K-Stater Mike Goss establishes scholarships and helps students’ global interests take flight
To personally experience another country, language and culture broadens horizons and often changes one’s perspective. And for K-State students studying abroad, the experience also makes them more marketable in a global workforce. Thanks to K-State supporters Mike and Becky Goss of Westport, Conn., dozens of students get the opportunity to study abroad every year. The Goss Discovery Scholarship was first awarded in spring 2012 to 25 students. Since then, more than 70 students have studied in countries from China to Brazil, South Africa to Czech Republic, thanks in part to the Goss scholarship.
“We decided to endow this scholarship program after seeing the impact that study abroad had on the educations of our two daughters at the University of Michigan and Cornell University,” Mike Goss said. “Being able to travel abroad for both business and pleasure has been very important to my life, and we wanted other K-State kids to have the same opportunities.”
The Goss Discovery Scholarship puts K-State well on its way to meeting its goal for increasing the number of students studying abroad. The university wants to have 25 percent of the student body participating in study abroad by 2025, as part of the goal to be a top 50 public research university. In the 2012–13 academic year, 715 students took part in an international opportunity with 665 of them receiving credit for their study-abroad experience.
“The Goss Discovery Scholarship greatly enriched my education as it provided me an opportunity to observe first-hand the effects that the discriminatory laws of the apartheid era had in the shaping of cities and their effects on citizens’ quality of life,” said recipient Mitchel Lorning, a regional and community planing major. “I want to direct my career to allow me to help improve the urban condition of cities in developing countries. Being able to live and study in Cape Town allowed me to understand the unique challenges developing countries face when attempting to make and implement plans for their cities.”
If you’d like to help students have the opportunity for an international experience, please contact Tracy Robinson at 785-775-2089 or tracyr@ksufoundation.org.
