Donations received over the past year have resulted in the scholarship fund soaring from about $20,000 to its current total of $85,000, said Honors College Dean Brian Railsback. The big jump was the result of a number of large donations made to the fund by members of the college’s advisory board, which is composed of a group of Highlands citizens, and one anonymous gift of $13,000, he said.

Railsback announced the fund’s newly achieved endowed level at the Honors College’s recent pre-commencement banquet and medallion ceremony held at WCU’s A.K. Hinds University Center. Becoming “endowed” simply means that the fund has reached a high enough amount to allow for scholarships to be paid from interest earnings, rather than money being taken from the fund itself, he said.

Including five new $1,000 scholarships announced at the May 1 banquet, a total of 40 scholarships amounting to $45,000 in assistance have been provided to Honors College students over the past 10 years, with all the money taken directly from the fund. In spring 2009, the scholarships will be provided through a combination of interest earnings from the endowment and other money taken directly from the scholarship fund, but Railsback said plans are to provide scholarships in 2010 that will be composed entirely of interest earnings.

“Having an endowed scholarship fund is a great milestone for the Honors College since it means the scholarships will now be funded through perpetuity,” Railsback said. “We’ve come a long way.”

Railsback did the legwork – literally – to start the fund in 1997, the year WCU’s Honors College opened. He came up with the idea of doing a three-day bicycle ride for pledges from Cullowhee to the summit of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the East. That first fundraiser produced a couple of thousand dollars, and five more pledge rides have taken place since then to boost the scholarship fund, including Railsback’s re-creation of the 1997 ride in fall 2007 to celebrate the Honors College’s 10-year anniversary.

Railsback said he and the students and staff of the Honors College are grateful for the anonymous donation and “incredibly generous support” of the advisory board that led to the fund reaching the $85,000 mark. “I’m getting older and I’ve been worried about sustaining the fund. I’m grateful and my legs are grateful,” he said.

Now that the fund is endowed, the Honors College is looking to build it to a higher level so that more assistance can be provided to students, Railsback said. During the commencement banquet, Honors College alumnus James Hogan announced his plans to assist the college in raising money to take the fund to $100,000.

Hogan, who graduated from WCU in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English education, now works as a fundraiser for Davidson College. He has pledged an annual personal contribution of $1,000 toward the new effort, and other alumni of the Honors College will be contacted and asked to make contributions.

During the recent gathering, medallions were awarded to 57 graduating Honors College students, the largest class in the college’s history. Before the creation of the Honors College in 1997, WCU’s honors program involved 77 students, but in the past decade enrollment in the Honors College has blossomed to almost 1,400 students, and the college is the eight-largest honors college in the nation.

For more information about WCU’s Honors College, call (828) 227-7383 or click on http://www.wcu.edu/5499.asp.

Maintained by the Office of Public Relations
Last modified: Thursday, May 8, 2008