Thank you to everyone who applied for NIRSA Foundation scholarships and travel grants! After accounting for eligibility, we received the following qualified applications this year: 126 student applications, 103 professional applications, and 79 travel grant applications.
Applicants will be notified of their application status by late February 2020, and scholarship and travel grant recipients will be publicly celebrated during the Opening General Session of the 2020 NIRSA Annual Conference & Campus Rec and Wellness Expo.
We want to give a shout out to Core Health & Fitness for presenting the Travel Assistance Grant and to our corporate partners Matrix Fitness, Sports Imports, and Woodway for providing three student scholarships to NIRSA 2020. The work of the NIRSA Foundation would not be possible without the unwavering support of our corporate partners. Help us say thank you by visiting their booths at the 2020 NIRSA Campus Rec and Wellness Expo!
Finally, we cannot send enough gratitude, love, and appreciation to NIRSA Foundation donors. The generosity of our NIRSA family support helps us maintain more than 20 endowments from which we’ll award 73 scholarships and more than 30 J. Michael Dunn awards in 2020. Your donations send NIRSA members like Kirsten Schumacher, recipient of the 2019 Frederick R. Braden Scholarship for Social Justice in Collegiate Recreation, to experience the amazing opportunities offered at NIRSA educational events.
“Receiving a NIRSA Foundation Scholarship gave me a reaffirmation that the work I push to get recognized on campus is truly important,” Kirsten says. “This scholarship honored far more than my work: It honored my community and the fight we actively engage in to be represented and heard. To have the organization filled with professionals I respect and admire tell me that I am heading in the right direction meant the world to my career path.”
To learn more about the NIRSA Foundation registration scholarships and travel grants program, or to find out how you can help expand scholarship opportunities for the next generation of campus rec leaders, please contact a NIRSA Foundation Board member or NIRSA Director of Philanthropy Kim Holmes.
Shomari Kee is currently the Director of Campus Recreation at Northern Kentucky University. Linda Knight is currently the Executive Director of Health & Wellness at College of William and Mary. They both serve on the NIRSA Foundation Board of Directors.
