Couple’s Generosity Helped Create Marco Institute, Continues to Support Arts
Katherine Riggsby and her late husband, Stuart, have left their mark on UT, both as long-time employees and as donors supporting wide-ranging interests.
Katherine Riggsby was a campus system programmer; she retired in 2008. Stuart Riggsby was an assistant professor and associate head of the Department of Microbiology and associate dean and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; he retired in 2004 after 35 years with UT.
The couple’s giving helped secure the National Endowment for the Humanities grant that created the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. They have also contributed to the Humanities Center, the School of Music, and the Clarence Brown Theatre. The Riggsbys received the college’s Philanthropist Award in 2015.
Stuart Riggsby passed away in 2018 at age 81. Katherine Riggsby now lives in a retirement community in Oregon.
Despite having science backgrounds, most of the couple’s gifts have benefitted the humanities and the arts.
“I think my dad thought he could get a lot of bang for his buck that way,” said their son, Andrew Riggsby, the Lucy Shoe Meritt Professor in Classics at the University of Texas, Austin.
Stuart and Katherine Riggsby met at Yale University. He was a doctoral student, and Katherine, who had a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University, worked in a lab.
“She’s the only person I know of who went to Harvard on a Betty Crocker Future Homemakers of America Scholarship,” Andrew Riggsby said.
Katherine Riggsby later earned her master’s degree in computer science at UT.
The Marco Institute’s Riggsby Lecture on Medieval Mediterranean History and Culture and its Riggsby Library were named in the couple’s honor.
Former Marco Director Jay Rubenstein once said the Riggsbys’ support went well beyond money: “Every year after (the Riggsby Lecture), the guest speaker and a few lucky faculty would have dinner with Stuart and Kate. We would talk about history and literature, the Mediterranean, culinary culture, the history of opera and recorded music—you never could be entirely sure where the conversation would go.”
Andrew Riggsby said his father enjoyed small roles in theater productions. Both of his parents occasionally played the recorder in early music groups.
“Mom had musical talent,” he said. “Dad was extremely enthusiastic.”
Both were foodies.
“My brother and I were always taught that we should be able to cook,” Andrew Riggsby said. “My mother would say, ‘Anybody who can do a chemistry experiment can cook a recipe.’
“They were very hands-off, lead-by-example kind of people.”
Andrew Riggsby dedicated his 2019 book, Mosaics of Knowledge: Representing Information in the Roman World, to his parents:
“My father was a scientist with a strong amateur interest in premodern history …. And even before learning of her career as a computer programmer, one could spot my mother’s interest in data and design from the way she puts together a quilt.”
-Story by Amy Blakely
