Scholarships help recipients excel

• Susan Muro
• Becky Collins
• Ryan Kuttel
• Luz Gonzalez

Susan Muro ('01) won two scholarships during her senior year at Western, and the opportunities they created for her to excel were much more than she had ever imagined.

Susan Muro ('01), scholarship recipient, former webmaster for the Communication Club and outstanding 2001 graduate from the communication department

The Covington, Wash., resident had sought several scholarships because she had promised her mother she would pay for her last two years of college herself.

During her two years at Green River Community College getting her AA degree, Muro had seen how her mother, a single parent, struggled to pay tuition.

So, during her junior year at Western, Muro used her summer wages, student loans and pay from her weekend job during the school year to pay for her room and board herself.

Still, Muro found, "I was always feeling strained and pushed for time."

The scholarship money awarded for her senior year (a $450 George Ruggles scholarship for communication majors and the $1,000 Sene and Louella Carlile scholarship) ended all that.

She stopped worrying so much about money and started concentrating more on her studies. She got involved in the communication club on campus, creating a Web site for it and planning educational programs such as a forum on how to get an internship.

"It allowed me to excel rather than just to complete" the bachelor's degree, Muro said.

And it sure paid off. Muro was named the outstanding graduate from the communication department at the June commencement.

Muro is just one of the thousands of Western students who received more than $5 million in scholarships last year from Western, the state of Washington and private scholarship funds.

The Western Washington University Foundation last year awarded 546 scholarships totaling more than $700,000, all from the generous contributions of alumni, parents, corporations and others

And although scholarship dollars have increased 248 percent the last eight years, the university faces the major challenge of having many more exceptional students knocking on its doors over the next decade.

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Becky Collins ('02) at only 20 years old, has already achieved college success and will receive her undergraduate degree in March. 

Collins graduated from Bellingham High School in 1999 already armed with her A.A. from Whatcom Community College through the Running Start Program. "School is most important to me," said Collins. "I am a very studious person and I like to focus my time on my education." At Western, Collins received the George C. Ruggles Memorial Scholarship this past spring, one of the many scholarships, grants and financial aid that have helped Collins through college. The Ruggles Memorial Endowment was established in 1996 in memory of George Ruggles, a 1969 Western graduate, and annually recognizes a student in Western’s Communication Department.

Collins is majoring in Communication and created her own minor in Business Relations. "I have so many different interests, and a communication major is broad and encompasses so many areas," said Collins. Collins hopes to find a job that will allow her to use her varied interests, especially her writing and artistic abilities. Ideally, Collins would love to work in public relations, event coordination or publicity for a non-profit organization focusing on social injustices, such as the Literacy Council. Collins doesn’t know when she will have time, but she would like to join the Peace Corps and is currently learning more about the program.

Scholastically, Collins excels but she has many other interests as well. Her hobbies include drawing, cooking, running, reading and photography. In the past, Collins has put her love for cooking to good use by volunteering helping to prepare meals at the Shawn Humphry House in Bellingham. She has also volunteered with the Parks and Recreation Department working with children, at the Agape Women’s and Children’s Home cleaning and doing small repairs, and gave companionship to senior citizens at St. Francis Extended Health Care.

Collins does work at Great Harvest Bread but tries to keep the hours she works to a minimum to keep school and volunteerism her highest priority. Collins will graduate in winter quarter, 2002, and plans to travel to Europe for a few months and then coming back to Bellingham to search for a career.

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Ryan Kuttel ('01), the outstanding graduate from the history department and one of seven graduates honored as Presidential Scholars at the June 16 commencement, covered almost all of his tuition costs during five years at Western through Western scholarships, tuition waivers and private scholarship awards.

The Blaine resident found paying jobs during his summers. But during the school year he was able to volunteer as a soccer coach, a tutor at Lummi Tribal High School and as a member of the Native American Talent Search Project and to play intramural sports. Known for his outstanding research work on the history of the Ku Klux Klan in Washington state, which challenged most scholars' interpretations of the organization, he also was an active member of Phi Alpha Theta, an honor society for history scholars, and graduated with a 3.98 grade point average.

"I wouldn't have been able to do that without the scholarships," Kuttel said.

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    Luz Gonzalez ('02), hopes to become a physician someday. Scholarships have helped Luz, a senior from the Tri-Cities area, to succeed at being the first in her large family to graduate from high school and to go to college. 

Scholarship money "allows me to focus on my studies so I can maintain a high GPA," said Gonzalez, the winner of a James Michael Haskell Memorial Scholarship, Multicultural Achievement Program Scholarship and several private scholarships. "It also forces me to maintain a high GPA, so it works both ways."

Gonzalez, who will graduate after winter quarter 2002 with a double major in biology and Spanish and a minor in chemistry, has participated in numerous volunteer and extracurricular activities while at Western and hopes to serve economically disadvantaged and underprivileged people as a physician some day.

The scholarships have meant not only financial support, but emotional, as well, she says. "It's helping me to accomplish a life-long dream."

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