It was a record-breaking season for NIRSA Foundation scholarships and stipends! Thank you to everyone who applied. After accounting for completeness and eligibility, we received the following qualified applications this year: 118 student applications, 99 professional applications, and 54 travel stipend applications. That’s 18 more applications than we received during the 2017 scholarship application season!

Applicants will be notified of their application status by mid-January 2018, and scholarship and stipend recipients will be publicly celebrated during the Opening General Session of the 2018 NIRSA Annual Conference & Campus Rec and Wellness Expo.

We want to give a shout out to Core Health & Fitness for presenting the Travel Assistance Stipend! Their generosity delivered an additional travel stipend this year for the Canadian Region.

We also want to thank our corporate partners and contributor for providing five student scholarships to NIRSA 2018. The work of the NIRSA Foundation would not be possible without their unwavering support. Help us say thank you by visiting their booths at the 2018 NIRSA Campus Rec and Wellness Expo!

Finally, we cannot send enough thanks, love, and appreciation to our NIRSA Foundation donors. Your support helps us maintain more than 20 endowments and funds from which we’ll award 62 scholarships and more than 30 J. Michael Dunn awards in 2018. Your donations send NIRSA members like Lisa Williamson, 2017 Barbara Brimi Heritage Fund scholarship recipient, to experience the amazing opportunities offered at NIRSA educational events.

 

Jen Gudaz is currently the Senior Associate Director of Athletics: Director of PE and Recreation at Cornell University and Chair of the NIRSA Foundation Scholarship Committee. Shomari Kee is currently the Associate Director, Programs at Florida Gulf Coast University and Chair of the NIRSA Foundation Travel Stipend Committee.