Marilyn Walsh ’50, who recently passed away in New York City, left $4 million to Grinnell College to develop a scholarship fund for students from the state of Iowa.
Walsh grew up in Woodbine, Iowa and graduated from Grinnell with a bachelor’s degree in history and as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She attended night classes in New York, eventually becoming a tax attorney at CBS and later the CBS director of taxes and assistant treasurer. Walsh bequeathed the gift to Grinnell under the conditions that the students would only qualify for the Dorritt Walsh Scholarship, which Walsh named in honor of her late mother, if they lived in Iowa for at least five years before enrolling at Grinnell.
Currently, the College has two other scholarships available to Iowan students. The largest scholarship available is the Bowen Scholarship, a $30,000 scholarship offered to five students from Iowa annually. Grinnell also offers the Iowa Rosenfield Scholarship for Iowans, worth $12,000 per year for the class of 2018. The department of admission and financial aid has not yet decided if the Walsh Scholarship will be spread amongst applicants, like the Iowa Rosenfield Scholarship, or awarded based on merit, like the Bowen Scholarship.
According to Joe Bagnoli, the College’s Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, the money from the donation is not yet available for allocation, but the College hopes to be able to offer the Walsh scholarship to Iowan students in Grinnell’s class of 2019.
Given the College’s steady decline in applicants and enrolled students from Iowa in the last 10 years, Bagnoli stated that he hopes that the Walsh scholarship will encourage Iowan students in need of financial aid to apply to Grinnell.
Bagnoli noted that offering scholarships to students from Iowa develops the relationship between the College and its home state, which has been a key focus on the community building process emphasized by Grinnell’s administrators.
“It’s a way of honoring and acknowledging the support that we receive,” Bagnoli said.
-Compiled by Eva Lilienfeld, photo contributed.
