An alumnus of the College of Engineering and his wife are contributing $212,000 through a life insurance beneficiary designation to create two scholarships for electrical engineering students.
The two gifts — one for $112,000 and one for $100,000 — from Charles F. “Micky” Mayfield Jr. and his wife, Marybeth, will establish the Marybeth and Barbara Dunham Endowed Scholarship for Electrical Engineering and the Marybeth and Micky Mayfield Endowed Scholarship in Engineering.
The Marybeth and Barbara Dunham Endowed Scholarship for Electrical Engineering will be established with a $112,000 gift from Marybeth Dunham Mayfield, and the Marybeth and Micky Mayfield Endowed Scholarship in Engineering will be established with a $100,000 gift from Micky Mayfield. Both scholarships will be used to support undergraduates in the Department of Electrical Engineering, with preference given to students who graduated from El Dorado High School in Arkansas or any high school in Massachusetts.
A native of El Dorado, Micky Mayfield earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Mathematics from the University of Arkansas.
Following his graduation, Mayfield moved to Kansas City to work in engineering, but his career eventually took him to both coasts while he worked in econometrics and sales. The majority of his time was spent working for AT&T and later Lucent Technologies, where he led the highest revenue-generating sales team in the company’s history.
Today, Mayfield is vice president of sales for Coriant and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Engineering. He was named a College of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus in 2014.
Marybeth Mayfield grew up in Massachusetts and earned degrees in English and education from Salem State University before completing coursework toward a master’s in psychology at Harvard University. Like Micky, she worked extensively in the telecommunications field and spent 25 years with AT&T and later Lucent. The majority of her career has centered on project management for data center relocations in New York and New Jersey, which became particularly critical after the attacks on Sept. 11. She now works as a private contractor for data center relocations.
The Mayfields, who reside in Rogers, are life members of the Arkansas Alumni Association and will be inducted into the Towers of Old Main, a giving society honoring the university’s most generous benefactors.