Giving to WWU Honors
Investing in our students
Honors students come from all over the United States and abroad. They bring a wide range of perspectives, interests, and talents with them, which enhance the quality of everyone’s education. With your generous donation, you support student research, scholarship opportunities, and ensure students receive the best possible learning experience. The more support we receive from people like YOU, the more support we can give to our students.
Honors Funds
Honors College Fund
Your gifts are used to implement the expansion of the University Honors College: sponsor scholarly public programming with campus partners, develop study abroad opportunities, support student research, and fund field trips and student-led events.
Endowments and Scholarships
Aaron Edward Gastellum Scholarship
The Gastellum Scholarship is awarded to an Honors College student in a College of the Environment major on the basis of academic merit.
Frank and Reba Mariz Honors Endowment
The Mariz Fund, in honor of former Honors Director Dr. George Mariz, provides sustainable support of WWU Honors students with scholarships, research and creative project support, conference travel, and more.
Adams Honors Scholarship
The Adams Scholarship is awarded to an Honors student on the basis of academic merit.
Kozak-Mariz Memorial Endowment
Kozak-Mariz Memorial Endowment, in honor of former Honors Director Dr. George Mariz's family, provides sustainable support of WWU Honors students through a wide range of academic and programmatic activities, including but not limited to, student research, travel, equipment, guest lecturers, program development, and scholarships.
Emily Lang Memorial Scholarship Endowment
The Emily Lang Memorial Scholarship was started to honor the memory of WWU Honors student Emily Lang. This scholarship supports Honors students who share Emily's passions: the outdoors and community service.
You can learn more about the origin of the Emily Lang Memorial Scholarship here.
Leake Family Scholarship
The Leake Family Scholarship is awarded to an Honors College student on the basis of financial need. Whenever possible, preference will be made to applicants who demonstrate, in descending order of priority: financial need; outstanding academic merit, as determined on a year to year basis.
Endowment Details
The Emily Lang Memorial Scholarship was started in honor of Western student Emily Lang who died tragically on a backpacking trip along the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon the summer after her freshman year in August 2017. She died alongside her best friend Emma Place.
Emily was a member of the Honors Program at Western, and along with her commitment to academics, is remembered for her love of the outdoors, service in the community, and the love she showed for her friends. She was pursuing a BS in Biology with a concentration in Anthropology, and planning to enter the Peace Corps before studying to become a Physician’s Assistant. Emily was involved in volunteering with Girls on the Run, a nonprofit that inspires health and confidence in young girls through positive mentoring relationships and running.
We want Emily's legacy to continue to impact Western students through this scholarship for incoming Honors program students who reflect Emily's passions for the outdoors and community service.
This scholarship was started by a group of friends Emily made during her freshman year at Western. Her personality was too big and our love for her too strong for her to ever be forgotten by us and through this memorial scholarship, we hope that her memory will impact others in a tangible way for years to come.
This endowment is established in memory of Ida Kozak Mariz, Milan Kozak, and Frank Mariz, the stepmother, stepbrother, and father of George Mariz, former director of the Western Washington University Honors Program (now the Honors College) from 1987 to 2016.
Ida Kozak and Frank Mariz wed in 1959, each bringing to the marriage two sons, Stefan Paul and Milan Saul Kozak, and Carl Louis and George Eric Mariz. Over the years the two families fused, and the boys became very close. Milan died in 2000, from brain cancer, leaving a wife and two children, and Ida Kozak Mariz passed in 2016, at the age of ninety-seven.
In the family, Milan was the baby, and if not a golden child, something very close; tall, handsome, and athletic. He excited both the admiration and envy of Stefan and George, especially (by this time Carl was out of the house and working as a research chemical engineer), and Milan's brothers still mourn his passing. He is remembered with special fondness in George's and Linda's granddaughter, Milana Teter, named in Milan's memory. Ida passed after a very long and productive life working in medical research at the Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, while raising two children in widowhood, until she and Frank married.
This endowment is established in honor of Milan, Ida, and Frank for the benefit of students in the Western Washington University Honors College by the surviving sons and their families.