Ruprecht Scholarship

The Senior Mentor Program at CLC, launched during the Mark Mathews presidency, was highly successful, especially among students. The program was designed to allow retired professionals to spend a semester or two on the campus to share their expertise with students. They could determine their own methods of sharing—whether teaching, tutoring or advising—and were encouraged to spend time mingling with students.

Among the first senior mentors were Bernice “Ber”and Emil “Spitz” Ruprecht. Spitz and Bernice came to CLC in 1977 and literally hit the ground running. Spitz had been professor of English and children’s literature at Valparaiso University and Indiana University. As a senior mentor, he chose to identify with CLC’s English department. His focus on children’s literature added a new feature to the departmental offerings.

Ber Ruprecht had strengths all her own and she put them to good use. With her past experience and her many Lutheran connections, she immediately set about organizing the CLU Guild, a support group of Lutheran church women in Southern California. Under her leadership, the Guild grew to include nine chapters and 300 members throughout California. Their purpose was to help recruit students and support academic programs. One of the Guild’s major achievements was the endowment of the CLU Guild Scholarship in 1990. Given their level of campus community involvement, the Ruprechts were awarded the Exemplar Medallion in 1988 and were named Honorary Alumni in 1991.

Together Spitz and Ber were a very distinguished-looking couple. In fact, Ber was almost regal in her bearing. But there was something unique about their campus involvement. They attended almost every home men’s basketball game and Ber was the liveliest fan—so much so that sometimes Spitz refused to sit with her at the games. When they decided to start a scholarship of their own in 1988, they initially named it the Ruprecht Basketball Scholarship. The very next year when CLU moved into NCAA Division III sports, scholarships could no longer be awarded on the basis of a student’s participation in specific sports.

While this change came as a disappointment to Spitz and Ber, they reacted in their usual gracious way. They simply changed the name of their scholarship to the Ruprecht Scholarship and designated it for upper-division Lutheran students who declare English as their major. But Spitz and Ber still felt like winners! They enjoyed 64 years of marriage before his death in 1991. Ber passed away in 1999.