STC Alberta Funded Scholarships and Award Programs

STC Alberta is committed to technical communication education at the post-secondary level. As such, we fund scholarship and award programs at Mount Royal University in Calgary and Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton. These programs are open to all students in the technical communication degree programs at these schools. Each year, faculty members of the two universities independently nominate scholarship and award recipients based on criteria defined by STC Alberta.

Grant MacEwan University

Honours students who excel in their academic standing in the technical writing specialization.

Award Winners 2010

• STC Alberta Scholarship Recipient – Janelle Beblow (second year)
• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Martin Bijeau (third year)
• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Lindsey Emes (third year)

Mount Royal University

On March 31, 2009, at the Mount Royal Lincoln Park Campus, STC Alberta President Jessie Channey had the pleasure of presenting four noteworthy students enrolled in the Bachelor of Applied Communications – Technical Communications program with the  STC Awards. Marc Chikinda, Dean of the Centre for Communication Studies, hosted the awards presentation. Dr. Glenn Ruhl and  Brian Traynor were also on hand to congratulate the students.

Award Winners

• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Ryan Mclean
• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Robert Lancaster
• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Kevin Tetzlaff
• STC Alberta Award Recipient – Collin Seminoff
  
  
• STC Scholarship Award Recipient – Cheryl Mudge
• STC Scholarship Award Recipient – Erica Lyn Black

STC Alberta congratulates all the students!

History

To recognize academic excellence and encourage student involvement in our community, STC Alberta began an award system for students in Mount Royal University's Bachelor of Applied Communications in Technical Writing (now Technical Communication) program in 1997. The system awarded student memberships in STC to the students with the highest GPAs in their respective years of the program. [ Past Recipients ]

In 1998, STC Alberta decided to expand our support through the creation of a scholarship for a student in the second year of the program. We voted to donate $3,000 to create an endowment fund to operate the scholarship, and applied for and were successfully awarded $3,000 in matching funds from STC. (That matching-fund program no longer exists.) The first scholarship was awarded in February 1999. The award criteria are a combination of academic achievement and demonstrated leadership qualities.

For many years, STC Alberta provided small thank-you gifts to volunteers at our AGM. In 2001, the Administrative Council revisited this practice. Our volunteers made it very clear that they did not contribute to our community to obtain thank-you gifts and generously voted to redirect funds toward increasing the endowment of the Scholarship at Mount Royal. The Administrative Council set an annual contribution of $1,000. That endowment now amounts to almost $10,000. Only net investment returns are used to pay the scholarship, not the principal, and so the endowment generates an annual award that varies, but is always less than $500.

In 2004, the Administrative Council voted to create awards for the Bachelor of Applied Communication in Professional Writing program at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton comparable to those offered to Mount Royal. The first awards were presented, amid fanfare and excitement, at a celebration in February 2005.

Finally, in 2005, STC Alberta decided to create a second scholarship for a Grant MacEwan student. The award amount for this scholarship ($500) is identical to that of the Mount Royal scholarship, and the criteria are similar.

Criteria

Scholarship
The scholarship awards $500 each to two students (one at Mount Royal and one at Grant MacEwan) who are nominated by the faculty of their respective schools and who meet the following criteria:

• Are registered as second-year, full-time students in their respective technical communication degree programs
• Are actively involved in student affairs or extracurricular activities
• Maintain a GPA of 3.00 or higher in the first semester of the year

Awards
Each award is a one-year student membership in STC and is given to the student with the highest GPA in the fall semester of his or her year in the technical communication degree program at his or her university.  The student must be taking a full course load and must have a minimum GPA of 3.00.

A maximum of seven awards are handed out each year, with four awards going to Mount Royal students and three going to Grant MacEwan. The difference in the number of awards distributed to Mount Royal and Grant MacEwan is due to a difference in the structures of their technical communication degree programs.

Other Scholarships and Awards

The Society for Technical Communication offers scholarships and awards to both secondary and post-secondary students. For more information, visit the STC website.