Long-Vanderburg Scholars Program

Dr. Anne Matthews, Program Director

General Overview

The Long-Vanderburg Scholars Program offers an interdisciplinary approach to questions of personal identity, social justice, scholarship, leadership, and service through a four-year honors program that recruits high-achieving historically underrepresented students. LV scholars explore and critique understandings of personal and social identities, such as race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.; collaborate with other campus organizations; engage with the Millikin and Decatur communities; and join the national dialogue about social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and ability. The LV program fosters academic, sociocultural, and leadership development; provides individualized attention aimed at supporting, retaining, and graduating scholars; and enhances professional development through performance-based knowledge and practical experiences, such as co-curricular activities, internships, research, and study abroad opportunities.

Mission

The Long-Vanderburg Scholars Program emphasizes scholarship, leadership, and service through a four-year program that recruits high achieving historically underrepresented students from diverse backgrounds; explores and critiques understandings of personal and social identities such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, religion, etc.; establishes and fosters a community of engaged scholars connected to the Millikin and Decatur communities; offers courses that foster academic, sociocultural, and leadership development; provides individualized attention aimed at supporting, retaining, and graduating scholars; and enhances professional development through performance-based knowledge and practical experiences such as internships, research, and study abroad opportunities.

Goals

The Long-Vanderburg Scholars Program will:

• Challenge and support LV Scholars as they explore personal and social identity development.
• Encourage and enable LV Scholars to demonstrate leadership ability.
• Engage LV Scholars in service that impacts the campus and local area communities.
• Prepare LV Scholars to examine personal experiences and create connections between the LV Scholars Program and professional success.
• Provide LV Scholars the space and opportunity to showcase high academic performance.

Hallmarks of the Long-Vanderburg Scholars Program:

• A $5,000/year scholarship toward tuition charges.
• Advisement in the selection of courses designed to foster identity, cultural, and leadership development and address the role of social justice in historical and contemporary issues that impact individuals, groups, and society as a whole.
• Residence in a Living-Learning Community specifically designed to enhance personal and professional/academic success.
• Long-Vanderburg Summer Leadership Academy.
• A service-learning component that builds the capacity for LV Scholars to advance the greater good on campus and in the local area community.
• Study abroad opportunities that include a monetary stipend for travel, built into the junior year of the LV Scholars program to prepare them for democratic citizenship in a global environment.
• Distinctive programs and activities focused on preparing scholars for professional success and a personal life of meaning and value.

Outline of the LV Scholars Program

Students coordinate their LV academic program requirements with the curriculum of the Millikin Program for Student Learning (MPSL), presented elsewhere in this Bulletin. Additionally, LV Scholars are responsible for all appropriate school and division requirements, particularly as related to their major field of study and any minors or concentrations required for graduation.