Elizabeth Z. Bartz, president and CEO of State and Federal Communications, has provided a $30,000 endowment to Kent State University at Trumbull, in Warren, Ohio, to provide scholarships for graduating seniors from Howland High School.
Bartz graduated from Howland High School in Warren 40 years ago, and enrolled at Kent State Trumbull that fall, where she attended for two years before completing her journalism studies at the Kent Campus in 1980.
“In honor of my 40-year graduation anniversary from Howland High School, I wanted to give something back,” Bartz says, explaining why she endowed this scholarship. “I’ve heard about students today having issues with college debt and felt it would be great to help graduating seniors from Howland High School attend the local area Kent State Trumbull campus just like I did. I feel blessed to be able to help the students, today and in the future. This is very exciting for me, and I hope it helps bring others to the table to help students pay their college costs.”
Starting Fall Semester 2016, Kent State Trumbull will award its first $1,000 scholarship from the new endowment, “Elizabeth Z. Bartz Scholarship for Howland Tigers.” The annual scholarship winner, selected by Howland High School, will be a graduating student who will attend Kent State Trumbull on a full-time basis. This endowment is funded to continue a scholarship every year going forward, and will be managed by Kent State.
The formal signing of the endowment was held at a ceremony on May 5 at Kent State Trumbull. In attendance were Bartz and school officials from Kent State Trumbull and the Howland Local Schools.
During the ceremony, Bartz explained that she decided back in 1976 with her parents to “stay local” after graduating from Howland High School and to attend Kent State Trumbull. She studied there for two years, where she also worked on the campus newspaper and became its editor. This journalism training certainly helped her toward obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations from Kent State in 1980, and go on to launch Akron-based State and Federal Communications, today regarded as the leader in providing government compliance information and consulting services.
Bartz also is still very active at Kent State and serves on the Kent State National Alumni Relations Board of Directors, as well as the Kent State School of Journalism and Mass Communication Alumni Board, and other committee leadership roles at the school.
During the ceremony kick-off presentation, Dave Smith, director of advancement at Kent State Trumbull, said, “At our Regional Campus, we want to target more scholarships to help high school students within our local community. This new scholarship certainly helps that effort as we can assist students graduating from Howland High School. This will be a perpetual scholarship that will proudly be here forever, in her name.”
Kevin Spicher, superintendent, Howland Local Schools, added that this gesture from Bartz “is philanthropy at its finest.”
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to help our kids,” says Sandra E. Williams, principal of Howland High School. “This scholarship gives them a head start to get to college. And this is a tribute for any student who wants to stay locally after graduating high school.”
“This scholarship from Elizabeth acknowledges the success of our students from Kent State University at Trumbull ... that this is a good place of quality education that prepares you for the adult world,” says Lance Grahn, Ph.D., dean of Kent State Trumbull. “One of the pillars of my vision for our university is to gain more involvement with our local schools to tie us together. This scholarship achieves that. I am also keen on energizing our Regional Campus to re-connect with our alumni. You can see the results now when that happens with a connection as represented by Elizabeth Bartz.”
