Margaret was appointed to a professorial position in the Mathematics department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Subsequently, she was in the Department Chair role for several years, then became Graduate Dean, a position that she continued in for 13 years. After a sabbatical year, she again was in a teaching role for a couple of years before returning to the Department Chair position as administrator of both the Mathematics and Computer Science groups in the Department, then back to teaching full time. until her retirement at the end of the 1999-2000 yr. During this time I had been in a professorial position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and retired from it in 1998. We moved in our present Oregon location in 2001.”


 The following informative article about Dr. Margaret P. Gessaman appeared on page 27 in the Spring, 2007 edition of ALUM, a magazine published by the University of Nebraska at Omaha Alumni Association:

Women continue to be significantly underrepresented in almost all science and engineering fields, constituting only approximately 25 percent of the science and engineering workforce at large and less than 21 percent of science and engineering faculty ... Despite the societal and institutional challenges women in science face, for most of its history the College of Arts and Sciences has been fortunate to have among its faculty women scientists who are excellent scholars, strong leaders and passionate supporters of the university. Among the early leaders [was] Margaret Gessaman in mathematics ... . Here, we provide a profile of [this] UNO pioneer.

It was in 1970 that Dr. Margaret Gessaman joined the mathematics faculty. Three years later she was appointed chair of the department of mathematics and computer science. Gessaman received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Montana State University in 1966 and taught at Ithaca College for several years before coming to UNO. She remained chair for mathematics and computer science at UNO until 1980, when she was appointed dean of graduate studies and research. Dr. Jack Heidel, current chair of mathematics, writes of Gessaman’s tenure as graduate dean:

“As dean her voice was persistently raised in defense of high scholarly standards. She strengthened the graduate college in the crucial areas of academic and curricular quality and rigor. “

In the early 1980s Gessaman was instrumental in obtaining for the UNO physics department funds from the new Nebraska Research Initiative to support research in materials science. Along with then-Vice Chancellor Otto Bauer she was successful in persuading system administrators in Lincoln that a UNO unit should be supported by NRI funds.

“In the late 1980s Gessaman played an important role in creating a graduate degree program in computer science within the mathematics and computer science department. She used her organizational and political skills to overcome strong opposition from other sectors of the NU system.

In [1993] Gessaman returned to the mathematics faculty and in [1996] once again was appointed department chair. During this period she was active in the UNO Faculty Senate as well as in the continued development of the mathematics program. She remained chair until [the year before] her retirement in 2000. The Margaret P. Gessaman Doctoral Student Fellowship has been established by the graduate college in recognition of Gessaman’s contributions.”


Margaret and Paul remained connected to MSU during their years in Nebraska. Documents that I reviewed for this book show that the Gessamans were generous contributors to MSU scholarship funds, especially for students in the Math and Econ Departments. My informal research also indicates that the Gessamans were influential in creating an endowment fund for the John W. Hurst Faculty Excellence Award, an honor bestowed by the Department of Mathematical Sciences. They clearly appreciated the start that MSC/MSU provided for their successful academic careers.

My internet searches uncovered many documents recognizing Margaret and Paul Gessaman for their professional and community service, and also for financial donations to charitable, educational, and environmental programs in Montana, Nebraska, and Oregon. Because of the retrospective nature of this narrative, my internet findings probably represent only a small fraction of the contributions and effort that Margaret and Paul Gessaman dedicated toward improving the quality of life for their students, colleagues, and communities. These two MSU alumni merit our lasting respect and gratitude.

– Marty Hamilton

Paul Hayden Gessaman: A Brief biography

Paul graduated from Polson High School in 1949, three years ahead of Margaret. He then worked a dry-land farm in north central Montana, producing grain and cattle, until 1962 when he enrolled in the agricultural science program at MSC. In June,1965, Margaret married Paul. Before they left Bozeman, Paul received an MS degree in Agricultural Economics from MSU. While Margaret was teaching at Ithaca College, Paul finished a PhD in Agricultural Economics (1970) at Cornell University. The title of his dissertation was “A Study of the Impact of Transportation on Land Use and Rural Life in Four Southern Tier Counties of New York.”

In 1970, Margaret joined the mathematics faculty of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Paul took the position of agricultural finance economist for the Nebraska Extension Service, University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He also held an appointment to teach in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University. During the ensuing years, he wrote more than 80 publications on goal identification, goal-directed management, in-service education, and community development. He was a project director for a series of regional and national Extension in-service education programs. While in Nebraska, he retained ownership and management interests in the Montana farm.

A collection of Paul H. Gessaman’s Agricultural Economics Papers is housed in the University of Nebraska's Archive; reference online: archives.nebraska.edu/repositories/8/resources/1337

 

Last revised: 2021-02-12