Foundation Disburses Nearly $1 Million in Scholarships

For the 2011-12 academic year, the UAFS Foundation disbursed nearly $1 million in scholarships to a total of 434 deserving students. Chancellor Paul B. Beran, Ph.D., announced the achievement at the 2011 Scholarship Banquet, a fall dinner where scholarship donors meet “their” students—the recipients of their scholarships.

 

“Keep in mind, though,” Beran told the assembled scholarship students, “as grateful as you are, that your own scholarship is only a tiny fraction of the good these folks do. Without going too far into the details of how endowments work, let me just tell you that after you graduate, the same scholarship will go to another deserving student. And then another. And another. And it will mean as much to each of them as it does to you.

 

“… What the private, Foundation scholarships we’re celebrating tonight,” Beran continued, “really represent for most of the students receiving them is opportunity — the same kind of opportunity we’re intent on providing at UAFS — that priceless chance to show your stuff.

 

“That opportunity can take many forms. At one end of the spectrum, a scholarship might mean the opportunity for a single, working parent to attend college at all. At the other end, it might simply be the opportunity for a promising student to concentrate one hundred percent on his or her studies, rather than having to work part-time to pay the bills.

 

“But in every case a Foundation scholarship to UAFS means the opportunity to learn directly from world-class faculty in state-of-the-art facilities on a beautiful campus, to live in campus housing that we’ll put up against any in the country, to study abroad in any one of a variety of countries, to study here alongside international students from across the globe, to intern with any one of our many great community partners, to enjoy exciting NCAA athletics, a diverse intramural program, and a vibrant cultural life. The opportunity, in a word, to be part of a truly first-rate regional university. And that, again, is something you can’t put a price on.”