Alumni donations create emergency scholarship fund

 An emergency scholarship fund was created at Norwich University by the alumni class of 1952 because of the recent economic situation and its effect on university students.

 President Richard W. Schneider worked to create the fund to help students get through the hard economic times.

"I decided that we had to save students and keep them in school, Schneider said. "So we made a pledge to the students that if your mom and dad have lost a job you weren't leaving."

"It's pretty expensive and I can't completely afford it," said Matt Allard, a 21-year-old junior history major from New Britain, Conn. Allard has to cover all costs left over after financial aid.

"So it's a big help," Allard said.

Students started calling the school about problems with financial aid over the summer.

Some parents who qualified for loans couldn't borrow money through the equity in their house, and could not keep their kids in school, according to Schneider.

The recession is "affecting various students in various ways," said Richard Rebmann, chief financial officer at Norwich. "For some of them there are pressures that were not there before."

The emergency scholarship is a new idea at Norwich that most students were not aware of.

"I didn't know about (the new fund) until this summer," said Sabrina Smith (not her real name), a Norwich junior who wishes to remain anonymous. "I had some family issues."

According to Smith, her family was unable to come up the money to pay for school in the same way that they had in years past. This left a hole in her financial aid package, and she was unsure how she would come up with the money.

She contacted the school and learned she was eligible to receive aid from the Emergency   Scholarship Fund.  

"There is a form that they fill out, called a special circumstance form, that they can get in the Office of Student Financial Planning," said Rebmann. "They fill out their form and it informs the financial aid director whether or not they have a problem that would qualify them for the fund."

The scholarship is given to students who have a qualifying grade point average. If they do not meet the requirement then they can't receive the funding.

"You have to have a 2.0 (GPA) and you have to be in good academic standing," said

Schneider. "We want to invest in students academically."

"Fifteen hundred dollars a semester is not very much but it's enough to help," said Smith. "It's 1500 more dollars to pay for school."

This money may only be a small amount but it helps students stay at school a little bit longer.

The class of 1952 offered the scholarship only to corps students in good academic standing, not to civilian students.

"We had one donor give us a significant gift. The only restriction he put on (it was) that it was for corps students," Schneider said. "He was a corps kid and that's all we had in those days. He agreed with us and understood the need."

Some students said they believe the scholarship should be available for all Norwich students.

"I don't necessarily think that's fair," Smith said. "The class of 52 was just corps back then and (today) civilians are a big part of this university too. It's only fair (that they should be included)."

Norwich alumni remember and understand the difficulties in paying for a private school education, and also the extra costs associated with being a member of the Corps of Cadets.

"It shows that they want to support you guys and they want to make sure that the school stays healthy," Schneider said. "They want students to stay here. They believe in us and our mission," he said.