Dr. Anna Maria Williams: An Enduring Impact

Dr. Anna Maria Williams left many marks on the UW-Parkside campus community during her decades of teaching and leadership. As a founding faculty member, Dr. Williams helped to establish UW-Parkside’s Life Science Discipline, subsequently the Biological Sciences Department, and drove the university’s pre-health program’s growth. Historically, close to 90 percent of students from the university's pre-med and pre-health programs, which Dr. Williams helped create, are accepted to medical professional schools. That rate is more than double the national average. UW-Parkside alumni and other friends created the Anna Maria Williams Endowed Scholarship in her honor, when she retired in 1990 after more than 20 years of teaching and leading the pre-health program.

Following Anna Maria’s death in 2015, her sister, Isabelle Williams, remained connected to the university and relished hearing from Anna Maria Williams Endowed Scholarship recipients each year. Given the Williams sisters’ lifetime of support for UW-Parkside students, it came as no surprise that Isabelle Williams left a significant portion of her estate to the UW-Parkside Foundation following her death in 2020. Her generous planned gift to the Anna Maria Williams Endowed Scholarship will make it possible for more pre-health students to learn and prepare for healthcare careers in the years to come.

“Anna Maria’s dedication to UW-Parkside students and their success is legendary, as our pre-health alumni will tell you,” said Chancellor Debbie Ford. “We’re so grateful that many more UW-Parkside students in the sciences will experience Anna Maria and Isabelle’s generosity and will continue to be inspired by the Williams sisters’ belief in what UW-Parkside students can achieve.”