You never know when somebody will say something to you that alters the trajectory of your life. When it comes, it might not sound as profound as you would hope. For instance, when he was an undergraduate student at Temple, Dr. Patrick H. Tolan, CLA ‘78, recalls being asked into the office of former psychology professor Jerome Resnick.
“I’m trying to understand what a steelworker is doing in my class,” Resnick told him.
At the time, Tolan was juggling classes with shifts as a steelfitter, like many Temple students commuting and working their way through college. But the issue wasn’t what he did for work—he lacked the grades, focus and hands-on experience required to stand out in the competitive psychology major.
“I didn’t understand anything about graduate school,” recalls Tolan. “I thought if you wanted to go to graduate school, you just told them you’d like to come. That’s how naive I was.”
The meeting was a turning point. On his professor’s advice, Tolan buckled down in his studies and took a pay cut to gain field experience in a local psychiatric hospital. The effort paid off: he went on to earn his PhD in Psychology from the University of Tennessee and launch a 40-year career in the field.
Tolan and his wife, Virginia Evans, are now giving back to the College of Liberal Arts, where it all started, by establishing the Patrick H. Tolan, PhD and Virginia B. Evans, Esq. Scholarship for Psychology. This scholarship will provide support to CLA psychology majors, with special consideration for students interested in children’s mental health. Youth development has been central to Tolan’s career. He spent ten years as director of the University of Illinois' Institute for Juvenile Research before becoming a founding director of Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia’s Positive Youth Development Center.
“When I got to graduate school, I came to realize I had a really strong scientific education— stronger than a lot of my fellow students who had gone to more renowned schools that were more difficult to get into,” says Tolan. “Doing my undergraduate work at Temple was a critical opportunity and boost for me, so I had an interest in showing my appreciation, given the difference it made for me.”
Tolan and Evans first met and dated in high school in Doylestown, PA, but life and careers took them in different directions until they reconnected at their 35th reunion. Evans was a federal prosecutor for 25 years in the Eastern District of New York and the District of Maryland. After closing the federal chapter of her career, she moved on to a series of ventures in the realm of healthcare law, consulting and serving as defense counsel for multiple companies and providers, including serving as Vice President, General Counsel and Compliance Officer for a four-hospital system in Lynchburg, VA.
Today, the two consider themselves retired. In his newfound free time, he has also taken up cooking lessons. (“It’s a mixed blessing—he’s a good cook, but the kitchen is very messy afterwards,” says Evans with a laugh). However, even in retirement, the couple has not stopped investing their time, energy and hearts into the causes, institutions and people they believe in.
“We’re not quite ready to hang up our dancing shoes,” says Evans. “At this stage of our careers, we have knowledge, and there’s a lot we can offer back to our communities. I think, if you have the resources, it’s really important to give back.”
Tolan’s Temple connection has added a generation: his daughter, Colleen Tolan, earned her PhD in Communications in 2023.
With their new scholarship, the couple hopes to offer Temple psychology undergraduates the same kind of nudge that shaped Tolan’s path all those years ago—steel work experience not required.