Pat Sommerville supports her extended Saint Mary’s family

Drs. Mike and Pat Sommerville had no children of their own, but through their work at Saint Mary’s, Pat said they expanded their family.

The couple retired from Saint Mary’s in 2008. Mike Sommerville retired as a professor of business and social science after working at the university for 38 years. That year Pat, also a professor of business, celebrated her 29th year at Saint Mary’s. They shared a marriage, an office, a lot of laughs, and a love of teaching.

Every Saint Mary’s business student — throughout those decades — took a class taught by a Sommerville, with Mike teaching the law classes and Pat teaching the accounting ones.

Even in their retirement, the couple wanted to continue helping their students learn. They established the Drs. Michael and Patricia Sommerville Endowed Scholarship to make an education affordable for deserving students of the future. When Michael passed away two years ago, the scholarship took on extra meaning for Pat.

“The kids called him Doc,” Pat Sommerville recalls. “After we got married, I was Mrs. Doc. There was that kind of relationship between students and faculty. The students would come to us with issues that had nothing to do with their classroom work, but had to do with their lives.

“I had gone to large state schools and taught at a community college, and I could see that Saint Mary’s had relationships between faculty and the students that I thought were just wonderful, and Mike did, too. We really cared about the students, and we developed lifelong relationships with them. I had taken classes in an auditorium and had a teacher’s assistant, but at Saint Mary’s our class sizes were small enough that we really knew who was in our classes.”

During an interview shortly before their retirement, Dr. Mike Sommerville said, “I’ve had an opportunity to work with young people and watch their growth and development and see their successes. To know that you had something to do with that, that you contributed, is very rewarding. It’s most important to know you have made a difference.”

Pat Sommerville said that after they moved to Florida, alumni would frequently stop by to visit on their way to or from Orlando on vacation. She also continues to exchange numerous Christmas cards and stays in contact with their former students.

“We had no children of our own,” she said. “Our work has given us a surrogate family. I am proud, and I know Mike would say the same, of the way our students built honest, thoughtful, caring lives for themselves.”

And, through their endowed scholarship, the Sommerville name will live on at Saint Mary’s.

“We just thought that, as we were lucky enough to have a really good retirement from Saint Mary’s, we could establish an endowment and let kids, whose parents perhaps didn’t have enough money, have an opportunity to go to what I felt then — and I still feel now — is an exceptional institution.”

Former students of theirs have also contributed to the scholarship, including Joe Philips ’80 who made a generous philanthropic pledge because he said Saint Mary’s gave him the foundation for a successful career. Now a retired partner from Accenture and a retired CIO from Integrys, Philips said Mike Sommerville’s business law and Pat Sommerville’s advanced accounting classes contributed to his success.

“Mike was also our Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity president,” Philips said. “He showed me the subtleties of Robert Rules of Order when we surprised the faculty with a new agenda item. We had lots of fun and I always remember fondly Mike’s counsel. The scholarship program allowed me to support the wonderful business program in Mike’s memory.”

Pat is touched by her former students’ generosity. “It’s a relationship that was important to us but clearly must have been important to them, too,” she said. “I don’t think you get that at a public institution. Saint Mary’s is unique. I think it’s the influence of the Christian Brothers. It’s the Brothers’ charism that makes it what it is. Students appreciate the education they got. It makes me very proud of them as successful people but also just good, kind people.”≠

Drs. Mike (now deceased) and Pat Sommerville taught in the Saint Mary’s Business Department for a combined total of nearly 70 years.