When you think about what a liberal arts education looks like, turn to Andre Yu Tiamco.

A senior at Birmingham-Southern, Yu Tiamco is finishing up his physics major, along with minors in math, music, and data science. He is also active on campus as the president of Spectrum and the secretary of Identity – both of which are LGBTQ+ student organizations that lead inclusive events and other support – and as the vice president of Theta Chi Fraternity.

With on-campus leadership and classes across several departments, Yu Tiamco is involved in multiple fields. That’s one of the reasons he was first drawn to BSC after hearing about it from his brother, Nino Yu Tiamco ’13, and sister-in-law, Catherine Gilliland Yu Tiamco ’14.

“Smaller schools have much more interconnected communities, and BSC is no exception,” Yu Tiamco says. “I enjoy being able to walk around campus and run into faces ranging from familiar to friendly daily. My brother and his wife both spoke very highly of the school, specifically praising the value of a liberal arts education, even for STEM majors such as myself.”

Yu Tiamco will graduate 70 years after Dr. H. Newton Malony ’52, but both share the same academic dedication, campus involvement, and pursuit of multiple subjects across disciplines. It’s no mistake that they share an appreciation of their education – Yu Tiamco is a recipient of the Amy Malony Samuels Endowed Scholarship.

The scholarship was established and named after Dr. Malony’s mother, Amy Malony Samuels, a schoolteacher who worked hard to support her son’s education. She carefully saved up her money and, in 1969, left a bequest of $10,000 to the College to support more hardworking and deserving BSC students.

Malony was an active student at BSC, where he met his wife, Suzanna Davis Malony ’54. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in history, he went on to pursue several graduate degrees, earning his Master of Divinity from Yale University and his Master of Science and Ph.D. in psychology from Vanderbilt University.

Much like Yu Tiamco, Malony studied seemingly disconnected disciplines, but each subject played an important role in his career at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, where he served as a professor with distinction from 1969 to 2015.

After Samuels established the scholarship, the Malony family also committed to supporting the endowment and, in 2009, decided to fund a new scholarship honoring Suzanna Davis Malony’s parents, educators Grace Davis and Harold Davis. The Davis family showed a commitment to education and generosity, and they are now honored through an additional award for BSC students.

Endowed scholarships like those from the Malony and Davis families support BSC students throughout their time on the Hilltop and support whatever goals and dreams they pursue. For Yu Tiamco, he hopes to begin Ph.D. work in physics and see where that takes him – maybe back into the classroom as a professor.

“The scholarships I have received during my time at BSC have provided the monetary leeway to not only succeed in my academics, but to do so comfortably such that I can more freely enjoy my time here as well,” he says.

If you want to learn more about planned giving and other scholarships at the College, please email [email protected].