From Car Decals to Book Waivers

The new chrome car detail is available for purchase for those who want to contribute to the scholarship, or who just want to show some CU pride.
Photo Courtesy of Cassidy D’Angelo

Purchasing textbooks: something all college students and graduates share as the most dreaded time of any upcoming semester. It would be hard to imagine not having to worry about purchasing books for a whole academic year, and a new book waiver scholarship is being offered at Concord to make that possible.

    Melanie Farmer, who works in the Office of Grants and Contracts, helps with this scholarship, and is helping put together a fundraiser that makes this book waiver possible. “The Concord University Alumni Association holds some scholarship funds. One of which is a fairly new scholarship that we started and it is the ‘Hamlett-Smith Book Waiver Scholarship,’” says Farmer. 

    Although this scholarship is relatively new, Farmer says that this waiver has helped a few students for the past couple of years. “This scholarship has only been given out for the past two years. The first year, we were able to give out four and this year we were able to give out six,” she says.  

    The Hamlett-Smith Book Waiver Fund was originated by Dr. C.M. Hamlett in memory of his wife Nora and with funds from previous Hamlett-Smith scholarships. The scholarship is need-based. All undergraduate students must have a GPA of 2.5 or higher and graduate students must have a 3.0 GPA. This waiver covers the cost of books for the entire academic year.

    There were about forty-six applications for this book waiver which led Farmer to believe there was a need for this type of waiver. “We found that there is an overwhelming need for a book waiver. This is something that we felt was a way to help students tremendously,” Farmer says.

    Farmer adds that she believes it may not be possible for students to attend college without these types of scholarships. “There is funding out there and Concord gives out a tremendous amount of scholarship dollars, but there are people that fall into the cracks,” states Farmer. “This is not only a way to help out our existing Concord students, but it might be a way to keep our students here. I see it as a retention measure because some students may be able to get some of their school covered, but do not receive enough to cover their books. And for them to go through a semester of school without a book or [to] try and share it with somebody, that’s heartbreaking. So we wanted to do something that might help those students that just need that extra hurdle because they may not be able to get that extra financial aid to cover books,” Farmer says.

    Farmer adds that alumni remember trying to afford books, so they wanted to do something different that could really make an impact for students. “The Scholarship Committee felt that this was such a success and it showed that the students were very interested in it. We would like to give out additional funds…” Farmer says.

 “We thought that this would be a nice way to kick-off the fundraiser, at homecoming, and to get that started. We hope that this is just the beginning of the funding campaign for this scholarship fund,” says Farmer.

The chrome car decals are $15 dollars for each or $20 dollars for two. They are a great way to show your CU pride.

    They are currently trying to get the decals set up on the alumni website where they can be purchased online; however, if interested, contact Melanie Farmer at mfarmer@concord.edu or in Admin 220.