STRIVE Fellowship

A tradition may be something handed down from the past, or it may be some-thing intentionally created to be handed down for the future. The STRIVE Fellowship is in the second category, a legacy of CLU graduate students for future graduate students.

At CLU, a fellowship differs from a scholarship in that it is awarded solely at the graduate level of academic work. Until the STRIVE Fellowship was established, CLU had no true fellowships that were explicitly for graduate students.

Although Cal Lutheran had offered master’s degrees in several disciplines for many years, the very first doctoral program was the Ed.D.—a doctorate in educational leadership. The first group of students was a cohort of 13 educational leaders who were pioneers in the program and who bonded closely during their years of study. In 2006, as their graduation drew near, they began to think of what their legacy might be. With the help of CLU advancement staff, they devised the STRIVE Fellowship as their class gift.

A bold move such as this requires a strong leader, and the project found that leader in Ed.D. student Susan Tandberg, who stepped into the role and guided the decision-making of her colleagues. Susan believed that as pioneers and leaders in the program, her class had the responsibility of to give back and provide an example for future classes of students to follow.
One of the group’s first steps was to choose a name for the fellowship. The Graduate School of Education had used the STRIVE acronym to summarize its mission as “to develop reflective, principled educators who strive to: Serve as mentors and models for moral and ethical leadership; Think critically to connect theory with practice; Respect all individuals; Include and respond to the needs of all learners; Value diversity; and Empower individuals to participate in educational growth and change.”
And so, the graduate students selected the STRIVE Fellowship for Excellence in Educational Leadership as the name of the fellowship and based their criteria on what the STRIVE acronym represents. The fellowship is intended to support leaders who want to pursue a doctorate in values-based leadership.