MSF offering scholarship

By John Henry

Published Nov. 27, 2007

The Mizzou Student Foundation is now accepting applications for a new $500 scholarship targeted toward helping students who work more than 20 hours a week.

The MSF Tiger Pledge Scholarship, which will not be renewable, will be awarded to one full-time MU student who has taken more than 30 credit hours.

MSF member Adam Hickey said the scholarship was created to help students who the foundation believes need the most help. Hickey is a former staff member of The Maneater.

"Statistics show that the majority of students who drop out of college usually drop out of college their sophomore year," he said. "And then there are the ones who also are working full time, over more than 20 hours a week, so we basically wanted to be able to supply a scholarship to the students that we determined were in one of the demographics that had the biggest need."

Supervisor Laura Page said she works closely with MSF in the Office of Student Affairs. She said MSF student members will review all of the scholarship applications that the foundation receives and will decide who will receive the scholarship.

The students would look to see whether applicants have maintained strong grade-point averages with no academic flaws while working, she said.

"They will really just want the winning applicant to be somebody who is able to balance themselves," Page said.

To inform students about the scholarship, MSF placed notifications on the MU Info e-mail sent to all students, passed out fliers and put applications in visible spots across campus. But Page said not many people have filled out applications so far.

"We do not have too many, so we would love to have more, but I think as soon as this year goes well and we have someone who is a recipient of the reward, it will be a lot easier to advertise it in future years," Page said.

Since MSF was created, it has worked toward raising enough money to give out scholarships to MU students, Hickey said. Only now, after some fundraising efforts, has MSF been able to get to the point where it can give out scholarships, like the Tiger Pledge Scholarship, every semester.

Earlier this month, MSF partnered with University Bookstore to organize a Tiger Pledge Scholarship campaign to raise funds. MSF sold $5 coupon books that had discounts for the bookstore, and earlier this year, the bookstore asked its customers to add $1 to their total purchase price to help raise the money.

Proceeds from this campaign totaled $866.

MSF will partner with the University Bookstore to hold another campaign next year from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 to raise funds for the scholarship next semester.

Hickey said he appreciates the help of the University Bookstore. He said their participation has been crucial in MSF's attempts to fundraise and will allow the foundation to continue the scholarship for years to come.

"They have been extremely helpful," Hickey said. "They have gone out of their way to help us and provide us with opportunities and to really cater to what we are asking. It has been a wonderful experience working with them, and we look forward to working with them in the future."

Scholarship applications are available online on the MSF Web site. The deadline to turn in applications is Friday.