Mar 23

Longtime University Professor Honors Mother, Assists Students by Establishing New Endowed Scholarship

Cal Poly Pomona Campus News – Week of January 14, 2002 (older article, just found it)

President Bob Suzuki accepts a check for $10,000 from Animal & Veterinary Sciences professor Edward Fonda. The donation will fund a new endowed scholarship at Cal Poly Pomona.

Ed Fonda remembers how his mother influenced him and his sister to pursue advanced degrees. Each eventually obtained a Ph.D., degrees that opened doors of opportunity in both their lives.

Mary McNellis Fonda passed away in February 2001. Ed Fonda, in his 20th year at Cal Poly Pomona where he is presently professor and chair of the university’s Animal & Veterinary Sciences Department, has chosen to honor his mother’s memory by establishing the Mary McNellis Fonda Scholarship.

“My mother was so supportive of education. The mother of two kids, she came from a farm, became a nurse, earned two masters degrees and eventually became head of nursing administration for a large hospital in New Orleans,” says Fonda. “She encouraged me and my sister to continue our education. I see this as a wonderful tribute, establishing a memorial that will enable other students to further their educational dreams.”

The Mary McNellis Fonda Scholarship will be awarded each year by the College of Agriculture through the Cal Poly Pomona University Educational Trust. It will annually recognize a full-time student who is a U.S. citizen with a GPA of 3.0 or higher majoring in Animal & Veterinary Sciences. First preference will be given to a qualified graduate student.

“My mother had two graduate degrees and encouraged both her children to get graduate degrees, so I believe it’s fitting we try to recognize a graduate student with this award,” adds Fonda. “So many times scholarships are established for undergraduates and we may forget the importance of graduate training. I feel this is a good chance to create an opportunity for those students looking to continue their educations.”

Fonda’s $10,000 gift creates a continuing endowment for the scholarship. After one year, that endowment will qualify for matching funds provided by the Kellogg Foundation.

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Further details from Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA) – May 3, 2002:

When Mary McNellis Fonda died February 2001, her son, Upland resident Ed Fonda, feared her passion for healing, education and animals would die with her.  To perpetuate his mother’s fine qualities, which others shared, Fonda established the Mary McNellis Fonda Scholarship fund.  The scholarship will be awarded each year to a Cal Poly Pomona student majoring in animal and veterinary science.  Additional criteria for the scholarship include being a United States citizen and holding at least a 3.0 grade-point average. First consideration for the scholarship will be given to graduate students.

Fonda is a professor and the chairman of the university’s animal and veterinary sciences department. He started the fund with a personal $10,000 donation which was matched 50 percent by the Kellogg foundation. The first recipient will be chosen in late May by a committee made up of the agricultural department’s faculty.  The amount of the annual scholarship will vary from year to year depending on interest earned from the principal, Fonda said.

He chose this type of scholarship because his mother was born on and raised on a farm; and Cal Poly’s picturesque setting, rolling hills and lush landscaping would make the perfect backdrop for his mother’s lasting tribute.  “My mother would have loved this place,’ said Fonda about the university where he has taught for more than 20 years.

Fonda’s mother was born in 1913 and grew up on her family’s farm in Iowa. She was one of three children whose parents valued education. Though she was a young woman who became college age during the depression, her father insisted she further her education. She graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing.  McNellis married Ed Fonda Sr. and the couple had two children. She worked as an Registered Nurse until her husband died in 1953, then she packed up her kids and moved back to the farm.

She loved the outdoors and the animals. Fonda said his mother believed that her children would benefit greatly from growing up on a farm as she had.  The Fondas raised cattle, pigs and turkeys. Their farm also grew such crops as wheat, soybeans and corn.  “She was tiny and she was tough,’ Fonda said of his mother. “She could drive any type of farm equipment work any piece of heavy machinery. She was amazing.’

Though his mother valued the practical education her children were receiving from farm life, she held formal education in the highest regard and moved back to the city where she believed there were more educational opportunities, Fonda said.  McNellis Fonda herself went back to school and earned two master’s degrees: one in nursing and the other in nursing administration.  She eventually became the the director of nursing at a large hospital in New Orleans.

Her example influenced both her children. Fonda has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, a master’s from Louisiana State University in reproductive physiology and a Ph.D. in animal science and reproductive physiology from the University of Georgia.

