Encourage students to apply for Eastman Scholarships

A message from Mathematics Advisor Doug Pellatz:

I am the academic advisor and scholarship administrator for the Department of Mathematics at UNL. I am hoping for a moment of your time to provide you with some information about our Dean H. and Floreen G. Eastman Scholarship in Mathematics.

Many years ago, the Department of Mathematics at UNL was honored with a sizeable donation from Dean and Floreen Eastman to help fund the education of students interested in Mathematics from the state of Nebraska. The Eastman Scholarship fund allows us to award several scholarships to incoming freshmen Mathematics majors who graduate from a Nebraska high school each year. This scholarship awards up to $4,000 for the first year at UNL, and students can re-apply every year for up to a total of four years. In addition, our scholarship can be stacked with other UNL scholarships such as the Chancellor’s, Regent’s, Honor’s, and Math Day Scholarships. Unfortunately, the number of students applying for this scholarship opportunity has declined even though our numbers of incoming Mathematics students have remained relatively the same.

I am hoping that you can help us spread the word about this scholarship opportunity that is reserved just for Nebraska high school graduates interested in studying Mathematics at UNL. Applying for the Dean H. and Floreen G. Eastman Scholarship in Mathematics is relatively easy for high school seniors. First, your students should complete an application to UNL during the fall semester of their senior year. Then, they can complete our short scholarship application through the Freshmen Eastman Scholarship Application button available at https://go.unl.edu/eastman. Our application requires a short essay concerning their interests and experiences in Mathematics and two letters of recommendation. The letters of recommendation should be from people qualified to comment on the student's academic abilities, accomplishments, and potential in Mathematics. Recipients will be selected based on their application materials, high school GPA, high school Math coursework, and ACT and/or SAT scores.

The scholarship application will be available from the beginning of November to until February 1st each year, and we hope to have a large pool of candidates from which to select several recipients. If you or your students have any questions about the Eastman Scholarship, other Mathematics scholarships offered at UNL, or our undergraduate program in Mathematics, please don’t hesitate to contact me at dpellatz@unl.edu or 402-472-4319. You can also contact Dr. Petronela Radu, Faculty Advisor for Mathematics and Chair of the Math Scholarship Committee, at pradu@unl.edu or 402-472-9130.