PHOTO PROVIDED From left to right are AAUW member and scholarship supporter Dr. Linda Koch, AAUW Educational Foundation co-chair Dr. Julie Story, recipient Claire Milliken, AAUW member and scholarship supporter Sharon Taylor, and Rosana Campbell, Director of LHU’s Center for Global Engagement.

LOCK HAVEN — On June 10, 2018, AAUW Lock Haven awarded its inaugural Scholarship for Study Abroad to Claire Milliken, a junior at Lock Haven University who is now studying in Brussels, Belgium.

Milliken is planning to graduate in spring 2019 with a BA in International Studies and an International Relations concentration. The Lock Haven branch of the AAUW (American Association of University Women) has supported young women in their pursuit of a degree in higher education for decades.

Each spring AAUW Lock Haven Branch holds a used book sale that raises funds to support college scholarships for undergraduate and graduate women residents of Clinton County.

To further this mission, an AAUW-supported scholarship has been established to assist young women at LHU to take advantage of study abroad opportunities.

This AAUW Scholarship for Study Abroad is a logical union of the missions of both entities. For more than 40 years, Lock Haven University has been actively engaged in providing opportunities for students to participate in international educational exchanges.

President Frank Hamblin championed the idea in the 1970’s when a “special mission” in the area of International Education was assigned to, then, Lock Haven State College by the Department of Education of the Commonwealth of PA. The program grew and flourished under President Craig Dean Willis and was recognized nationally, and abroad, for its excellence.

Long term AAUW members and educators Sharon E. Taylor and Dr. Linda D. Koch support the Scholarship for Study Abroad, making the award possible. Taylor was a faculty member from before the first days of the Lock Haven State College international education program, a successful coach of field hockey and lacrosse, and Director of Athletics for a quarter century. She wants young women to benefit from international experience as she had. “In my professional life, which included decades in the U.S. Field Hockey Association and 15 years on the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee, I shared incredibly moving experiences, through sport, with men and women from around the world, at times, under very difficult circumstances, such as the very week after the attacks of September 11, 2001. My international experiences, and the friends I made through them, are among the most satisfying of my professional life, and I want to support such opportunities for other young women. Additionally, I am happy to lend support since it was through the LHU program that I met an international student from Brazil, Rosana Campbell, who is now the Director of the Center for Global Engagement. Rosana has taken initiatives in new and exciting directions that speak to the viability and success of the ideas for the program from its inception.”

Koch, a former Vice President for Student Affairs at LHU, also wants young women to have the opportunity to learn from study abroad. “I have always supported students, generally, and young women, in particular, to take advantage of new opportunities in many different areas, even if they don’t think they can do it or afford it. As a college graduate, and with virtually no money in my pocket, I went to Europe and traveled wherever I could go, hitching rides and living in youth hostels, and teaching English as a second language in Spain. I am happy to support the idea of study abroad for young women at LHU, who look much like I did, while trying to get an education.”

This spring, applications will be available for the 2019 AAUW Scholarship for Study Abroad. For information, contact Dr. Julie A. Story, Educational Foundation Co-Chair at jstory@lockhaven.edu. The AAUW Mission is to advance equity and education for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research.