Arlene Eva Langley-Mendenhall, a 1978 criminology and sociology double major graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, will gift more than $3 million to establish the Arlene Eva Langley Memorial Scholarship at IUP.
Arlene Eva Langley-Mendenhall presenting to Dan Lee’s criminology 101 class
The scholarship will be used to support tuition, fees, and books for two full-time seniors annually: a student who is majoring in education and a student who is majoring in criminology. To qualify for the scholarship, students must have at least a 3.25 grade point average, be a Pennsylvania resident, and have financial need.
This gift is part of Impact 150, the university’s $150-million comprehensive campaign. The campaign, the largest in the university’s history, launched on August 23 in conjunction with the university’s 150th celebration carnival, part of the university’s sesquicentennial events.
The Impact 150 Campaign centers around raising funds for healthy students, including supporting students academically and personally; a healthy university, including maintaining IUP’s commitment to excellence and innovation; and healthy communities, including IUP’s work to establish a college of osteopathic medicine.
“Arlene Langley-Mendenhall was a trailblazer in her profession, and IUP is proud of her accomplishments,” IUP President Michael Driscoll said. “Her many achievements in her career and her life demonstrate how the IUP experience challenges and elevates students who are willing to work hard. We are very grateful for her loyalty and generosity to IUP. Her scholarship will challenge and elevate generations of future students,” he said.
Langley-Mendenhall, born in Sharon, grew up in Grove City. She currently makes her home in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where she has lived for more than 30 years. She was also a 14-year resident of New Cumberland while working at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill.
She returned to IUP for the 2025 Homecoming celebration and was a guest speaker for two criminology classes.
“Arlene’s gift is a testament to the commitment and dedication that she and so many other of our alumni have to IUP,” IUP Major Gifts Officer John Buckshaw said. “We are privileged that Arlene is part of the IUP community and thank her for supporting students at IUP.”
Langley-Mendenhall was given early admission to IUP at 16 and began her studies at IUP at the age of 17 as a math major. She had her eighteenth birthday in Sutton Hall, where she lived as a freshman. When she got a C in calculus during her first semester (her first C grade ever), she decided to switch her major to education. She spent two semesters as an education major before switching to a double major in criminology and sociology. She left IUP mid-way during her junior year. She married and had a son.
She returned to IUP in 1977 with her four-year-old son. She took classes every semester and during the summer sessions, and with her previous academic credits, completed her degree in 16 months. She worked very hard in her studies—“I never got another C,” she said—eventually graduating cum laude from IUP.
“IUP welcomed me back and made it easy for me to finish my studies,” she said. “I’m grateful for the education I received at IUP. I believe IUP will be a good caretaker of this gift and that this gift will help students to complete their education,” she said.
“The Arlene Eva Langley Memorial Scholarship is designed to put needy students through their last year of school, so they don’t have to struggle as much,” she said. “I don’t have enough money to put up a building, or to cure cancer, but I do have enough money to help students graduate,” she said. “I want to help students who have worked hard, and who just need that extra help to get over the finish line,” she said.
“While criminology was my major and the focus of my career, I also want to support students studying to be teachers. It’s important that everyone has a good education. We need good educators in order to provide that education for all,” she said.
Langley-Mendenhall was raised in a blue-collar working family that held education in high regard and demonstrated and instilled in her a strong work ethic. Her mother owned and operated a women’s apparel shop, and her father was an insurance agent. Her grandmother, Eva, was a single mother who worked in a grocery store.
She got her first practical experience in criminology through an internship at George Junior Republic, an all-boys institution in Grove City. After graduating from IUP in December 1978, she worked as a house mother for a group home for young women. She then worked for the Mercer County drug council; when the drug council closed, she took a job at Thiel College in admissions.
After successfully completing civil service exams, she was offered a position as a records specialist at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, an all-male institution. The profession at that time was extremely male-oriented, and she was only the second female record specialist to ever work there. Her job required her to create and maintain accurate information and records for inmates coming into the institution.
She was promoted to corrections counselor at the diagnostic center at the institution—the first female corrections counselor in the history of the Camp Hill facility.
This work required her to do interviews with incoming inmates to produce classifications summaries—“writing their life stories”—along with being their counselor. Her assessments also included making recommendations for what prisons the inmates should be sent to and how they might gain parole.
“I was very, very, careful with my work, and got the reputation for not making mistakes,” she said. “These were people’s lives, so I paid attention to the details and worked hard to do my work carefully and correctly,” she said. She was also responsible for doing orientation for inmates coming into the institution.
She was in this position when the first inmate with HIV-AIDS came to the institution, which was new territory for everyone.
“This was the 1980s, so it was not very welcoming to women, but I eventually gained my coworkers’ respect,” she said. “Today, there are many more female counselors, but someone had to come first and open the doors for women,” she said.
She also worked at the Camp Hill facility during an uprising in 1989, which resulted in a fire there and injuries to 70 inmates and 138 personnel. Fortunately, she was not injured during the event.
“I never had an inmate be violent to me; there were rude remarks, but no one ever physically hurt me,” she said.
Procedures changed after the uprising; all inmates who arrived at the diagnostic center were still required to do an in-person intake interview with Langley-Mendenhall, but they received orientation information from a video that she created.
In 1993, after 14 years of service, she took early retirement from her work at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill. This offered her the opportunity to travel and to care for her mother.
She has been to all 50 states, camping with her mother in a travel trailer.
“My mother and I had a rule—you had to spend at least seven days in a state for us to check it off the map,” she said.
After her mother’s passing, she visited all seven continents, including Antarctica, and about 80 countries, including China, Egypt, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and Ukraine.
“I’ve always been a saver, and I started thinking about establishing a scholarship at IUP two decades ago, and established the Arlene Eva Langley Memorial Scholarship at IUP in 2012,” she said. “Education is so important, and my IUP education opened doors for me. I’m very happy to create this legacy and to help deserving students,” she said.
Since its founding in 1875, IUP has evolved from a teacher-training institution into a doctoral research university recognized for its commitment to student success and achievement. As IUP celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2025 and through the Impact 150 comprehensive campaign, the university honors a legacy of educational excellence while looking to its next 150 years of student success, innovation, leadership in healthcare education, and public service.