A new scholarship initiative is in the works for students studying within the School of the Liberal Arts and Sciences. The scholarship was created by Deborah Holdstein, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Columbia, in honor of her husband, Jay Boersma, a 1974 Columbia graduate.

The scholarship will be granted annually to one or more students who are selected by a committee of LAS faculty members. The students would each be awarded a maximum amount of $5,000 depending on the accumulated interest in the scholarship’s endowment.

Each of the student recipients are required to be at junior or senior level in their studies, as well as have maintained a 3.5 or above cumulative grade point average and demonstrated their need for funding through Free Application for Federal Student Aid applications.

Holdstein said that she named the scholarship after her husband because not only did she want to surprise him with a unique gift, but also because he is a strong supporter of the college giving the students a broad and deep education.

“My joke is that there are just so many shirts you can buy the man you love every year for the holidays that it gets to the point where you have to do something really special,” Holdstein said. “It seemed like the appropriate thing to do because this is such a student-centered institution and I know that my husband struggled with tuition during his time at Columbia; I struggled with tuition in my studies and I figured if there was one small thing I could do I wanted to do it.”

Holdstein surprised Boersma at dinner with the proposal. Boersma said he was extremely overwhelmed.

Boersma, the senior creative director for Playboy.com, graduated from Columbia with a degree in photography.  He is supportive of the liberal arts education that comes out of Columbia, and credits the college for creating such a strong learning environment forits students.

“I like the fact that a student at Columbia can begin studying the areas they’re most interested in pretty quickly without a lot of jumping through hoops,” Boersma said. “Students get to participate on a very high level very early on in the process. It’s a very high quality, experiential learning and prepares you tremendously well for the job market.”

The scholarship will be primarily geared toward students in the LAS discipline, which includes studies in  American Sign Language/English Interpretation; English, which includes creative nonfiction and poetry majors; early childhood education majors; and Humanities,  History and Social Sciences, which includes cultural studies. Holdstein added that she hopes that a complete approval for a future Science and Mathematics Department major,  art and materials conservation, will be added to the curriculum as well.

Students that are double majoring at Columbia will also be considered eligible to apply for the funding, as long as one of the majors is within the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Holdstein has been in discussion with Nancy Rampson, director of development for the LAS Department, regarding the funding of the scholarship.  Although all of the planning has not been fully hatched, Holdstein hopes that the scholarship will be available within the next few years.

“I hope that [the scholarship] grows and that it conserves more people,” Rampson said. “I also hope that it brings more attention to LAS and LAS majors and that it becomes a very supportive thing for our students.”