GMS scholarship program opens application period

Saipan Mayor Juan Borja Tudela and the SHEFA board join the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in announcing the Gates Millennium Scholars Program for college academic year 2005-2006.

The deadline for submission of nomination materials on-line is Jan. 14, 2005 at 12 midnight eastern standard time (EST), or postmarked no later than Jan. 14, 2005.

Application, nomination, recommendation and nominee forms for the GMS may be downloaded at http://www.gmsp.org, or by contacting the GMS/APIA Outreach Coordinator at gmspinfo@ocanatl.org.

According to a news release by the foundation published on June 22, 2004, 1,000 highly motivated low-income minority students will attend college without the burden of tuition, a barrier often identified that prevents qualified youth from going to college and earning their degree.

The program was established through an endowment by computer software mogul Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, an educator herself, in 1999, to provide outstanding Asian Pacific Islander Americans, American Indian/Alaska Natives, African American, and Hispanic American students with an opportunity to complete an undergraduate college education in all discipline areas and an extended support to a graduate education for those in priority fields of study in math, science, engineering, library science and education in which their ethnic and racial groups are currently underrepresented, so that they could provide the leadership in their communities and in their professions.

Consideration for a GMS Scholarship require that a student be:

* Asian Pacific Islander Americans, American Indian/Alaska Natives, African American, and Hispanic American;

* Citizen/legal permanent resident or national of the United States of America;

* 3.3 GPA on a 4.0 scale (unweighted) at the time of nomination;

* Entering a U.S. accredited college or university as full-time, degree-seeking freshmen standing in the Fall of 2005;

* Participant in community service, extracurricular or other activities with demonstrated leadership abilities; and

* Eligible for the U.S. Federal Pell Grant.

This highly coveted scholarship, like SHEFA’s academic performance scholarship, is limited to 1,000 entering freshmen students across the United States and the insular territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the CNMI.

The GMS Program is one of two college financial assistance programs that the Office of the Mayor of Saipan and SHEFA is working cooperatively with. The other is the 2005-2006 Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund out of San Francisco, California.

For more information about SHEFA and its college and career assistance program or the GMS program and APIA’s scholarship, log on to www.saipanshefa.com or call the SHEFA Office at 664-2585 and ask for Sue Dris or the Office of the Mayor of Saipan at 235-7444 and ask for Florence Stephen. The e-mail address is contact@saipanshefa.com.