Volunteer Couple Gives Entire Estate to Create Two New Scholarships
Whether it’s attending games in Neyland Stadium, sharing a beer and a sandwich at the Roman Room of Sam & Andy’s on the Strip (“a big date night for us”), or participating in the Pride of the Southland Band under the illustrious WJ Julian (“I hope the uniforms aren’t wool anymore!”), Bob (’81) and Joni (’81) Goan cherish the memories of their time as UT students. The university established the foundation for their careers and their life together. Now UT is lighting the way for their legacies through the scholarship endowments that their newly drafted estate plans will make possible.
Music is how they met. Bob grew up in Knoxville, and Joni moved to the area as a preteen with her family. They played in the same Knoxville middle school band and continued to play in high school. In college they began seriously dating and married before completing their degrees. Bob was an all-state oboe player, and Joni began in clarinet but switched to flags when they were part of the Pride their first year at UT.
“One time I almost hit Dr. Julian with my flag during practice,” recalls Joni with a laugh. “He nearly kicked me out of band!”
They also recall with gratitude the ability to work while attending UT and the number of grants and scholarships they each received, some of which came from the university. For that assistance and all the things their education has helped them build since, the two decided to give their entire estate to establish two new scholarships at UT—one for engineering majors and one for business majors.
“UT was very good to us with grants, scholarships, and other opportunities to be successful. UT set me up to be successful in life,” says Joni.
“I worked and received multiple scholarships and grants while at UT, and this helped me tremendously,” adds Bob. “We are sincerely grateful to UT, and we hope we can help the students of the future as much as UT helped us.”
When the Goans first contacted UT’s Office of Gift Planning, they knew they wanted to include UT in their estate through a trust but weren’t sure how to go about it. The knowledgeable support and resources they were given have resulted in two new scholarship endowments that will support significant awards in perpetuity for engineering and business students, covering everything from tuition to room and board to funding for study abroad.
“I hope these scholarships set students up for a successful career and give them a boost over the competition for great jobs in their field of interest,” says Joni. “That’s one reason we added criteria for international study—to broaden opportunities for success.”
“UT is a culture, a mindset, and a place to learn,” adds Bob. “If students take advantage of the opportunity at UT and work diligently, their odds of success and achieving their goals in life are unbounded.”
As well as a love for their alma mater, the Goans have shared industries and workplaces over the course of their careers. While Joni studied personnel management in business and Bob studied electrical engineering, each worked in the defense industry and spent the past couple of decades employed by the University of Texas at Austin.
As a contracts manager for a large research unit, Joni helped program and research managers navigate the complexity of federal and state contracting and ensured that the organization was compliant with federal and state requirements. She retired in 2017 after negotiating the university’s largest-ever sponsored research contract.
“As a UT student my favorite class was business law, and that motivated me to pursue the contracting profession,” says Joni. “I didn’t want to be a lawyer, so it made me consider other options in that general area.
“In my career, I’m proudest of my work assisting with important research initiatives and defense-related programs,” she continues.
Bob has also led a fulfilling career in support of the nation’s defense. He is program manager of the Systems Engineering/Test and Evaluation Group for the university’s Applied Research Laboratories, working on advanced systems for the Navy and Army.
Through his earlier engineering and development work, Bob holds a patent related to a laser-guided rocket that’s still used in military operations. The innovations he’s developed are significant, but what’s most meaningful to him are the people he has trained and mentored.
“While I’ve received numerous letters of recognition from my program sponsors in the government, there’s really nothing that can compare to a young person’s gratitude for teaching them and helping them be successful,” says Bob. “I’m proud of training our young sailors and soldiers to use systems I helped develop, and I’ve loved mentoring and bringing young engineers along in their careers.
“At UT, I developed the discipline and perseverance needed to pursue one’s goals,” he continues. “I had some brilliant professors, and they gave me the motivation I needed to work hard and to recognize the fact that I’ll never stop learning in my life. This all served me very well in my career.”
Based on their experiences as students at UT, the couple knew they wanted to supply significant scholarships that would support recipients’ full financial needs—tuition and beyond. UT’s largest first-year class of nearly 6,700 students enrolled in fall 2023. About 93 percent of those students received some form of financial support, so need remains high for support like the Goans’.
“We want to help students in need, like we were, with the financial burdens of attending UT so they too can be successful and hopefully one day give back,” says Bob. “UT helped us when we really needed help, and we want to pass that on to future generations of students.”
Just as UT helped carry the torch for Joni and Bob, Goan Scholars will have their path to a UT degree lit by two generous Vols who went before them.
