Nancy R. & Norton T. Dodge

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The Nancy R. and Norton T. Dodge Performing Arts Center honors Nancy Dodge, who provided the largest gift in the College’s history, and her late husband, a former St. Mary’s College trustee and professor of economics.

The future Dodges first met when Professor Dodge was a St. Mary’s College trustee. In 1980, the same year the couple were married, Professor Dodge resigned from the board and became a professor of economics, a position he held until his retirement in 1989. The couple’s generosity to the College has continued throughout this association. In 1979 the Dodges’ Cremona Foundation loaned 400 pieces of art to display in Montgomery Hall for the symposium “Perspectives on Soviet Russian Culture.” In 1981, the College hosted “The World of Islam: Tradition and Change,” and through 2000, it is estimated that more than a dozen shows in the Boyden Gallery featured pieces from this unique collection. Since 2012, Mrs. Dodge has hosted the Cremona Summer Archaeology program at the couple’s farm. In 2020, the merit-based Norton T. and Nancy R. Dodge Scholarship Endowed Fund was established with a new, substantial donation.

Nancy R. Dodge, a trained organist and pianist, graduated in 1958 from DePauw University with a history degree and earned a second major and a master’s degree in organ performance from Northwestern University. Mrs. Dodge made a career with Encyclopaedia Britannica and was the company’s first female to be responsible for a sales region.

Norton T. Dodge, who died in 2011, graduated from Cornell University and then earned both a master’s degree in Russian Regional Studies and a doctorate degree in economics from Harvard. Professor Dodge was a professor of economics at St. Mary’s College from 1980 to 1989, a member of the College’s Board of Trustees from 1967 to 1979 and served as a St. Mary’s College of Maryland Foundation Director from 1980 to 2000. The College awarded Professor Dodge an honorary degree in 2002.