The Vera Dowden Baldwin Scholarship

Criteria: ($500 award) The Vera Dowden Baldwin Scholarship will be awarded to a student, with financial need, residing in Dowden Hall. Candidates should provide a short essay attesting to the need for this grant and submit it with the scholarship application. It should be noted that this scholarship will not be automatically renewed and applicants are encouraged to reapply each academic year as long as they maintain residency within Dowden Hall.

In the first scholarship of its kind at Worcester State University, the Vera Dowden Baldwin Scholarship awards financial assistance to a resident of Dowden Hall who demonstrates financial need. The fund is named in honor of the late Vera Dowden Baldwin ’34, whose connection with the University spanned more than seventy years.

Vera, a native of Wales, graduated from Worcester’s South High School and in 1934, from Worcester State Teachers College. She was an elementary school teacher and assistant principal before joining the faculty at Worcester State in 1957. Vera was an instructor in the Education Department and supervisor of student teachers before becoming an associate professor.

In 1963 she was named Dean of Women and, in 1970, she became the University’s first Dean of Students. She helped guide WSU through the turbulent years of the Vietnam War, during which its bookstore was taken over by student protestors.

Forty years after her graduation, in 1974, Vera delivered the commencement address, and in 1978, WSU honored her with an honorary doctorate. Vera chaired the first revival of the Scholarship Tea Committee in 1995 and served as co-chair until 2000. In 1999, Vera received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Outstanding Service to Alma Mater, the highest non-degree recognition bestowed by the University on an alumnus or alumna for exceptional loyalty, commitment and dedication to WSU. Because of the high esteem in which Vera was held by the entire Worcester State family, the University’s first traditional dormitory complex, dedicated on September 26, 1990, was named in her honor.