Giving

Making an Impact

Annual Named Scholarship enables donors to make immediate impact on a current OU student

Oakland University alumna Katie Pring examines a patient laying down on a table in a physical therapy office with posters and bone representations

Committed Care

icon of a calendarNovember 15, 2017

icon of a pencilBy Jacquelyn Goetz Bluethmann

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Katie Pring earned her master’s degree in physical therapy from Oakland University in 2000. Since then, she has honed her practice skills in the area of women’s health. During her time at OU, she received several scholarships that enabled her to complete her degree.

“I always knew I wanted to give back because the scholarships I received were such a gift to me,” Pring notes.

It was this desire that compelled Pring to create a $1,000 annual scholarship in her name to be awarded during the 2017-18 academic year to a physical therapy student interested in women’s health.

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“Not many physical therapists specialize in it, and as a result, patients sometimes wait up to three months to see a pelvic floor therapist,” she notes. “The scholarship is my way of encouraging PT students who have this particular interest.”

Relatively new to OU’s Office of Annual Giving, the Annual Named Scholarship is open to any individual or group, alumnus or otherwise, who wants to make a direct impact on the life of an Oakland student. For a minimum $1,000 donation, a donor gets to name the scholarship and direct it to a particular school or college.

“This scholarship program gets people really excited because it’s a realistic minimum threshold,” says Anthony Gallina, annual giving officer at OU. “And it can be awarded as soon as the semester following the gift.”

“As an example, we’ve had a donor fund an Annual Named Scholarship to be awarded to a single parent in the School of Engineering and Computer Science,” Gallina recalls. “Another donor specified that his Annual Named Scholarship be awarded to a student hailing from the greater Flint area.”

Donors can renew the scholarship as often as they’d like. The Office of Annual Giving staff will work closely with potential donors to create a scholarship that reflects their goals – whatever they may be.

“For only $84 a month, an individual can get started in making an immediate impact on a student’s life,” Gallina says.

For more information on the Annual Named Scholarship, click on the “Ways to Give” tab at www.oakland.edu/giving/ or send an email to gallina@oakland.edu.

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