Campus News
TRIO SCHOLARSHIPS Seven Luther students benefitted from scholarships designed specifically for Luther TRIO participants this year. Recipients of the Steven Mark Anderson ’85 Scholarship for 2015–16 include Makeda Barkley ’17, Samantha Ea ’16, MaiTeng Moua ’16, Fred Scaife ’16, Pedro Lopez Vega ’17, and Chris Wieseler ’17.
TRIO students work on applications during a drop-in Scholarship Day. This event, which is held each semester, enhances students’ searching skills and assists them in writing competitive scholarship essays.
TRIO awarded $1.5 million grant; program helps ensure success in college This fall, Luther’s TRIO Achievement Program (formerly Student Support Services) received a $1.5 million grant from the federal government to continue programming. TRIO is a U.S. Department of Education program with outreach programs nationwide that serve first-generation college students and students with financial need. More than 180 Luther students currently benefit from the program, which sees 92 percent of its participants graduate or continue toward graduation each year. Funding for TRIO programs is allocated every five years through a rigorous application process. Luther’s TRIO program scored full points on every measure of assessment. We talked to Luther TRIO director Tammy Hove to learn what Luther’s team is doing right. Federal TRIO programs are in place, Hove says, to provide equal opportunity for students to access and complete a postsecondary educa-
tion, which benefits families, communities, and society. “These programs position students to thrive in college and beyond,” she says. Students entering Luther’s TRIO program are matched with one of three advisers, who ensure that participants establish specific goals and have the resources, opportunities, and information they need to achieve them. This advising is in addition to a student’s academic advising, and it helps students gain what Hove calls “college knowledge,” in addition to fostering their personal potential. All first-year participants receive materials to help orient them to college life. Contents of the TRIO guidebook, for instance, range from a “first things first” checklist to time management tips to a chart highlighting key differences between high school and college. New TRIO students are also encouraged to enroll in a two-credit Foundations for Learn-
The 2015–16 recipient of the Karen Julesberg ’60 Scholarship was Kalinda Kolek ’17, who led a scholarship-application workshop this fall for other TRIO students. “It was a really neat opportunity to teach people about a topic that we don’t learn enough about in life or classes,” she says.
Winter 2016 Luther Alumni Magazine
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