Guild Awards College Scholarships to 12 College Bound Students
The Jewish Guild for the Blind recently announced that scholarships of $10,000 will be awarded to 12 college-bound high school seniors who are legally blind. These GuildScholars will be starting their freshman year in September 2012.
A teacher of one of the winners is being acknowledged for his role in encouraging and bringing out the best in his students. Each applicant was asked to write an essay about a teacher whose encouragement made a great difference in their lives. The teacher chosen from among the applicants’ essays will receive a prize of $5,000.
“We’re mindful of the often unexpectedly large sums of money needed to accomplish a successful transition from high school to a college or university and we think that this scholarship money can be put to excellent use during this phase,” said Alan R. Morse, J.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of The Guild.
In his nominating essay, GuildScholar Thomas Kozlowski wrote that the teacher who helped him the most in high school was Robert M. Fenster, who has been selected as the GuildScholar Program’s Teacher of the Year, and who will receive a prize of $5,000. Mr. Fenster, who teaches history at Hillsborough High School (N.J.), impressed Mr. Kozlowski an honors student, from his sophomore year through his senior year as, “more of a Renaissance man than history teacher”. A teacher, who introduced his student to extracurricular activities, including a highly successful mock trial team and the school’s debate team, in order to perfect rhetorical argument and oratory.
The 12 recipients were chosen after a rigorous application process that included criteria calling for academic excellence, community involvement, legal blindness, financial need, and U.S. citizenship. The 2012 GuildScholar Program scholarship winners are:
Tomas R. Cacicedo of Coral Gables, Fla. – Belen Jesuit Preparatory School
Reid Robert Creviston of Brentwood, Tenn. – Ravenwood HS
Joseph Andrew Esposito of Armonk, N.Y. – Byram Hills HS
Daniel Gillen of New York, N.Y. – The Beacon School
Thomas Kozlowski of Hillsborough, N.J. – Hillsborough HS
Zachary Robert McCormick of Tulsa, Okla. – Bishop Kelly HS
Mary Margaret McLaughlin of Plymouth Meeting, Pa. – Mount Saint Joseph Academy
Chelsea Marks of Seaford, N.Y. – Seaford HS
Christina Murdoch of North Wales, Pa. – North Penn HS
Emily Pennington of Cincinnati, Ohio – Turpin HS
Siobhan Rigby of Richmond, Va. – Maggie Walker Governor’s School
Daniel James Solomon of Belle Harbor, N.Y. – Stuyvesant HS
For information on the GuildScholar Program’s scholarships for the 2013 academic year, contact Gordon Rovins at 212-769-7801 or e-mail guildscholar@jgb.org. #
