Carl and Victoria Cather, well-known members of the Morgantown area community, have pledged $25,000 to the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts to endow a Dean’s Honors Scholarship in the arts.

The Carl & Victoria Cather Dean’s Honors Scholarship will benefit undergraduate students enrolled in the College of Creative Arts who are simultaneously accepted to and enrolled in the WVU Honors College. First preference will be for West Virginia resident students in the School of Art and Design.

“The College of Creative Arts has been eternally committed to bringing the best young artistic talent to WVU for further study,” said Dean Paul Kreider. “Now we have the impetus to expand our efforts to those exceptional artists who are highly qualified in the academic arena as well. We are grateful to Carl and Victoria for their leadership in helping us financially support those Art and Design majors who will also be students in the Honors College. This honors scholarship will most certainly assist in attracting high-achieving students to WVU.”

“Carl and I and our families have a long history with WVU,” said Victoria Cather. “Our family has several scholarships, including one that honors my husband’s grandfather, Carl H. Cather, who started teaching in the College of Engineering in the early 1900s. We have enjoyed receiving thank-you letters from the engineering students who have benefitted from that scholarship fund.

“Upon settling back in Morgantown, we became friends with many of the faculty at the College of Creative Arts through Carmon Colangelo, who was then professor and chair of art, and his wife Sue Colangelo. We have had many discussions as to how we would like to give back to WVU and we have been excited to see the new direction and progress with the Creative Arts Center and the Art Museum.

“The Dean’s Honors Scholarship seemed like the perfect fit for us,” she said. “We liked the idea of the flexibility of this particular scholarship to help attract the best and brightest from West Virginia and beyond!”

The WVU Honors College was established in 2006 as an outgrowth of the University Honors Program. The Honors College was created to help students who thirst for knowledge beyond their major fields of study. It offers special courses taught by some of the University’s top faculty from a variety of fields and strongly encourages students to seek out and participate in educational experiences such as undergraduate research, study abroad programs and internships.

There are currently almost 2,000 students enrolled in the WVU Honors College. Students are considered for admission based on their high school grade point average, ACT or SAT composite scores, community service and extracurricular activities.

Carl Cather is an attorney with Spilman, Thomas & Battle in Morgantown and Victoria Cather is a real estate agent with Old Colony Realtors. The Cathers are members of Friends of the Art Museum of WVU and Victoria is also a member of the College of Creative Arts Visiting Committee.

The Carl and Victoria Cather contribution to the WVU College of Creative Arts was made in conjunction with A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University. The $750 million comprehensive campaign being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of the University runs through December 2015.

-WVU-

cl/4/15/14

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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