With two new grants in hand, an MTSU center will be better able to serve nontraditional students and change the conversation about gender-based violence.

MTSU representatives celebrate the receipt of a $10,000 check from the Avon Foundation for Women to institute a prevention and response plan to combat gender-based violence on campus. From left to right are Quianda Stanley, counselor, MTSU Counseling and Testing Services; Barbara Scales, director, June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students; Christine Jaworsky, director, Avon Foundation for Women; Abbigail Tracy, at-large senator, Student Government Association; Amy Dean, MTSU sexual assault and intervention liaison; and Marian Wilson, assistant to the president for institutional equity and compliance and Title IX coordinator. (Photo submitted)

The June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students has received a $50,000 grant from the Crankstart Foundation to provide financial aid to students between the ages of 25 and 50 who are returning to college after at least five years away from campus.

These scholarships are available to full-time students regardless of GPA or gender. Each recipient could obtain up to $5,000 per academic year.

“It’s going to give our nontraditional students the assistance that they need,” said center director Barbara Scales. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to give away 14 of these scholarships.

To apply for the Crankstart scholarship or any other financial aid from the June Anderson Center, submit an application at www.mtsu.edu/jac/scholarships.php by April 24.

Crankstart, a nonprofit organization, was founded by Palo Alto, California-based venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman, in 2000. As signatories to The Giving Pledge, Moritz and Heyman promised to give more than half of their wealth to charity.

Other billionaires who signed The Giving Pledge include business media magnate and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan; and Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett.

The Avon Foundation for Women gave the June Anderson Center a one-year, $10,000 grant to participate in its inaugural National Leadership Institute: Changing the Narrative on Campus Gender-Based Violence.

MTSU is one of only 20 schools in the nation to receive this grant.

University representatives attended an institute in Atlanta Nov. 30- Dec. 1 to learn and share best practices to combat gender-based violence and to develop a sexual assault prevention and response action plan.

“We’ve hired two students to help us with our social media campaign around bystander education and around gender-based violence, which is stalking, dating sexual assault, intimate partner violence and domestic violence,” said Scales.

She added that part of the grant will be used to create a video to train students how to respond if they suspect an act of sexual violence might be imminent and to reject the tendency to remain uninvolved.

For more information, contact the June Anderson Center at 615-898-5812 or jacwns@mtsu.edu.

— Gina K. Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)