Rebecca Lund receives prestigious Phillips Scholarship

Release Date: 05/07/09

Rebecca Lund has been awarded a $15,650 scholarship from the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation. Lund is a sophomore at The College of St. Scholastica.

The Phillips Scholars Program is open to sophomores at 16 private colleges and universities in Minnesota. Six students are chosen each year to develop summer-long service learning programs they carry out between their junior and senior years. Each campus may submit one application per year for the scholarship.

The goal of Lund's proposed project, called "Do You Hear What I See," is to provide a day camp for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and their hearing classmates. The project objectives are to build relationships among the participants and teach hearing students about deaf culture, including American Sign Language.

Ultimately, Lund hopes her project will help decrease the social isolation that deaf and hard-of-hearing youth often encounter, and that their hearing peers will develop a greater understanding and appreciation of their deaf and hearing-impaired classmates and friends.

Lund is majoring in elementary/middle school education with an emphasis on social studies and a minor in American Sign Language. She hopes to secure a teaching position in a school serving a rural population and/or a high enrollment of American Indian students.

In addition to achieving high academic excellence, she is committed to volunteerism and involvement in service learning activities on campus and in the community. She has been an active member of the student group VITA (Volunteers Involved Through Action) for the past two years; served as a group leader for incoming first-year students during the Fall 2008 Community Service Orientation; and has been a participant in the College's semi-annual Community Day, during which St. Scholastica students, faculty and staff perform volunteer services throughout the Duluth-Superior area.

Lund was a member of the student group that planned and implemented the first Disability Awareness Day at the College. Eleven community organizations came to campus to discuss the services they provide to people with disabilities; over 100 people participated in this event.

St. Scholastica has had more Phillips Scholars than any other private school in Minnesota. St. Scholastica students have won the prestigious scholarship 12 out of 15 times since its inception in the mid-1990s. The awards recognize the students' dedication to community service and are given to potential leaders with outstanding academic credentials.

The Phillips Family Foundation continues Jay and Rose Phillips' commitments to making life better for those who suffer, by supporting efforts to improve the quality of healthcare, expand access to quality education for all people, and improve the lives of people who face the challenges of disabilities and discrimination. Phillips Scholarship projects exemplify new thinking about community needs and are selected based on their innovation and potential for creating long-term solutions to community problems. The Phillips, both of whom were children of Russian Jewish immigrants, created the foundation in 1944.

The Minnesota Private College Fund administers the Phillips Scholarships and provides mentoring to the scholars as they implement their projects. St. Scholastica is one of 17 private college and university members of the Minnesota Private College Council, Fund and Research Foundation.

The College of St. Scholastica is regularly recognized as one of the finest colleges of the Midwest. The 2009 "America's Best Colleges" survey by U.S. News & World Report magazine ranks St. Scholastica in the top tier of Midwestern universities. The Washington Post has rated St. Scholastica as one of the nation's 100 "hidden gems" among U.S. colleges and universities.