Irvine : UC Irvine Announces Two-Year Scholarship

UC Irvine will fund a new scholarship to be awarded to an Orange Coast College transfer student, beginning next year, university officials said.

The new scholarship will go to a student at the Costa Mesa-based community college who has demonstrated success in academics as well as community service. The two-year scholarship to UC Irvine will provide about $1,400 a year--equal to the annual fees charged at UC Irvine.

A UC Irvine Academic Senate committee will select the recipients from candidates forwarded by Orange Coast College. It is being called “The Chancellor’s Academic Excellence and Community Service Scholarship.”

“The scholarship shows a genuine commitment on behalf of the UCI chancellor, UCI campus community and OCC administrators and faculty to encourage our strongest students to volunteer in their communities,” said Sylvia Lenhoff, director of UC Irvine’s Office of Relations with Schools and Colleges. “A major mission of the university in a free society is to train leaders for public service. The new scholarship supports that mission.”

The scholarship is the idea of Hank Panian, a history professor at Orange Coast College.

“Students are more involved now, and they’re giving more to their communities,” Panian said. “It’s an emerging direction in education that they’re not just going to school to come out with a job.”