Scholarship Opportunities for History Majors
James E. Mitchell Scholarship Award
The history department is pleased to
invite senior history majors to apply for the James E. Mitchell
Scholarship Award. This is a one-time, non-renewable
scholarship, of up to $,1000, that recipients use to help pay tuition and fees in their
first year in graduate or professional school. The Award is
available each year to one graduating senior.
James E. Mitchell Scholarship Application Information(PDF)
Jean Fox Abruzzino Memorial Award
For the fourteenth consecutive year, the Alma College history department is pleased to invite applications for the Jean Fox Abruzzino Memorial Award, named in memory and honor of a former Alma College history major and made possible by an endowment fund created by her family and friends. The recipient will receive an award of up to $1,000 that will be applied toward payment of the recipients tuition and room and board bill for the next fall term and have her/his name inscribed on a plaque that is located prominently near the history department offices. The name of the winner will be announced near the end of each term.
Abruzzino Memorial Award Application Information (PDF)
M.J.J. Smith Society Endowment
As many of you know, Dr. M.J.J. Smith was for many years the chairperson of the Alma College history department and the college’s pre-law director. He was also a Dana Professor and, in the 1990's prior to his official retirement in 1997, the Reid-Knox Professor of American History.
For more than six years a team of alumni solicited gifts to create an endowment for the M.J.J. Smith Society. The college’s administration agreed to match each dollar raised by this alumni team with a dollar produced by the “Cherished Ever” capital campaign once the alumni team raised $250,000 in actual gifts. The alumni succeeded, and the match has been made, creating a generous endowment to fund scholarships for graduate or professional school study by graduating Alma College history majors.
Sufficient cash is on hand in the M.J.J. Smith Society endowment to award two or three scholarships to graduating seniors. We don’t yet know the cash amount of the scholarships, but they should be between $8,000 and $12,000. The M.J.J. Smith Society Scholarship is a one-time, non-renewable cash award that a recipient uses to pay tuition, fees, and/or books (but not room, board, or other living expenses) during the recipient’s first year in graduate or professional school. The scholarship is to be used to help the recipient pay the difference between the recipient’s tuition, fees, and required textbook expenses and what the recipient receives in scholarship aid from other sources. A recipient of a Smith Society Scholarship activates it by enrolling in a graduate or professional school no later than August or September following the academic year in which the recipient graduated from Alma College. Failure to begin graduate or professional school at that time will result in forfeiture of the scholarship. Alma College will send the scholarship money directly to the business office or bookstore of the institution where the recipient enrolls for graduate or professional degree work. The Selection Committee reserves the right not to award a Smith Society Scholarship if, in its judgment, no graduating senior meets the criteria sufficiently
Smith Society Endowment Application Information (PDF)
