Luth Tenorio Endowment creates lasting impact for School of Nursing and College

For Luth Tenorio, the decision to become a nurse didn’t come from a love of helping people, or a desire to heal. 

It came the old-fashioned way. 

“My dad suggested it,” said Tenorio, sitting comfortably on the couch of her Bloomington apartment. 

But while Dad may have planted the seed, it was Luth—with inquisitiveness, curiosity, kindness and empathy—who truly made the nurse in her grow. 

Tenorio spent many years at Minnesota State Mankato as a nursing faculty member before leaving for leadership positions elsewhere. But her time in Mankato was special, she said, including the opportunities she had to help people. It was so special, in fact, that she recently established an endowment in the College of Allied Health and Nursing to fund an annual lectureship. Her gift of $125,000 will help educate nursing students in perpetuity with inspiring lectures and speakers. The endowment will cover honorariums and other fees associated with bringing in people who can share experience, wisdom, expertise and research. 

Drs. Narciso and Luth Tenorio Inaugural Research Lecture

The first speaker under Tenorio’s endowed lectureship was Dr. Wendy Looman (pictured), a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing. She’s also chair of the Child and Family Health Cooperative and director of the Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs. She spoke April 12 at the College of Allied Health and Nursing Drs. Narciso and Luth Tenorio Inaugural Research Lecture Series. 

“I’m just delighted that the university is interested in doing this,” Tenorio said. 

Tenorio (born Luth Mendiola) was one of nine children, all of whom attended Silliman University in the city of Dumaguete, Philippines. While there, she met Narciso Tenorio, the man who would eventually become her husband—but that would have to wait a few moves. 

After earning a nursing degree in the Philippines, Tenorio knew she wasn’t done learning. While master’s programs for nursing were few and far between at the time (this was the mid-1960s, after all), she eventually found an internship opportunity with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which at the time had an affiliation with New York University. After that she applied for, and was accepted at, the University of Indiana’s master’s program in nursing. And not long after that, she noticed a university in southern Minnesota had an opening on its faculty. 

Tenorio took that position and began her career as an educator at what was then called Mankato State College. (The name Minnesota State University, Mankato wouldn’t come until 1998.) In addition to teaching, she worked shifts at the local hospital, just as she’d done while getting her master’s degree in Indiana. Eventually she’d earn a Ph.D at Texas Woman's University and launch herself into the realm of department leadership. 

One of her students was Sandra Eggenberger, the now-retired former chair of the School of Nursing. 

“Luth was the first teacher that encouraged me to think about the nursing major when I was uncertain about my direction at Minnesota State University,” Eggenberger said. “She made learning to take temperatures exciting and important. After I obtained my first graduate degree she helped me learn to become a better educator and researcher in the school of nursing. She has remained my mentor all these years. While she was a leader in nursing, Luth always stayed supportive of the School of Nursing.” 

Tenorio stayed in Mankato for over 30 years before leaving for a position at the University of Miami-Ohio, and then eventually to a deanship at the University of Seattle. 

Her generosity, inspired by both her husband’s wise money management—“He specialized in taxation, and he felt it's better to give it to charitable institutions rather than just give it to the government,” Tenorio said—and her own sense of philanthropy, hasn’t been limited to Minnesota State Mankato’s nursing students. She’d previously set up an endowment of an equal amount for the Minnesota State Mankato College of Business, as well as a nursing lectureship endowment at the University of Seattle. 

Lori Pickell-Stangel, development director for the College of Allied Health and Nursing, said Tenorio’s endowment gift is unique. 

“One thing she did that was extremely generous and we really appreciate is that she opened it up to the entire College of Allied Health and Nursing,” Pickell-Stangel said. “Within the college we have eight different departments, everything from social work to dietetics, family and consumer science, physical education. So, every other year it will be focused just on nursing and the School of Nursing will get to choose the speaker. And then on the off years the other departments can bring someone in on a different topic.”