These scholarships lifted a tremendous weight off my shoulders and have given me the precious gift of time — time that can be used to enhance my classroom learning with outside experiences through student involvement and community service.
— Heather Gribble, Arts and Sciences, Boise, Idaho
Support of Students — $37 million
Boise State University is committed to providing the highest quality learning environment for students. This requires offering academic programs that integrate theory and practice while engaging students in community-based experiential learning. The caliber of faculty, Boise State’s ability to attract undergraduate and graduate students, and the opportunities provided to students to experience a rich learning environment are all critical components in the formula for quality and student success.
Attracting Promising Students
With state record enrollment in nine of the last 10 years, Boise State serves a large and diverse student body. Undergraduate scholarships and graduate assistantships allow the university to attract the best and brightest students, helping to keep talented young people in Idaho and encouraging those from other areas of the country to look at all Boise State has to offer.
The university seeks to create scholarship opportunities for high-ability undergraduate students participating in programs such as the Honors College, as well as student-athletes competing in intercollegiate athletics. With less Idaho state aid and the rising costs for higher education, the university is also committed to creating opportunities for students who cannot afford tuition. At the graduate level, assistantships have the ability to attract high-caliber students capable of conducting collaborative research with talented faculty in demanding programs.
Improving Residential Life
A vibrant campus includes opportunities for students that create a bridge between learning and living. Boise State’s Residential Colleges offer personal and academic enrichment beyond the classroom and have been shown to increase student retention. This is achieved by clustering students who share similar interests and goals in a single residence hall or apartment complex. Current residential colleges include Engineering, Music, Leadership, Health, Business, Honors and Renaissance. Resources would support faculty time, operating budgets and the remodeling of residential hall space for faculty apartments so the residential colleges can thrive and grow.
On-campus housing for graduate students creates a vibrant graduate student culture, which in turn raises the overall academic quality for all students. Boise State aspires to expand its successful Graduate Residential Scholars Program, which allows the university to compete with the nation’s top schools for the best graduate students by combining assistantship stipends with tuition reimbursements and on-campus housing.
Providing Students Access to Library Resources
University libraries are central to the academic quality of the student-learning environment. Today’s 21st century library must provide a rich array of print and digital information for students and faculty. As Boise State’s student population grows and as the university adds undergraduate and graduate programs, additional funds will expand journal collections, databases and other classroom and research materials.
Fact: Idaho college graduates carry one of the nation’s highest average debts. About 71 percent of Idaho’s college undergraduates have student loans, and the average debt accrued by graduates of four-year colleges and universities exceeds $20,000.
Lynn Lubamersky
History Professor
Researching
the history of early modern Europe can be tricky
at times — the subject
is not exactly the focus of most mainstream academic
journals. So for history professor Lynn Lubamersky,
the library’s recent addition of the JSTOR
research database has been a lifesaver.
JSTOR includes the electronic texts of more than 600 journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences, including a number of specialized publications and journals not readily available in other collections.
Best of all, JSTOR is accessible online, providing on-demand access from any location. That’s a huge timesaver over previous research methods, Lubamersky said, which required hours of sorting through microfilm or visits to universities with larger collections, such as Stanford or UC-Berkeley.
The journal required a $66,000 one-time investment, plus a continuing commitment of $21,000 per year. That investment was justified, however, when in its first six months faculty and staff accessed more than 23,000 journal articles.
“Now I can get a lot of work done here at my desk, which is how it should be,” Lubamersky said. “This is a real godsend for faculty embarking on new research.”
