GATHERED AT A STUDENT RECEPTION at the Owosso Country Club Tuesday evening are (from left) UM–Flint’s Major Gifts Senior Officer Brent Nickola, Cook Family Foundation President Bruce Cook, UM–Flint’s Undergraduate Admissions Counselor Nia Bashir-Benton, UM–Flint’s Vice Chancellor for Advancement Shari Schrader and UM–Flint’s Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Christopher Giordano, PhD.
(Courtesy Photo/David-Lorne Photographic)
The Cook Family Foundation and representatives from the University of Michigan-Flint gathered at the Owosso Country Club Tuesday evening, Aug. 16 for a reception welcoming incoming UM-Flint students. Along with the reception, the Cook Family Foundation introduced the new “University of Michigan Shiawassee Advantage” scholarship – an enormous, new opportunity to county students and also characteristic of the ongoing, diverse, philanthropic efforts of the Cook Family Foundation.
Attending students/honorees included Julie Lane of Byron; Lucas Cunningham, Noah Dutcher and John (Maxwell) Walker of Corunna; Ryleigh Shephard and Alicia Wright of Durand; Justin Grandy of Laingsburg; Jacob Burgess of New Lothrop; Callum Holley of Ovid-Elsie and Kelsey Andrykovich and Keera Barnhill of Owosso. These students will soon join the University of Michigan-Flint student body in various academic studies. Many of the students attended the event with family members or friends.
The reception was jointly sponsored by the Cook Family Foundation and the University of Michigan-Flint.
Following a welcome by Brent Nickola, UM-Flint’s Major Gifts Senior Officer, and further remarks and an introduction by Christopher Giordano, PhD, UM-Flint’s Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Nia Bashir-Benton, UM-Flint’s Undergraduate Admissions Counselor for Shiawassee County, Bruce Cook announced the new scholarship program. Cook, President of the Cook Family Foundation, detailed the new University of Michigan Shiawassee Advantage. Any high school senior with a grade point of 3.5 or higher from any of the ten area school districts in the Shiawassee County area can now receive a $3,000 Cook Foundation Scholarship if they enroll at any University of Michigan campus. Along with the scholarship, the students are also eligible for many University of Michigan merit-based scholarships and, potentially, eligible for the full-tuition “Go Blue Guarantee,” if they demonstrate financial need.
As Cook discussed at the reception, the University of Michigan is really one university with three campuses. The University of Michigan, as many know, is located in Ann Arbor – but the university extends to the Dearborn and Flint campuses, too. The Cook Family Foundation has been active for over four decades in providing scholarships to county students attending the Ann Arbor campus. Since 2020, the Cook Family Foundation has extended those opportunities to students attending Dearborn and Flint, too.
Applications for the new scholarship opportunity are available at cookfamilyfoundation.org/scholarship-application. Students can apply for the Go Blue Guarantee at gobluegaurantee.umich.edu. For more information regarding all Cook Family Foundation scholarships, visit cookfamilyfoundation.org, under scholarships.
The ten eligible school districts include Byron, Chesaning, Corunna, Durand, Laingsburg, Morrice, New Lothrop, Ovid-Elsie, Owosso and Perry. Home-school students are also eligible.
