LONG BEACH - Cal State Long Beach students Kacee Bunton and Jennifer Osborne have been awarded the campus' Dorothy de Araujo Memorial Scholarship, named after the university staff emerita and alumna who died in the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, while flying home to California from Boston.The $1,000 scholarships, awarded by the campus' Staff Emeriti Association with financial support from the Schools First Federal Credit Union, are available to CSULB students whose parents or grandparents are staff employees or staff retirees of the university and its auxiliaries. This year, the scholarship also was opened up to CSULB staff members. Bunton, a 2009 CSULB graduate who is studying to complete her teaching credential in 2011, is the daughter of Greg Bunton, an equipment technician in the Department of Kinesiology. Osborne, the first staff recipient of the scholarship, is an academic advisor in the campus' University Center for Undergraduate Advising. Having earned her bachelor's degree in liberal studies from CSULB in 2001 and a master's degree in counseling for higher education from Cal State Northridge in 2006, Osborne will use the scholarship to help fund her studies as an Ed.D. candidate in the CSULB's educational leadership program. She plans to complete the doctorate in 2013. "I have never felt more honored in my life than when I received the phone call that I was chosen," said Osborne, a resident of Buena Park. "The past year 2009 was a very difficult year for both me and my husband. Being chosen as the recipient has helped me to realize that there is light at the end of the tunnel." De Araujo worked as a secretary in the business affairs office at the university from 1959-83. Before earning her BFA degree in drawing and painting from CSULB at the age of 72, she was already an accomplished artist having her works exhibited throughout the United States and in private collections in Brazil and Sweden.

********** Published: July 15, 2010 - Volume 9 - Issue 13