Nine women students were recognized with certificates and scholarships for their academic accomplishments and leadership skills by the Iowa State Women’s Club.

These awards are “more for recognition” than for money, said Kitty Lamont, awards committee chairman for the Women’s Club.

The club gives scholarships to outstanding women every year, although the quantity and amounts of the scholarships differ depending on the amount of interest earnings the club receives on its investments.

The Women’s Club provides “social interaction and support of women in education,” Lamont said. “One of our major interests is supporting women students with these scholarships, and by doing so we’re also honoring past members.”

Two of the four scholarships were set up as memorials to past Women’s Club members by their families, the Mrs. Glenn Murphy International Award and the Patricia Miller Scholarship.

For the International Award and the Mrs. Glenn Murphy International Award, students had to be female international graduate or upper-class students. They were chosen based on good grades, leadership skills, character and ability to “foster international understanding and interpret our American way of life to people of their country,” Lamont said.

This year, two students received the International Award: Gladys Nortey, a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and Zeina Zaatari, a graduate student in anthropology from Sidon, Lebanon.

Nyambura Maina, a graduate student in family and consumer science education from Nyeri, Kenya, won the Mrs. Glenn Murphy International Award.

Criteria for the Senior Award and the Patricia Miller Scholarship included good scholarship and contribution to university or community life. Applicants also had to be partially self-supporting senior women.

The Senior Award was bestowed upon four students: Blythe Burkhardt, anthropology; Pamela Patterson, liberal studies; Margaret Strasser, family and consumer science education; and Susan Wahls, genetics.

The two Patricia Miller Scholarship winners are Laura Cowan, accounting, and Elizabeth Hunter, civil engineering and environmental studies.

“They’re multi-faceted,” said Lamont, noting that these nine scholarship winners, as well as being good scholars, work hard in their communities and churches and are involved in campus activities.

For example, Burkhardt, will be going to Nigeria next fall as an ambassador with the Rotary Club. While in Nigeria, she will attend the University of Ibadan.

Burkhardt works at the Center for Indigenous Knowledge for Agriculture and Rural Development collecting a information about indigenous knowledge.

Nortey, one of the International Award winners, was surprised to read about a scholarship opportunity for international students while reading the Daily. “It’s rare to find awards for international students,” Nortey said. “Usually you have to be American.”

Nortey ran for the ISU Women’s Track Team until her eligibility ran out. She works with the Student Health Center and is a peer educator about HIV and AIDS.

Nortey has also done publicity for the Special Olympics for the past two years and has done public relations work for several other organizations.

“I’m pretty active, not only in the ISU community,” Nortey said.

Maina was nominated by her department for this scholarship. This is her first year in the United States. “With what I’ve learned here, I can be a good model of what an American education can do,” she said.

Maina said she has been very busy with school, but is also involved with the Kenyan Women’s Group and the International Students Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.

“[Kenya and the United States] are very different. You cannot compare them,” Maina said.

“I hope I can get a chance to go into my research at home and then come back to finish school,” she said. Maina is researching how involved men are in household nutrition.