Posted 3:36 p.m. Monday, April 6, 2015
Herb Jones, ’54, is one of more than 100 alumni assisting with the scholarship application review process this spring.
Alumni volunteers read scholarship applications
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Herb Jones, ’54, who now lives in Virginia and Florida, poses with his granddaughter Tori Lewis, who is attending Auburn University. Jones says watching his granddaughters apply for scholarships reminded him of the importance of this financial boost in college.[/caption]
Alumnus Herb Jones knows the impact a scholarship can have. Not only did he receive one while paying his way through college back in the 1950s, but, more recently, his three granddaughters have all received scholarships.
The importance of giving college students a financial boost is the main reason Jones volunteered to read and rank scholarship applications for the UW-L Foundation. Jones is one of more than 100 alumni assisting with the process this spring. Volunteer reviewers include alumni, staff and past scholarship recipients.
“Engaging alumni in the process truly reinforces how much these scholarships mean to people,” says Sara Olson, UW-L scholarship coordinator. “When someone who graduated from here in the 1950s remembers what a scholarship meant to them, that says something.”
An online scholarship application system has allowed alumni from across the U.S. to assist with the process, says Olson. All the work is done entirely online. Scholarships will be awarded at the annual scholarship reception Monday, April 27 at UW-L.
Alumni volunteers provide relief to UW-L faculty and staff who take on the brunt of reading and sorting of applications. In a typical year, each member of a committee in the College of Science and Health reviews four scholarship funds with 100 or more applicants in each, says Cheryl Brye, an adviser in the dean’s office. But this year, with help from alumni, the committee has only two scholarships to review with about half the number of applicants, and they are already sorted.
Brye, a member of that committee, says the help has absolutely made an impact on her workload.
“Going through applications is really time consuming. To be thorough and fair you have to read everything about all of them,” says Brye. “I end up doing it at night and at home.”
Brye adds that alumni understand what makes a good candidate as someone who has been through school, graduated and is now working — sometimes in a similar field as the applicant.
“I’m appreciative and I hope alumni enjoy it too by getting in touch with university,” she says.
Jones says the familiar names on scholarship funds bring back fond UW-L memories. He was assigned applications submitted for the Robert W. and Beverly J. Batchelder Fund, the Leon Miller Scholarship and the Clark Van Galder Scholarship.
Jones knew Bob Batchelder, a former UW-L physical education teacher and coach, as a fellow student. He had Miller as a physical education teacher, and recalls Van Galder, who taught and coached football when he was a student. He also remembers sitting in classes taught by some of the most memorable faculty and administrators in UW-L history such as Myrtle Trowbridge, Carl Wimberly, Milton Cowley, Walter Wittich and Hans Reuter.
Jones’ decision to continue on in academia — earning a doctoral degree in health and safety education from Indiana University — was “a cumulative influence” from all of these star faculty. Jones went on to teach public health at the college level for 35 years.