{"id":126,"date":"2016-02-17T21:07:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T21:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/?page_id=126"},"modified":"2016-03-03T17:15:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T17:15:13","slug":"making-a-difference-for-someone-similar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/endowments-and-scholarships\/making-a-difference-for-someone-similar\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a difference for someone similar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donors establish scholarships for a number of reasons. For James D. Wagner \u201959, it was the desire to help students like him. <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wagner, who attended Nichols Junior College, struggled as a student due to his dyslexia, a learning \"Wagner<\/a>disability that affects reading, writing, spelling and the organizing of information. However, because Nichols was a smaller school, it provided a better setting for him to succeed academically. \u201cA lot of very successful people are dyslexic,\u201d he explains. \u201cLike me, they just have to work harder at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, Wagner established an endowed scholarship for students with dyslexia. His gift of nearly $380,000 is the largest outright scholarship gift in the college\u2019s history. In establishing the scholarship, Wagner acknowledged having serious dyslexia, even though it wasn\u2019t until he was in his 50s that he was diagnosed with the learning disability. Although he contributes annually to Nichols, Wagner was sold on the scholarship idea when he learned that he could target it to a specific kind of student. \u201cIt feels good to help someone who is in a similar circumstance as I was back in 1957,\u201d he states.<\/p>\n

When Jim Dunbar \u201951 heard about the scholarship, he was moved to donate $120,000 to the fund. In a letter to Nichols President Susan West Engelkemeyer, he wrote, \u201c\u2026I was truly excited to learn about the great work that you are doing today at Nichols College in support of dyslexic students.\u201d Dunbar, chairman of Dunbar Armored, further wrote that he was \u201can ardent supporter of efforts to help students, like I was, who suffer with dyslexia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Miller\"<\/a>One of the first scholarship recipients, Steven Miller \u201916, was shocked and grateful to learn he had\u00a0received the scholarship. \u201cI didn\u2019t know that there was a scholarship like this. I feel that to a certain extent, dyslexia still isn\u2019t recognized as a disorder in today\u2019s society. Mr. Wagner obviously went through the same pain and suffering that I did when I was a kid,\u201d he says. \u201cHe clearly understands how traumatic it is to be dyslexic. For me, it\u2019s been very personal. It\u2019s tough getting something wrong in class and being laughed at by classmates, peers, and friends,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

As with other recipients, the scholarship helps Miller\u2019s family to pay for college. \u201cReceiving this scholarship helps my family a lot. They invested a lot of money sending me to a specialized high school to help with my disability. Now sending me to college just adds to that burden. Sometimes it\u2019s difficult for them,\u201d Miller says.<\/p>\n

\n
\u201cIt feels good to help someone who is in a similar circumstance as I was back in 1957.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
James Wagner ’59\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donors establish scholarships for a number of reasons. For James D. Wagner \u201959, it was the desire to help students like him. Wagner, who attended Nichols Junior College, struggled as a student due to his dyslexia, a learning disability that affects reading, writing, spelling and the organizing of information. However, because Nichols was a smaller […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126\/revisions\/251"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign.nichols.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}