Identity area
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Authorized form of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Dr. Helen Johnson Van Zante (1906-1990), a distinguished scientist and pioneering developer of the home microwave oven, grew up on a farm in Brookings County, SD. She attended South Dakota State College [SDSC] where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. Later, she pursued advanced graduate work in physics at Iowa State University, which was very unusual study for a woman in the 1930s, where she completed a doctor's degree. While at SDSC, she studied traditional studio arts with Professor Ada B. Caldwell, which led to a lifelong avocation as a painter of still life, landscape, and genre subjects. Dr. Van Zante bequeathed a collection of her paintings to the Department of Visual Arts following a retrospective exhibition in the Ritz Gallery in 1987.
Dr. Van Zante received an honorary doctorate from South Dakota State University in 1987. In 1989, Van Zante received recognition from the South Dakota Board of Regents as a Centennial Alumni. She also established the substantial Van Zante Endowment to support visiting professors on such subjects as housing, home furnishings, and household technology, which the Interior Design program in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences developed along with the Department of Visual Arts. This endowment supports the Van Zante Visiting Professorships in the Visual Arts and Design Forums in Interior Design at South Dakota State University. The visiting professorship brings artists to the university campus for annual design forums, allowing students the opportunity to learn first-hand from working artists.