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A TEACHER FROM FSU
ANNE SPENCER DAVES LEAVES HER INDELIBLE MARK ON BEHALF OF TEACHERS AND HER FAMILY.
By Kevin Derryberry and Joshua Duke
During family weekend, October 2023, Anne Spencer Daves met with President Richard McCullough, First Lady Jai Vartikar, Dean Damon Andrew, Assistant Dean Kevin Derryberry, and Vice President for Advancement Marla Vickers for a Presidential Tea in the former President’s Home at Florida State University, today called the Pearl Tyner House. It was the perfect setting for a momentous meeting to discuss the recent expansion of our two colleges and the potential rededication of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences.
The Pearl Tyner House was named after Pearl Tyner (’30), an alumna of the Florida State College for Women and one of the most generous supporters of FSU in the 20th Century. Pearl’s sister Mayme was a two-time alumna (’30, ’50) of the College of Education, while Pearl was a graduate of the College of Home Economics, later known as the College of Health and Human Sciences. Among the many programs they supported at FSU, Pearl and Mayme Tyner both created professorship endowments in the name of their parents, Mack and Effie Tyner. In the spirit of family, each sister made their gift to the other’s college. Pearl gave to Education and Mayme gave to Human Sciences. When the colleges came together last year, so too did the legacy of the Tyner sisters.
Under the gaze of Pearl Tyner’s portrait in the house that now bears her name, Anne Spencer Daves agreed to add her family’s names to the legacy of great alumni philanthropists who helped build FSU into a top 20 university, and make the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences a top-ranked education program among public institutions.
In recognition of her sustained support to FSU over the years, the FSU Board of Trustees voted in the summer of 2024 to rename our College — the college of Pearl and Mayme Tyner and more than 70,000 educators, counselors, and doctors — the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences.
THE INSPIRATION
Curtis Edward Spencer and Annie Laurie Mitchell married and, several years later, welcomed their daughter, Lois Annelle Spencer. They called her Anne.
After serving in the US Navy and, afterwards, opening a small restaurant with his brother-in-law, Curtis Spencer went to work for a grocery store chain based in Lakeland, Florida, purchased by entrepreneur George Jenkins. Spencer remained with the company for more than 30 years until his death, always embracing Jenkins’ philosophy of treating employees like family.
On Friday, October 16, Anne, an FSU graduate and 30-year career elementary teacher in Florida, was enjoying a teacher workday lunch away from school with friends when she received a call. The school office secretary knew where she could be reached.
Her father, suffering from lung cancer, had been taken to the hospital. Anne stayed at the hospital with her father until he passed away early Sunday morning, October 18th.
In the two days Anne was at the hospital with her father, he had difficulty speaking, but did share with her how he so regretted that he was unable to finish his education. According to his sister, also an Annelle, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade to help support his family of six. She remembers him delivering groceries and coal oil on a bicycle to residents in his small hometown.
Anne never forgot her father’s regret told to her the weekend of his death. In describing the inspiration for her and John’s first gift to FSU, she related:
When the Seminole drumbeat called me back to FSU in the fall of 1997, my heart had finally told me how I would honor my father.
“John and I met with Martha Stewart and Paula Fortunas of the FSU Foundation and established the Curtis Edward Spencer Endowed Scholarship in Elementary Education. This gift would enable others to have the education that circumstances had denied this fine man.”
PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES ACROSS CAMPUS
Since its inception, more than 100 scholarships have been awarded in the name of Curtis Edward Spencer, who never had the opportunity to complete his education. Inspired by her father’s legacy, Anne and John would go on to provide additional support to FSU for the better part of three decades.
In 2001, they created the Anne and John Daves Professor in Education, currently held by Dr. Sherry Southerland, Professor of Science Education and Co-Director of FSU-Teach. Dr. Southerland joined FSU in 2002 and has spent 22 years honoring the Daves’ legacy through excellence in teaching, research, and co-founding the FSU-Teach program in 2007 to recruit more students into STEM field teaching.
