UPDATED: Sept. 24, 1:09 a.m.

A scholarship fund will be created in Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s honor that will help students pay for immersion and engagement programs, Board of Trustees members announced Monday.

These programs include study abroad, internships and the Syracuse University Los Angeles program, said Peter Englot, associate vice president for public affairs. The scholarship fund will cover activities that help immerse students in the real world, as well as their future professional fields, he said.

“It was, in particular, under her tenure that SU vigorously developed these kind of opportunities to get out in the world,” he said.

The scholarship fund will help offset the additional costs of these programs, which are not usually covered by standard financial aid packages, according to a Monday SU News release.  The Board of Trustees is asking for donations to the fund.

The eligibility requirements have not been developed yet, nor has the dollar amount given per student, Englot said. Criteria for earning the scholarship will be developed in the coming months, he said.

He said the board hasn’t talked about any more details — such as whether the scholarship will be merit-based.

As far as donations, the goal is open-ended, Englot said, with no particular dollar amount in mind. But he said people have already contacted the university the day of the announcement about donating money.

“We’ve already seen expression of high interest,” he said.

Among those who have donated are Melvin Stith, former dean of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and his wife Patricia.

The scholarship fund, Patricia Stith said, is a “fitting way” to keep Cantor’s support of SU students going.

“Her philosophy has always been that students should go out and experience the world,” she said of Cantor. Patricia Stith said her husband has always been interested in helping Whitman students study abroad and supporting similar opportunities.

The kinds of programs funded by the scholarship will help students by exposing them to different kinds of people and help them work “harmoniously” with people of different backgrounds, Patricia Stith said.

Having known for a while that Cantor was leaving SU, those who cared about her started thinking of ways to honor her tenure, she said.

The people who came up with the idea for the scholarship could’ve done it in a lot of other ways, Patricia Stith said, but Cantor “really cared about students going out into the world and becoming better people.”

Cantor announced she would leave last October, and will depart SU to serve as chancellor of Rutgers University’s Newark, N.J., campus on Jan. 1.

 

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Published on September 23, 2013 at 7:22 pm

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