{"id":28281,"date":"2022-01-21T14:12:32","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T19:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=18287"},"modified":"2024-04-01T13:42:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:42:40","slug":"colleges-first-female-faculty-member-establishes-charitable-trust-to-support-students-and-faculty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/2022\/01\/colleges-first-female-faculty-member-establishes-charitable-trust-to-support-students-and-faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"College’s First Female Faculty Member Establishes Charitable Trust to Support Students and Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

By Lisa Coston Hall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frances Massey loves textiles. Spend a little time at NC State\u2019s Wilson College of Textiles<\/a> with the Raleigh resident, and that fact quickly becomes clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She speaks eloquently about the industry and enthusiastically about details such as types of fibers. Her hands grow animated and the retired professor in her emerges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Textiles are so important. You can teach any subject\u2014history, civics, science or economics\u2014with textiles as the foundation. They\u2019re a necessity in everything, from roadways and airplanes, to medical uses.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTextiles are so important,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can teach any subject\u2014history, civics, science or economics\u2014with textiles as the foundation. They\u2019re a necessity in everything, from roadways and airplanes, to medical uses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking the hallways and laboratories with Massey offers hints too of the impact she made as the then-College of Textiles’ first female faculty member. Former students and colleagues from her 1963 to 1993 career greet her, and she names several who now lead textile companies and organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to Massey that she continues contributing to education at NC State. Through the sale of a vacation home, she has set up a charitable trust that will fund endowments for the Wilson College of Textiles and for NC State Libraries. The textiles endowment portion of her planned gift will benefit graduate fellowships<\/a>, an often unmet need. She chose to support the libraries as well in order to make a difference for all<\/em>\u00a0students and faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have children so this is a way that I can really give back and help young people,\u201d Massey says. \u201cAnd I was born during the Depression, so I\u2019ve always worked hard and been careful with money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She grew up on a farm in Spivey\u2019s Corner, Sampson County. Her parents, Jesse and Esther Wilson, put a premium on education for their seven children. After graduating from then East Carolina Teachers College, Massey taught home economics at Nash and Wake County high schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young girl participating in 4-H, she had won dress-making competitions, and her passion within home economics was sewing and textiles. After 11 years of teaching, Massey decided to return to school, earning a graduate degree in textiles from UNC Greensboro and completing an assistantship at Blue Bell. Her late husband, George, worked in farm equipment sales. Through university connections, he heard of a job opening at NC State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Frances
Massey tours the laboratories in the NC State College of Textiles.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hired as an instructor, Massey eventually retired as assistant professor of textile and apparel technology and management<\/a>. In the 1970s, she became the first female member of Phi Psi national textile professional fraternity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was in the right place at the right time,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t always easy and there weren\u2019t many female students for the first few years. But I was very fortunate to get a job at the [then] College of Textiles. I really enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massey taught labs specializing in fiber microscopy \u2014 which she felt really challenged students \u2014 and the freshman-level introduction to textiles, as well as weaving, knitting and nonwoven labs, and a course in fabric formation systems. Few students earned textile degrees without passing through one of her labs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n