Nancy Stevens McMullin’s Estate Honors CSM Students with $565K in Legacy Gifts to Support Art and STEM Programs, and Equity in Education

Nancy Stevens McMullin’s Estate Honors CSM Students with $565K in Legacy Gifts to Support Art and STEM Programs, and Equity in Education

The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) Foundation has received $565,000 in gifts from CSM Foundation Director Emeritus Evie Hungerford in what is easily defined as the truest act of love for her lifelong friend Nancy Stevens McMullin, and their collective enduring commitment to education.

McMullin, a former Maryland educator, art enthusiast, world traveler, and Charles County socialite, died in 2020 at the age of 83 leaving her best friend Hungerford as the trustee and executor of her extensive estate. Hungerford, in turn, is showering nonprofits in Southern Maryland with donations in McMullin’s name – including the CSM Foundation.

Specifically, the funds from the estate will support CSM’s Kids College STEAM programming, the Innovation Studio, and Makerspace at the Velocity Center as well as STEM, Arts and Nursing/Healthcare programs. Hungerford also established the Nancy Stevens McMullin Scholarship Endowment to support CSM students in the Arts. In recognition of these generous gifts, the multi-purpose room at CSM’s Velocity Center will be named in McMullin’s honor and a room will be named at the college’s new Center for Health Sciences when it is completed at CSM’s Regional Hughesville Campus this fall.

McMullin’s estate is also providing the final funds needed to fully endow CSM’s new Distinguished Professor of Equity in Education. The $75,000 endowment, established by CSM President Dr. Maureen Murphy last fall, will support a selected professor each year who will mobilize equity programming for faculty, staff, administrators, students, and the Southern Maryland region.

“We are all – and I know I speak for everyone at CSM – simply overwhelmed and honored by this enormous act of generosity,” shared Murphy. “Evie is not just creating a beautiful legacy in Nancy’s name. These gifts will serve our communities for decades to come. We are truly grateful.”

“She would love the idea of supporting CSM in this way,” Hungerford said of McMullin. “She would be tickled. She was an educator at heart. Nancy always wanted to know every little thing that was going on. As a creative teacher and art aficionado, she saw and approached everything with curiosity and excitement. She always asked a thousand questions and shared her knowledge in ways that held everyone’s attention. Helping to spur innovation and support art programs at CSM would absolutely give her a thrill.”

Hungerford describes her life-long friendship with McMullin, captured in the photograph on the right, as committed and loyal. The two met in 1957 after McMullin relocated from Indiana to Hungerford’s Indian Head hometown with her first husband Gordon Blumfield, who was stationed at the base then known as the Naval Propellant Plant. McMullin became the new 5^th grade teacher at Indian Head Elementary School and it didn’t take long for Hungerford and McMullin to begin socializing and create a deep friendship that Hungerford now recounts as sisterly.

“We were frick and frack,” Hungerford laughed. “But she became everything to me. And I know Vince [Evie’s husband] and I were everything to her, too.”

The two spent their friendship at dances on the base, playing golf, hosting parties and fundraisers and supporting each other’s professional lives. In fact, Hungerford and McMullin began their relationship with Charles County Community College (CCCC) when McMullin was married to her second husband, former CCCC President Jay Carsey.

Hungerford’s career saw her establish Hungerford Associates Advertising, Design and Public Relations in 1977. In the late 1980s and 90s she was the first woman in Maryland to chair a Chamber of Commerce followed by the first female to chair the Charles County Economic Development Commission. During that time frame she was also appointed by the Charles County Commissioners to their new Economic Development Department's Advisory Board for the Arts, Entertainment and Tourism. Evie served on the CSM Foundation from 1998 to 2008 and was chair from 2003 through 2005. She and her husband Vince also received the Board of Trustees Distinguished Service Award from the College of Southern Maryland in 2007.

“Evie and Vince’s commitment to CSM is remarkable,” said CSM Foundation Executive Director Chelsea Clute. “They have made quite an impact by helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to support our students. And now, with the legacy she is creating for Nancy, everyone can understand why we call Evie the godmother of the CSM Foundation. Her passion for education and the arts is contagious.”  

“We had an extraordinary life,” Hungerford said of her and McMullin’s time together. “Nancy had boundless energy and there was no competing with her charm. She was the best possible auntie to our children Pam and Tony.”

McMullin’s career took her from Charles County Public Schools as a teacher to Prince George’s Public Schools where she served as a principal for more than a decade. Perhaps it was her “free-spirit, eccentric, unique superpowers” (all words Hungerford uses to describe McMullin) that took her to her next career in the art world.

In the late 80s, McMullin became the administrator of ‘Very Special Arts – Maryland’ a Kennedy Center-supported program that worked with disabled artists to lift their work, create equity for their contributions and bring visibility to their talents.

“She was amazing at Very Special Arts,” Hungerford explained. “She took challenged artists, piano players, dancers and she did wonderful things for them. She found her world with that job. She loved it.”

In 1999, McMullin met and married her third husband, retired estate attorney Joseph McMullin. They retired in homes both in Annapolis and North Myrtle Beach until the times of their deaths which occurred six months apart.

“Nancy was many things: Intelligent, curious, strong-willed, focused, articulate hedonistic,” Hungerford shared. “She was fun loving and never knew a stranger. Once known, however, you would never forget her.”

The CSM Foundation, a nonprofit, 501(c)3 charitable organization established in 1970, helps increase access to higher education at CSM through scholarship funding and assures the excellence of that education by raising and managing funds for college projects and objectives – including workforce development in Southern Maryland. The CSM Foundation is comprised of a tri-county, all-volunteer board of directors. To learn more about the CSM Foundation or to donate, visit the CSM Foundation online.