At the Board of Governors meeting on Friday, October 14, 2011, Ms. Erin Hartmans, a first-year Trent student and recipient of the prestigious Board of Governors Scholarship, visited the open session to offer her thanks to the Board for their support.
“It was an honour to have the opportunity to address the Board of Governors who so generously sponsored the scholarship,” said Ms. Hartmans. “I am immensely grateful to the Board for their support of my academic career.”
Originally from Guelph, Ontario, Ms. Hartmans is pursuing a double-major degree in Environmental Studies and International Development.
“As a result of the financial support from this scholarship, I have chosen to focus on joining a variety of campus groups that focus on community outreach and youth engagement such as the Trent Global Living Community; the KWIC/OXFAM "Food, Gender, Climate~Making Connections" Working Group; and the Free The Children MOBilizer youth activism group. In addition, I am participating in the Impact program, and I am a student notetaker for the notetaker program.
Ms. Hartmans also works part-time as the Resource Centre coodinator for the Kawartha World Issues Centre.
Funded through donations from current, former and honorary board members, the Board of Governor's Leadership Scholarship is awarded to an entering student who has shown outstanding leadership and involvement in his/her community as well as high academic achievement. Ms. Hartmans was selected from 122 prestigious scholarship applicants.
In her high school, Ms. Hartmans was a member of the student council for two years, being secretary in her second year. She organized the 30 Hour Famine fundraiser in 2010 and 2011, with over 150 student participants raising $7,000 each year. She was selected as one of 12 student leaders from Guelph to participate in a two-year youth leadership and community outreach program called Reach Lesotho, for which she had the opportunity to travel to the country of Lesotho with the Reach Lesotho team to film an inspirational documentary, while working with local Basotho teens on community development projects. Ms. Hartmans was also an active member of a variety of different fundraising committees and social justice clubs throughout her high-school career, and a regular volunteer at the free-breakfast program.
The Board of Governors Scholarship has an overall value of $18,000 consisting of full tuition for the first year of study and $4,500 in each of the succeeding three years of study, providing that an academic average of 80% is maintained in 5.0 Trent University credits in each academic year.
For more information on scholarships and financial aid at Trent, visit http://www.trentu.ca/financialaid/.
Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2011.