Catherine Meldrum | Honorary Degree Recipients 2024

Catherine “Cathie” Roper Meldrum knows that making a difference in the world doesn’t happen in a day. “You do it over time and it adds up,” she said.
That philosophy has guided the Meldrum Foundation’s remarkable legacy of philanthropy that continues to benefit educational endeavors, the arts and cultural activities and humanitarian programs.
Meldrum, a Salt Lake City native, attended Olympus High School and then the U on a needs-based scholarship. Her mother was a teacher and, following in her footsteps, Meldrum received a degree in elementary education. What does she remember from those days? A campus that required lots of walking, something today’s students can relate to, and performing as a member of the “Utahans,” now the Utah Dance Team, at football and basketball games.
It was at the U that Meldrum met her husband, Peter. A favorite “date night” was watching a show at Pioneer Memorial Theatre, which would become a lifelong activity. She graduated in 1969 and, after Peter graduated in 1970, they married.
They spent time in Alabama and Pittsburgh while Peter served in the Army and then returned to Salt Lake City. Peter, who passed away in 2018, co-founded and served as CEO of Myriad Genetics, which developed the first commercial test for the breast cancer gene.
Meldrum worked for several years as a substitute teacher in Pittsburgh and as a third-grade school teacher in Utah before pausing her career to care for their son, Christopher. Once he reached school age, Meldrum spent nine years as a preschool teacher.
The couple established the Meldrum Foundation with the goal of supporting education, artistic and cultural activities and humanitarian programs.
Their gifts include an endowed professorship in the Department of Chemical Engineering, scholarships honoring their parents at the U and Westminster University, a scholarship for first-generation students, and the creation of the Meldrum Theatre and renovation of Meldrum House, where Pioneer Theatre Company’s visiting artists, directors and designers stay.
“We started with our parents and thought let’s keep doing this,” Meldrum said, adding that creating scholarships, particularly for first-gen students, “is very useful to a lot of people and makes us feel good. Once one person is going then someone else in the family wants to do that, too. Sometimes you build on the success of your family members.”
Meldrum serves on Westminster University’s Woman’s Board and has been an active member of the Philanthropic Educational Organization for 50 years and belongs to Chapter E in Utah. Meldrum’s advice to graduates? “Do what you love to do, then it doesn’t feel like working.”