University awards more than $750K in scholarships to 394 students

  Student Life   College of Arts & Sciences   Divinity School   School of Business   School of Education  

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – It takes place at the end of each school year during a flurry of last events and ceremonies, a collective poignant moment in which students meet donors whose generosity enables their college education.  

<p> The La Sierra University Church was full on May 26 as nearly four hundred students gathered including family members, friends and scholarship donors for the 2022 Endowed Scholarship Awards. </p>

The La Sierra University Church was full on May 26 as nearly four hundred students gathered including family members, friends and scholarship donors for the 2022 Endowed Scholarship Awards.

<p> Alina Tolan, second from right, with her husband, Victor, left, and their two children in 2019 during their son's graduation from La Sierra University. Their daughter is also an alumnus. (Photo: Natan Vigna) </p>

Alina Tolan, second from right, with her husband, Victor, left, and their two children in 2019 during their son's graduation from La Sierra University. Their daughter is also an alumnus. (Photo: Natan Vigna)

This May, 394 students were presented with scholarships for the upcoming 2022-23 school year totaling $756,751. The recipients were announced during the endowed scholarships awards ceremony at the La Sierra University Church in a return to an in-person event following two years of Zoom-based awards functions. The monies were derived from funds established through La Sierra University’s Office of Advancement and set up by alumni or their family members, alumni classes, former faculty, staff, and supporters of the university.

The office handles close to 150 endowed scholarship funds for which students can apply each year for money to cover tuition and other costs. Each fund carries its own application criteria with most primarily falling under one of the university’s schools or its college.

“Under this pandemic situation it [scholarship] kind of helped me a lot financially and mentally because the past few years it's been difficult for everybody." -- Yuxiang "Brock" Cai, business management and finance major

Jingjing Yang who goes by Tina is a business management and finance major at the Zapara School of Business. She will be a junior this coming school year and aims to earn a Master of Business Administration after completing her undergraduate studies. During the awards ceremony she received an E. Straus and Edna J. Cubley endowed scholarship. She and a fellow student commented afterward on the impact scholarships make in their lives.

“Under this academic situation the economic stress is really overwhelming,” Yang said. “So it’s really helped me a lot and released the stress of my family and myself.”

The E. Straus and Edna J. Cubley scholarship fund was established by the estate of the benefactors “to expand the integration of education, the Seventh-day Adventist religion, career and personal goals, and lifestyle,” states a fund description.

Yang’s friend and fellow business management and finance major Yuxiang Cai who goes by Brock will enter his senior year of study this fall. He received a Lois McKee Endowed Scholarship through the business school. The fund was established by Lois McKee’s brother in her honor. For more than 40 years she served Adventist education as dean of women at La Sierra College, as a teacher at Hawaiian Mission Academy and Union College in Nebraska, and later as chair of La Sierra’s office management department.

“Under this pandemic situation it [scholarship] kind of helped me a lot financially and mentally because the past few years it's been difficult for everybody,” Cai said. “So this means a lot to me.” He plans to use his La Sierra degree in running his family’s baby products business in Schenzhen, China.

Business management and finance majors Yuxiang Cai, left, and Jingjing Yang were among nearly 400 students who receieved endowed scholarships on May 26.

Some donors were present during the May 26 awards ceremony to hand scholarship certificates to excited students as they came up on stage. They included Sylvia Church, daughter of La Sierra 1936 alumnus Harry Schrillo in whose name an endowed scholarship was established. Overseen by the endowed scholarship committee, it provides financial support to students, faculty and alumni in need of tuition scholarships, research or seminar funds. Successful applicants must have demonstrated an attitude “to love and help others,” notes the fund’s criteria.

“If my dad had known they had a scholarship for him, he would have been absolutely thrilled." -- Sylvia Church, daughter of alumnus Harry Schrillo in whose honor a scholarship fund was established.

As a student Schrillo aimed for a career in medicine, but his plans were disrupted by illness. Later he joined his father in a new machining company, Schrillo Co., and became a vice president of the firm. He married another La Sierra alumnus and pursued a successful business management and ownership career while contributing his time to various boards and civic groups. Schrillo died of a heart attack at age 52 and the scholarship fund was established in his memory.

His wife first handed out the Schrillo scholarships each year to La Sierra University students, then Sylvia Church’s husband took over, and now Sylvia Church carries on the tradition.

“My dad came here in 1932 as a teenager when it was La Sierra Academy,” Church said. “He loved La Sierra. Our family always had friends from back then. My parents met here. It was never a question of whether we would come here, we were. We always saved money for college.”

During his college years, Schrillo worked on the college farm between 90 and 100 hours a week while taking classes. Due to his long work hours, his grades suffered, Church said, so the scholarship fund was not limited to students with the highest grade point average.

“If my dad had known they had a scholarship for him, he would have been absolutely thrilled. He probably would have followed the kids and kept track of them to see how they did,” she said. “It’s important to us because it would have been important to him.”

Also among the donors present was Alina Tolan, a retired pharmacist, La Sierra alumnus and university trustee. Together with her husband, Victor Tolan, they established two science and STEM-related scholarship funds for furthering students’ work in the sciences.

Alina Tolan recalled the positive impacts La Sierra University made on her life as an immigrant from Romania during the 1980s and how her studies prepared her for a graduate degree in 1990 from the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy.

“It's a very special day for us because we get to see the students that are working hard to receive the scholarships and it just makes me really happy to know that they can be doing what they like,” she said following the ceremony. “We're just really glad to be able to help with whatever we can. God has given it to us, we need to pass it on.”

For further information on the La Sierra’s endowed scholarships, please email advancement@lasierra.edu, call 951-785-2500 or visit https://lasierra.edu/scholarships-faq/.

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