To financially continue the mass communication Legacy Scholarship, mass communication senior Haleigh Wallace will host a fundraiser on Nov. 6 from 10:45 a.m.-9 p.m. at Chipotle Mexican Grill. Created in 2012, this scholarship is passed down yearly — typically in May — from the past year’s recipient to a junior.
A requirement for scholarship recipients is to create a fundraiser and use the proceeds for the next recipients’ scholarship fund. Wallace has been planning for this event since last semester.
“Deciding on what to do was kind of hard,” Wallace said. “Over the summer, I was coming up with different ideas: things that would be easy, things people would enjoy and that a lot of people would go to. It didn’t take me very long.”
Wallace chose Chipotle due to them giving back a larger amount of proceeds than its competitors.
“They give back 50 percent. Most places do 10-15 percent, but they said, ‘no, we’ll give half of it back’ and I thought that was really nice of them,” Wallace said.
Typically, the next recipient is announced at the mass communication banquet in May, but things may be a little different this year.
“Because I’m graduating in December, I don’t know if they want to do it early or wait until May,” Wallace said. “We can announce it at the end of the semester when I’ve graduated or it will be at the banquet in May.”
Wallace said she believes the fundraiser will have a huge turnout due to her announcing the event in her classes, posting flyers around campus and talking about the event on Facebook.
“I’ve done a lot of my own publicity,” Wallace said. “Some of the professors have helped by announcing it in their classes, so I’m hoping we have a good turnout and exceed my goal of 200 [participants].”
While the Legacy Scholarship is not merit-based, the next scholarship recipient is chosen by the previous recipient’s criteria. Wallace is not looking for someone with perfect grades, but a reliable and trustworthy person.
“I’m not concerned with their grades. As long as you have a great work ethic, I think anyone with that work ethic will be deserving,” Wallace said.
Harley Warrick, past recipient and freelance videographer, also agreed with those qualities and added being active in the department as another important quality.
“You want someone who’s obviously trying to go out, work for The Wichitan — it was Campus Watch at my time — and be out and about, making yourself known on campus,” Warrick said.
For Warrick, it was also nice to be acknowledged by her peers for her efforts in the mass communication department.
“It’s just cool to have your peers vote for you. That’s really big because that means your peers understand how hard you’re working to go out and make a name for yourself,” Warrick said.
Chris Collins, creator of the Legacy Scholarship, said he also agreed with those qualities. Collins created the scholarship in 2012 as a senior at MSU, and he purposely did not set strict eligibility guidelines.
“A lot of scholarships have a certain person in mind,” Collins said. “The parameters [for this scholarship] are super loose.”
Collins said while there are no strict guidelines, there are certain qualities that scholarship recipients should have.
“It should be someone who has financial need, a hard worker and is fun to be around,” Collins said.
