#saGROW Scholarship Recipients

It is with great pleasure that I announce the two Student Affairs graduate students who have earned the #saGROW scholarships!  The decision was not easy, with many of the pitches being creative, passionate, and quite thoughtful.  Nonetheless, two recipients had to be selected, and our winners are:

Kelley McCarthy, second year graduate student at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL  for her pitch: “Twitter+ a project of a lifetime+ asking the right ?s+ #sachat community+ building relationships= me presenting at NASPA FL drive in. Tweetworking: Lessons Learned from 52 Minds in 52 Weeks. Help me meet everyone IRL to share my data and stories.”  She will be using her scholarship money towards the upcoming NASPA annual conference and the Placement Exchange in Phoenix, AZ in March of 2012!

and…

Katie O’Brien from the University of Florida for her pitch: “Graduate student voluntarily getting foot in the door with LLCs. Program proposal accepted at 2011 ACUHO-I LLP Conference; have no funding to attend and present. Great career opportunity if I can get funding for my efforts. Thanks for your votes!”  She will be using her scholarship money towards the upcoming ACUHO-I LLC conference in Orlando, FL this October where she will be presenting, ” Utilizing graduate students in academic initiatives”  with Mary C. Jordan, Coordinator for Academic Residential Programs at the University of Florida.

This has been a great summer project, which started back on my birthday in May, asking the Student Affairs community help.  Answering the call, we raised $1,000 over the second half of May and June.  From there, 28 Student Affairs graduate students submitted #saGROW scholarship pitches and over 1,000 votes came in from the Student Affairs community and a “secret panel of judges.”  I’m so excited to award these scholarships to Kelley and Katie, who I know will maximize this professional development opportunity.

I will invite them to each be guest bloggers over the next month to share their stories with you.  I hope that if you see them at either of those conferences, you will personally congratulate them and support them in their efforts.

Thank you once again for all your support.  The online Student Affairs community continues to be amazing!