Scripps College faculty and staff are known for the deep care and personal attention they give undergraduates. So it was no surprise they would support an initiative to establish an endowed scholarship for a deserving Scripps student. The surprise was the amount raised and the timing: $75,000 this spring, one year ahead of schedule.
With 25% of faculty and 11% of staff making a gift, the Scripps College Faculty and Staff Endowed Scholarship met its goal within two years. An emeritus professor aided the effort with a challenge grant of $12,500 the first year and $10,000 the second.
“This percentage of giving from faculty and staff is significant,” said Associate Vice President of Institutional Advancement Ana Collisson. “It is greatly appreciated, especially coming from people who already give so much to this college.” Collisson noted that when overall support is taken into consideration, 22% of staff made gifts to Scripps for fiscal year 2008-09, and faculty also made gifts to other areas of the College
The scholarship will be awarded to an incoming first-year student with demonstrated financial need, with preference given to an alumna of the Scripps College Academy (SCA) — a yearlong outreach program to motivated high school women from racially and economically diverse groups in the greater Los Angeles area.
Professors Mary Hatcher-Skeers (biology) and Nancy Neiman Auerbach (international political economics) developed the idea, in 2007, of funding a loan-relieving scholarship for an SCA alumna entering Scripps. They both have taught in SCA since its inception in 2002. They worked with the College’s development office to make the scholarship the three-year goal for the faculty-staff annual campaign.
“We all agreed that faculty and staff were more likely to give to the campaign if we targeted a specific funding opportunity,” said Hatcher-Skeers. “Nancy and I knew that a scholarship for an SCA student would garner tremendous support, but even we could not have predicted the amazing success of this campaign. I am proud to work with a faculty and staff that cares so deeply for their students that the employees themselves have come together to fund this scholarship.”
Dorothy Royse, research analyst in Scripps’ development office, donated to the fund after talking to SCA students last year at a dinner organized through the admission office. “I know that what I gave was nothing compared to the big gifts we receive at Scripps,” she said, “but it warms my heart to know that the little contribution I made will make a big difference in the life of a student I met.”
SCA, run by Scripps since 2002, exposes young women to a liberal arts education and helps prepare them for future academic success. It began as an academically intensive two-week residential program that introduces high school women to the four major areas of study examined in college (fine arts, humanities/letters, natural sciences, and social sciences) within the context of an exploration of race, class, and gender. It has since grown to include a year-round program with book clubs, science projects, field trips, and more. It has also added a middle school outreach component to get students interested in college even sooner.
For the academic year 2009-10, five SCA alumnae will join the Class of 2013, and one of them will be awarded the first Faculty and Staff Endowed Scholarship. They will join seven SCA alumnae already on campus.
SCA Director Kelly Hewitt ’08 reports that she has heard from 35 of 45 SCA alumnae who graduated from high school this spring: all will attend college in the coming academic year, with 94% attending a four-year college or university, including such selective institutions as Yale, Brown, Pomona, Smith, Georgetown, USC, and UCLA, as well as Scripps.