Every year, Hoosiers for Higher Education pick one student to win a scholarship. This year’s winner didn’t apply and didn’t even know the scholarship existed until after she had already won it.
Alison Grover, elementary education senior, received an e-mail one week before the Welsh Bowen Scholarship was awarded in Indianapolis.
The scholarship is awarded to one student who is in the same region as the public official who is given the Welsh-Bowen Distinguished Public Official Award. Sen. Connie Sipes, D-New Albany, is the most recent winner.
Grover is studying to teach English at a high school level. She said she is excited about it.
“I love to read,” Grover said. “That’s the main thing.”
Grover said her inspiration for becoming an English teacher comes from a teacher she had at New Albany High School.
“He treated us like adults,” Grover said. “He treated us like we were capable of understanding complex things.”
Grover is currently working as an assistant teacher at Jeffersonville High School.
Not only does she get to work as an English teacher but often as a counselor, as well.
“I had a kid today come up to me and share with me about some problems at home,” Grover said. “He just needed someone to talk to.”
Kevin Bailey, the coordinator of secondary language arts at IU Southeast, said she enjoys working with Grover in the secondary education program.
“Alison just has kind of a natural flair,” Bailey said.
Bailey said Grover knows how to balance the academic side and the relational side of teaching well. Bailey said Grover looks like a veteran teacher already.
By MICHELE HOP
Staff Writer
mhop@ius.edu