Professor Gloria Soiya’s Two Scholarships Will Be Further Endowed Through Her Will

When longtime business education professor Gloria Soiya was establishing two scholarships for DePaul students that will be further endowed through her will, she was asked if she wanted one of them to be in her name. She replied that one would be named for her parents and the other for her late husband. “There’s a plaque in the College of Education listing all the names of those who taught in education,” said Gloria, who taught at DePaul from 1960 to 1984. “I don’t need anything more.”

The Theodore and Theresa Krom Endowed Scholarship, named for Gloria’s parents, is for a College of Education student, while the Dr. William Soiya Endowed Chemistry Scholarship is for a student in Liberal Arts & Sciences. Both scholarships are for students in good academic standing with financial need.

“I am 91 years old—in May I will be 92—and I have no family left, so I wanted to get these estate things decided,” Gloria said. “DePaul is where I want it to go. I just loved teaching. The students were great, and you weren’t sitting at a desk all day. The staff all knew each other and cared about each other. It was all great fun.”

Gloria taught high school business education for several years in Naperville, Illinois. She met her husband William (“Bill”), a Chicago dentist, through their volunteer efforts at a Catholic-sponsored group home that served young women in the Chicago area. They were married for 41 years.

“One of the last times I visited DePaul I was at the scholarship luncheon and the young man who had gotten the first chemistry scholarship told me that he had gone on to become a doctor,” Gloria said. “That was wonderful to hear. I am so glad to be giving back to DePaul.”