Class of 1967 Legacy Scholars Scholarship Fund to support underserved students
January 12, 2023 — Stephen “Steve” Shender ’67 wants to make it easier for deserving students from underserved communities to attend Grinnell College.
When the Chicago native arrived on campus in 1963, tuition, room, and board cost less than $4,000 a year. Shender was able to pay for his Grinnell education through a combination of family funds, a government loan (later converted to a scholarship), and a campus job. He was able to pay off his student loan quickly within a few years of graduation.
The class of 1967 posed for a group shot during their 50th reunion in 2017. Class members will return to Grinnell for their 55th reunion in June.
Shender, 77, describes himself as a “delinquent donor” to the College. “Over the years,” he says, “I had a hard time understanding why some of the College’s administrative costs were so high, and I was vociferous about it in our class letters.” But when Grinnell College announced its no-loan initiative in 2020, Steve had a change of heart.
“It really motivated me to give to the College, especially because the cost of attending Grinnell is so much higher than it was in my time,” he says. “I started with five figures; then I learned it was possible to endow a scholarship fund for a lot less than I thought, so I made the commitment.”
In spring 2022, Shender established the Class of 1967 Legacy Scholars Scholarship Fund. “I didn’t want it named after me,” he says. “I wanted it to be a legacy of our class for students from underserved communities.”
Ideally, ’67 Legacy Scholars will be students from demographic groups historically underrepresented in higher education, such as first-generation college students or students who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). Students who are awarded the scholarship must demonstrate financial need and be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.
Between donations from Shender and his classmates, the Class of 1967 Legacy Scholars Scholarship Fund endowment will be able to award its first scholarship for the 2023-24 academic year.
After majoring in political science at Grinnell and graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Shender went on to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to pursue a master’s degree in public administration. He withdrew from the Kennedy School in early 1968 to join Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign. He returned to Harvard 20 years later to complete his MPA degree as a mid-career student. Shender worked on the McCarthy campaign through the Chicago Democratic Convention, and then joined the Peace Corps, spending the next two years teaching in Liberia.
Steve Shender ’67 and his wife, Cathy, stand at the equator during a post-retirement vacation to Ecuador.
Upon returning from the Peace Corps, Shender headed for Washington, D.C., where he worked as a press aide for the late Rep. John Seiberling (D-Ohio). In 1973, he moved to California to embark on a new career as a newspaper reporter. Two decades later, Shender moved on from journalism. In fall 1992, he took a leave of absence from his newspaper job to work on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, in the campaign’s Northern California office – a move that led to his return to D.C. in 1993 as HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros’s senior speechwriter. He later moved back to California to work as a corporate speechwriter in Southern California and a marketing communications writer and freelancer in Silicon Valley, before retiring in 2003.
Shender, who has two daughters and two grandchildren, lives with his wife in Aptos, California. He wrote and published his historical novel, Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii (Pai’ea Press, 2016) and is revising it for a second edition.
Along with his class fund directors ViAnn Beadle ’67 and Linda Neal ’67, Shender’s been promoting the scholarship opportunity to his classmates, who’ll be gathering in Grinnell for a 55th reunion in June along with the classes of 1968 and 1969.
“I hope this endowed scholarship fund will stand in perpetuity as a legacy of the class of 1967, and grow its impact over time,” he says. “The more we have in the fund, the more the scholarship will be.”
— by Anne Stein ’84