In 2009, Anne and John responded to the College’s economic disadvantage in recruiting top students and built the Anne Spencer Daves Fellowships Fund. College faculty had identified a problem recruiting top students who could receive more lucrative offers from other colleges. The Daves Fellowship program for top Ph.D. students provided the model on which the College has built a significant recruitment fellowship program that supports 24 students each year, four per each of the College’s six depart ments, with recruitment stipends in addition to their tuition waiver and graduate assistantship.
In 2014, Anne and John created the John W. Daves Veterans Support Fund to provide gap support for student veterans. Student veterans may have GI Bill benefits for tuition, but they often have additional expenses related to being older than tradi tional students, supporting families while attending classes, and for combat veterans, the added challenge of managing stress from experiences most students will never encounter. The John W. Daves Veterans Support Fund has also served as a model for three other donors to create veteran support funds for Anne’s College students.
In 2016, Anne and John also provided support to the FSU lab school, known as Florida High, through the creation of John W. Daves Space Flight Simulators for the Astronaut Challenge. These simulators encourage STEM students to work together to operate space flight simulators and space simulation laboratories. The Astronaut Challenge developed at FSU takes place at Cape Kennedy each spring.
All told, Anne and John have been major supporters to FSU every year since making their first gift in 1997, and their generosity extends beyond the College. They have supported the FSU Marine Lab beginning in 2015 where they funded the Anne and John Daves Closed Seawater System, built the Anne Daves Outdoor Classroom, and endowed the Anne Spencer Daves Field Trip Support Fund to support elementary school student visits to the Marine Lab.
They supported the Marching Chiefs on their trip to Normandy in 2019, endowed an archival fellowship with the World War II Institute for the Human Experience, and have contributed to the Veterans Legal Support Fund in the College of Law.
ANNE'S COLLEGE: THE OFFICIAL NICKNAME
While the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences is the official name of the college that will appear on student diplomas and faculty business cards, it is fair to say that the name is a bit of a mouthful. Often, colleges use the surname of the donor, so some might ask why we chose not to use the “Daves College” as our official nickname. One consideration is practical — Anne and John would tell you that the name is often mispronounced. It is pronounced like a plural of “Dave,” not as “Davis” or “Davies”, but the other consideration is more personal and more fitting of a teacher from FSU.
The College’s official name recognizes the two men whom Anne has loved throughout her life, but the name that will be used in everyday conversation will be named for her. After all, Daves is her husband, Spencer is her father, but Anne is a teacher from FSU.
Learn more about the impact of Anne Spencer Daves in our feature video at bit.ly/annespencerdaves
ANNE'S FSU COLLECTION
Anne Spencer Daves grew up in Polk County, Florida. As a student she participated in the FSU Choral Union and served as secretary and rush chairman of her sorority, Phi Mu. After graduation she returned to Central Florida where she began her career as an elementary teacher educating children and sharing her passion for the Garnet and the Gold.
During her time as a teacher, Anne met John Daves of Tennessee, who worked for NASA as a systems analyst in launch operations during the Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle projects. In retirement, he became a volunteer with NASA’s Public Affairs Office and loved his job as an escort for the Associated Press (AP) when they came to Kennedy Space Center to report on and photograph Space Shuttle launches and landings. The two wed and built their life together. Together they collected a treasure-trove of NASA memorabilia including a complete set of 135 shuttle launch envelopes postmarked on the day of each launch, as well as astronaut designed mission patches, and artifacts from John’s career. Their collection of NASA memorabilia has been donated to the College.
In addition to their collection of NASA memorabilia, Anne and John have gifted the College an immense collection of buttons, pins, Seminole Booster license plates, caps, shirts, books, programs and the assorted memorabilia representing 30 years of die-hard support. Included in the collection is Anne’s FSU freshman “Rat Hat” with the words “Beat Richmond” printed in ink on the brim, commemorating Anne’s first FSU game. FSU won the game 28-0 in Bill Peterson’s first year as head coach.
Anne and John lived their lives as so many Floridians have. They worked to educate Florida’s young people and reached for the stars through dedication to the space program. They walked Florida’s beaches collecting shells and enjoying the surf and seafood, and they followed the Seminoles wins and losses.
