Page 20 - November report 2023

FORT LEWIS COLLEGE SITE VISIT
OCTOBER 4, 2023
FLC Meeting Participants
Steven Elias - Dean of the Business School
Melissa Mount - Vice President of Advancement, Fort Lewis College Foundation Tom Stritikus - President
JSF Meeting Participants
Rick Williams - Indigenous Consultant John Glover - Indigenous Consultant
We arrived at our visit with Dr. Stephen Elias. President Stritikus was in his office and was just leaving. We exchanged greetings. Steve was obviously excited and said he had some really good news for us. I introduced John Glover, and Steve began to talk.
In the past week, Steve had been working with a major donor to secure a significant gift. The gift included $500,000 for the JSF endowment.
We talked about the current endowment size and that Fort Lewis College’s JSF allocation is $115,000 for this year. Steve noted that at the current rate, he did not have enough money to fund the financial needs of the American Indian students in the business school. Currently, he is supporting approximately 45 students. The average scholarship amount is approximately $2,500. When the dollar amount for the endowment was established, he was receiving approximately $80,000 per year. He reported that he currently has 250 students in the business school that would be eligible for scholarships. Steve said there were several JSF students on the Dean’s list this year.
Steve talked about the need to increase the size of the endowment to meet the goal of supporting all eligible American Indian students in the business school. He is committed to finding more money for the endowment in the future.
We had a chance to visit with Melissa Mount. She reported that they needed $24,000 to meet this year’s match but were confident that they would meet the match by the end of the year.
We were joined by several students, all of whom were active members of the American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL) chapter. Wraygen Shouldis is the new (AIBL) chapter president. The new AIBL president is very impressive and has organized one of the best AIBL programs in the country. The FLC AIBL chapter took home three first-place awards and were the stars of the conference. https://www.fortlewis.edu/fort-lewis-college-news/news-detail/inside-aibls-big-year
This will be a great promotional piece for JSF media.
Devyn Valandra started a coffee company where he used sage from the reservation lands to produce a new form of coffee.
The excitement about the new gift and the commitment to the JSF scholars is noteworthy. Steve has done a fabulous job, and his commitment to our JSF scholarship program is commendable.
Desk Audit
I conducted a desk audit and found the files to all be in good order. There were a couple of students whose GPAs were getting close to causing them to be ineligible. I also realized that there were many students who were transferring from tribal colleges to Fort Lewis. In that regard, I noted that the American Indian College Fund has a pipeline program endowment scholarship that could help support some of their students.
I have attached a promotional flyer advertising the endowment program at Fort Lewis College.
Page 18 November Report