The Morse Leadership Institute develops our students' knowledge about themselves, their role as citizens, their personal empowerment, ability to collaborate with others, and awareness of issues of equity and social justice through service to the community. Leadership development is a personal journey that results in personal benefit, but benefitting from the help of others obliges us to "pay it forward" and help others in return.
We can't ignore how many of our students need emergency support. While navigating their college experience, many Leadership Studies students work full time jobs just to pay rent and tuition. Many care for ailing family members while going to school full time. Others have their own significant health issues. Many are under-represented students and/or first generation students. Many students balance several of these challenges simultaneously.
When managing so much, a small aberration can have compounding, devastating effects. A broken down car can result in job loss, inability to pay rent or tuition, and lead to dropping out. But a few hundred dollars at the moment of need to can be what a student needs to keep on track. And waiting until traditional scholarships are available in the next year doesn’t help them right now.
Our students need a different kind of scholarship in addition to the traditional kind—an emergency or gap scholarship that works on their schedules, tied to their financial needs. The Pay It Forward Scholarship is designed to provide emergency financial assistance to Leadership Studies minors in their final two years of school, when fewer scholarship dollars tend to be available to students.
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