The Pat Tillman Foundation recently awarded the university $100,000 to establish a scholarship at the university in honor of soldier and former Arizona Cardinals star football player Pat Tillman, who died in 2004 fighting in Afghanistan.
Tillman left the Cardinals in 2002 to fight in the U.S. Army, where he served in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Afer his death in 2004, his friends and family established the Tillman Foundation to encourage leadership and service, according to the foundation’s website.
The Leadership Through Action Tillman Military Scholarship will award student veterans and active servicemembers, as well as their dependents, on the basis of financial need, educational and career ambitions, length of service, personal achievements and service to others, according to the scholarship description on the university’s website.
The university was selected to receive this scholarship after a graduate student encountered Tillman’s widow, Marie Tillman, at the presidential inauguration in January and told her of the recent university veteran student panel where students discussed some of the difficulties veterans face returning to school, according to Director of Activities Marsha Guenzler-Stevens.
“We have an institution that is commited to serving veteran students,” Guenzler-Stevens said. “We’ll look to our Tillman scholars to be role models on this campus.”
The university initiated a task force in summer 2007 to study the veteran community and to make the university more veteran friendly, something that didn’t go unnoticed when the Tillman Foundation began to consider awarding the university the scholarship money. The university opened the Veterans Programs Office in fall 2007 to offer academic, financial and social support to veterans, said Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley.
Sophomore letters and sciences major Will Amos said the university “is a very veteran-friendly school.” Amos served in the U.S. Marine Corps and is now a member of Terp Vets, a student organization that started two years ago to help veterans connect with one another and socialize with other students.
“I know [military veterans] that were going to school out in Pennsylvania and North Carolina that couldn’t continue their education because they didn’t have enough money, but Maryland offers scholarships for veterans,” said Amos, who adds that the benefits of the GI Bill, which offers money for tuition to those serving in the military, are often insufficient.
The Tillman scholarship will aid veteran students facing this financial difficulty because the GI Bill does not cover expenses outside of tuition such as books, housing, food and child care, said Guenzler-Stevens.
Veterans often incur costs that the average student wouldn’t, explained Jim Rychner, director of development in Student Affairs. Many have families to take care of in addition to the everyday costs of school.
“Veteran students tend to be older. It is very different for them getting connected,” Rychner said. “They come to campus then get called back to active duty.”
Terp Vets President Laurissa Flowers, a sophomore kinesiology major who served in the Army for four years, agreed with Rychner that many veterans have families and thus their dependents would benefit from the Tillman Scholarship, especially spouses of wounded veterans. She also agreed that the university is very veteran-friendly.
“I didn’t have anyone to go to at first, but now I have all of these resources,” Flowers said.
The Tillman Scholarship is one of six military scholarships at the university, but it is unique because it’s available to graduate students who do not receive GI Bill benefits, said Guenzler-Stevens.
Sophomore criminal justice major Andrew Creveling, who joined the National Guard in 2005, said he will “definitely be applying” for the Tillman Scholarship because “reservists only get a fraction of the benefits that active duty [servicemembers] do.”
Applications for the Tillman Scholarship are available through the Veterans Programs Offices website and must be postmarked by April 27.
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