Senior Mentor Scholarship

The Senior Mentor program was begun at CLU in 1975 during the presidency of Dr. Mark Mathews under the directorship of Dr. Rudy and Mrs. Doris Edmund. It was an innovative and distinctive program in which teaching and professional retirees were able to spend one or more semesters at CLU as visiting lecturers or volunteers. These mentors, individuals or couples, were provided housing and meals in exchange for teaching and sharing of their life experiences with students. Because they were usually housed in Kramer Court in the middle of the campus, interaction with students was, by design, frequent. During the 30 years the program existed, CLU hosted some of academia’s finest senior mentors, each bringing his or her unique gifts to the students who met them.

The Senior Mentor Scholarship was the brainchild of two special mentors—Howie and Clarie Rose, who became coordinators of the program in 1990. Before retirement, Howie had served as Dean of Graduate Studies and the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin. He had been an athletic coach at both the high school and college level. Clarie’s expertise was in art and student personnel. Both eagerly entered the classroom and engaged in extracurricular activities with CLU students. So happy were they in their roles as senior mentors that they eventually spent nearly a decade guiding the program.

In 1993 Howie and Clarie conceived the idea of creating an endowed scholarship that would be a lasting legacy to the students they loved. The idea immediately received a positive response from other former senior mentors. The entire roster of mentors, with the Roses as cheerleaders, undertook the challenging task of creating and endowing a scholarship.

Beginning that year, Howie, a master communicator, sent an annual letter to all former CLU senior mentors, bringing them up to date on campus activities and developments, and providing news of former and incoming senior mentors. He was the persistent and exuberant link that kept the group connected to the University, and by 1997 the magic number for an endowed fund had been reached.

Those annual letters kept alive the goal of an endowed Senior Mentor Scholarship. The first award was made in 1998, with fourteen senior mentors present. A strong academic record, a solid Christian background and financial need are the three criteria for eligibility. In recognition of their many contributions to the University, including their efforts to establish the Senior Mentor Scholarship, the Roses were selected by the faculty and regents to receive the Distinguished Service Award in 1997.