Ebony Bobcat Network Urban Scholarship
Your gift to the Ebony Bobcat Network (EBN) Urban Scholarship Endowment will help provide scholarships for deserving students from urban areas across the state of Ohio.
The EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment, created in honor of President Roderick McDavis, Ohio University’s first African American president, provides life-changing tuition assistance to students accepted into the Urban Scholars Program. The Urban Scholars Program provides scholarships and professional development support to high achieving students from urban school districts across the state of Ohio.
At his September 2004 inauguration, Ohio University President Emeritus Roderick J. McDavis articulated a goal of increasing diversity initiatives across OHIO’s campuses, with the creation of the Urban Scholars Program. The EBN Urban Scholarship Fund, now called the EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment, was formed in 2010, and became fully endowed on April 18, 2019, with OHIO’s first Giving Day.
Dr. Patricia Ackerman, BA ’66, first African American female chair of the Ohio University Foundation Board of Trustees, Chair Emeritus, and Ms. LaWanna McKinley White, BSED ’65, first National President, Ebony Bobcat Network, and others worked closely with President Emeritus McDavis to ensure that the EBN Urban Scholarship was established and is now endowed into perpetuity.
The EBN Urban Scholars must meet the following criteria to receive funding:
- Be full-time undergraduate students enrolled in or accepted for admission into OHIO University;
- Be enrolled in or accepted for admission into the Urban Scholars Program; and
- Have a demonstrated financial need.
In May 2020, the EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment received its second endowment, a planned gift, the EBN-Dr. Michele Curtis Penick, 1966 Scholarship Endowment benefiting students majoring in early childhood education, in the Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education.
The EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment is a part of the OHIO Match program, an undergraduate scholarship investment program, which provides $.50 for every dollar committed to eligible scholarship endowments. Every gift received by the EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment will receive this match through June 30, 2024. For example, if a donor wants to pledge $5,000 through June 30, 2024, as long as the gift is honored by June 30, 2024, it will be match-eligible of $2,500. This makes the total gift to OHIO $7,500.
Continued contributions to the EBN Urban Scholarship Endowment are appreciated as this endowment enables urban are students to receive a meaningful education from OHIO University that will positively change the course of their lives.