Report from the Education Committee

By Dr. Nicky Kay Michael, Chair
For the January 2014 Delaware Indian News

We want to extend our appreciation for your vote to pass the new Trust Document, which effectively increases the scholarships to 25% of the interest gained from our former Trust Monies. More importantly, our students thank you!

These last few months have been very active. A few of those highlights include:

On October 22, we held a Scholarship Workshop attended by Operation Eagle and several other local Indian and education programs. Cara Cowan Watts, Councilmember from the Cherokee Nation, presented strategies for applying and obtaining award winning scholarships. We are very grateful for her time and energy.

Scholarship applications soon can be submitted via the Internet! For all you tech savvy college students, we felt that updating our application to meet today’s cyber society, we should at the very least, provide an on-line application process. We will still, however, accept hard copies of your scholarship application. Check our web site (www.delawaretribe.org) for updates about when this goes live.

At our monthly Education Committee meeting on December 16, we had to make some tough decisions. Although we increased the percentage from the interest of the Trust Monies, given the amount of applications we received this year, we are unable to sustain providing $400 per semester scholarships through the entire year of 2014. The Education Committee had to decrease the amount to $300 per semester. We apologize to our students who depend and need our scholarships. In January, we will be holding a workshop to address how to increase the Education monies through other possibilities, such as developing a fundraising system.

If you have an outstanding Delaware college student you would like to recognize, please email me at nickykaymichael@gmail.com. Let me know their course of study, GPA, and why you think they should be recognized. We appreciate all your support and hope all our students and families have a wonderful holiday season.