Fonda’s sister, Jean Westin-Legotic has a Ph.D. in art history from Pennsylvania State University and a law degree from the University of Florida.  “My mother was a great lady and I miss her greatly,’ Fonda said.  It was because of all his admiration for his mother that Fonda wanted to create a lasting memorial for her.

“There were so many things I could have done, but I wanted to do something that really represented what she was all about,’ he said. “I couldn’t think of anything better than something that helped students further their education especially in an area she held so dear.’

Diana Sholley can be reached by e-mail at d_sholley@dailybulletin.com or by phone at (909) 483-8542.

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Feb 10

The Prince Street House

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 – West Oakland Beat

“The Prince Street House,” located on Prince Street in Berkeley’s south end, is filled with messy-hair-sporting, big-glasses-wearing, thrift-store-junkie type kids drinking cheap wine. Milling around the collection of paintings, photographs and other mixed media, Anthony Fonda instructs the crowd to go ahead and listen to that music on the Ipod nailed to the wall. It works and yes, it’s art.

Fonda, an eccentric local artist from West Oakland, was showing at the Prince Street House art show Saturday night along with many other local artists. Fonda, with his piercing black eyes and the wild hand gestures he threw while speaking about just about anything, stood out amongst the other artists by his palpable passion for creating.  Desiree Dedolce, who has known Fonda since he moved to Oakland two years ago, gushes of the passion Fonda feels for things in his life. “He goes 100 percent for whatever he wants. He just manifests things, I wish I had that trait,” says Dedolce.

West Oakland Beat

Fonda, 24, originally from Santa Monica, California, moved up to the Bay Area in August 2007 to escape the dead-end road he was traveling on.  “I just worked two sh–ty jobs in restaurants, making no money and unable to make art from the hours,” said Fonda. “I just packed up and left trying to find an environment I fit into better.”  He could not have found a better place. Fonda lives in the Vulcan Lofts on West Oakland’s San Leandro Street. These lofts and others located in West Oakland’s warehouses are a popular place for young artists to take over.

Although Fonda says there is no “real apex” for the art scene in the East Bay, West Oakland seems to be one of them. The cheap rent and relative freedom an artist has to do what he or she wants with the property keeps the art scene strong in this part of Oakland. Young artists are able to live in the many warehouse lofts for rent hovering around $100 to $200 a person, if they decided to live with others.  Artists from West Oakland, and other parts of the Bay Area, will get together and hold events to showcase their budding talents. Interdisciplinary shows are mostly on the bill, which include an assortment of different media, music, painting, collage, performance art, and interactive art.

Fonda’s passion for art crosses many mediums, but his main focus is paint and collage. At the recent art show at “The Prince Street House,” Fonda showcased two huge oil paint portraits of a pelican and a zebra. Both, though dull in color mostly, had such detail and layering it looked as if the animals were alive within the canvas.  Swapping is a main factor Fonda focuses on in his interview. He speaks often of the “art world” and those who inhabit it with such distaste. “I’m into swaps because artists don’t have a bunch of money,” says Fonda. “The art world is full of elitists who use money to buy creativity, galleries are full of garbage.”

“People like to buy into that sh-t, the art scene, young people scene. It’s all about appealing to someone,” said Fonda.  Where does school fall into place with these kids, and even Fonda? Many of the young artists have been to some form of instruction yet most drop out after a few years. Elise Mahan, an art history major at San Francisco State University, says she can see where the mindset of these kids comes from.  “I think they see art as an extension of themselves and not necessarily as a career,” says Mahan, “When they are in school they feel like it is as if they are working towards a career, that takes the passion out of it, makes it mechanical.”  It’s not something Fonda has a choice in either. When asked if he ever thought about quitting art he said, “it’s not something you quit, it’s not an occupation.”  Fonda’s philosophy on life seems very Marxist in nature. The swapping of goods according to one’s ability, the communal living and the freedom of “chance operations” would suggest this.

Fonda hopes to perpetuate the environment he so craves and to keep the creative spirit alive in his neighborhood of Oakland. A steady art space and “maybe” an art buyer, someone to commission and sell his art for him, are two of his main dreams.  “I want a place where kids can come and just create,” says Fonda, “ trade pieces, just keep the flow of creative ideas out there.”  Every hello is triumphant, every good bye a heartbreak with Fonda. In his usual dominant manner he exclaims, “Here’s your theme, I’m looking to be successful as an anti-academic, which will probably fail, but I have a lot of fun.”

Posted by Jocie at 2:33 PM

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