Aranh Pen, a Hope College junior from
Holland, has received a Gates Millennium Scholarship for the
2000-01 academic year.
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program is designed
to expand access to higher education for minority students.
The program is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
and administered by the United Negro College Fund in
partnership with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the
American Indian College Fund.
The program, which is in its first year, has named
approximately 4,000 scholarship recipients from among more
than 62,000 nominations. The merit-based scholarships cover
the recipients' remaining costs after their colleges and
universities award financial aid packages.
To be eligible for nomination, students must have
at least a 3.3 grade point average; be accepted or enrolled
full-time in an accredited four-year undergraduate program
or enrolled in a graduate program in mathematics, science,
engineering, education or library science; demonstrate
leadership skills and community involvement; and show
significant financial need. The scholarships are renewable
annually.
Pen is a chemistry major at Hope. This spring,
she was named a "Beckman Scholar" at Hope, receiving support
to conduct research full-time during the summers of 2000 and
2001, and part-time during the 2000-01 school year. The
funding is through the "Beckman Scholars Program
Institutional Award" that Hope received earlier this year
from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation of Irvine,
Calif.
She has been conducting research in the laboratory
of Dr. Nicole Bennett, assistant professor of chemistry,
since the spring semester of her freshman year. The
research is investigating the synthesis of analogues to
taxol, an anti-cancer drug.
Pen is the daughter of Sokhoeun and Kim Pen of
Holland. She is a 1998 graduate of Holland High School.
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program is funded
through a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. The program will run for 20 years, naming 1,000
new recipients in each new year to sponsor about 4,000
Millennium Scholars at any point during the program's two-
decade run.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is located in
Seattle, Wash. In addition to the Gates Millennium Scholars
Initiative, significant foundation projects include: the
Bill & Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program, a $100
million commitment to speed the delivery of lifesaving
vaccines to children in developing countries; the Maternal
Mortality Reduction Program, a $50 million commitment to
prevent pregnancy-related deaths of women in developing
countries; and the Gates Library Initiative, a major effort
to help close the "digital divide" by bringing Internet
access to libraries in the poorest communities in Canada and
the United States.