Community Leaders Association Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Mark and Jean Mathews

Three members of the California Lutheran College staff met in 1963 to brainstorm ways that they could stimulate the interest of Thousand Oaks businesses in the athletic and cultural programs of the college. And thus the Community Leaders Association (CLA) was born. In 1966 the association was broadened to encompass all Conejo Valley residents who shared a desire to take an active role in the academic and cultural development of the community through service to CLC (which became California Lutheran University in 1986). The Community Leaders Association has been a mainstay of support to CLU ever since. Both faculty and students have reaped the benefits of its fundraising activities.

The story of this scholarship began, surprisingly enough, with a car raffle. In 1981 Dr. Mark Mathews, CLU president (1972-1980), donated his car to the Community Leaders Association, which promptly raffled it off for $381.55. The CLA contributed additional gifts to what the car had raised so that they could reach $2,500 and create a scholarship in Mark and Jean Mathews’ name. While Mark was uncomfortable with a scholarship in their names, the CLA insisted and the name stuck. The first award of the Mark and Jean Mathews Scholarship was made in 1986. By 1990, the CLA had added more contributions to the scholarship fund, enabling it to reach $10,000, the amount required at that time for endowment.

CLA members made support of students through scholarships their ongoing priority. Desiring to perpetuate the organization’s name and purpose, the Community Leaders Association started an endowment fund of its own in 1993. It was named the Community Leaders Endowed Scholarship and was first awarded on Honors Day 1994. But the story does not end there.

In 1997 this dedicated group of CLU supporters made the decision to merge the funds and names of the two scholarships into one. They renamed the resulting scholarship the Community Leaders Association Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Mark and Jean Mathews. The criteria for recipients remained constant—returning undergraduate students who have demonstrated commitment to service, thereby translating knowledge, skill and understanding into service. These had been Mark’s signature criteria for the original scholarship that bore his name, and they remained in place for the newly merged scholarship, the Community Leaders Association Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Mark and Jean Mathews.