Remembering Mary Bloom Hyman ’71

Goucher College has learned that alumna, trustee emerita, and Goucher philanthropist Mary Bloom Hyman ’71 died September 23, at the age of 97. Hyman was a passionate advocate for Goucher College and for higher education in general, perhaps because her own path to college was unconventional. Hyman married at 19 and raised two daughters before deciding to go back to school. It was a time when married women were not accepted to most colleges, but Goucher was different.

College historian Marilyn Southard Warshawsky ’68 notes, “Mary’s path to a Goucher degree began as an adult through the college’s Wednesday Program for women returning to college, and then continued in the regular undergraduate program, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She was featured in a 1973 Goucher Quarterly article about alumnae who had followed a similar path.” Hyman was 43 when she earned a degree in sociology from Goucher.

She went on to receive a master’s degree in education from Johns Hopkins University in 1977 and secured employment at the Maryland Science Center, where she would become the director of education. Hyman then went on to Loyola University Maryland, where she stayed for 26 years coordinating science education programs and the Institute for Child Care Education.

Hyman joined Goucher’s Board of Trustees in 1987 and was named a trustee emerita in 2012. She regularly attended board meetings and activities in retirement, including the most recent board meeting this past June. In addition to serving on Goucher’s Board of Trustees, she also sat on the boards of the Maryland Association of Science Teachers, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, the Scientific Council of the Maryland Academy of Sciences, the Maryland School-Age Child Care Alliance, and Franklin & Marshall College. She was also an honorary trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art and had a remarkable modern art collection, including works that have been loaned to the BMA, the Walters Art Museum, and the Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall College.

Warshawsky also notes, “Mary and her husband, Sig, were also generous donors to Goucher, establishing a scholarship and supporting the Transcending Boundaries Campaign, for which the Hyman Forum in the Athenaeum is named.” Over the course of her life, Hyman and her husband gifted Goucher with more than $4 million to underwrite scholarships, research, the Science Innovation Center, the Greater Goucher Fund, and more. She was named a Goucher Woman of Distinction in 2015.

“A December 2016 Goucher Magazine article provides a good overview of Mary’s Goucher connections and support,” says Warshawsky. “She had a great presence at meetings and events, and she had a wonderful, wry sense of humor. She often opened her home to Goucher gatherings, and was generous with her time, talents, and treasure, not only to her alma mater but also to other nonprofit and educational organizations in Baltimore, especially in the areas of science and the arts.”

Read more about Hyman from those who knew her in her obituary and memorial book.