Financially challenged Ball State students studying to become K-12 math and art teachers are eligible for new scholarships thanks to the generosity of the late Bill and Evelyn Stokes.
This fall, the William and Evelyn Stokes Foundation reached an agreement with the Ball State University Foundation to give $1 million over the next four years. The donation will fund an unspecified number of scholarships to help students who demonstrate financial need.
The agreement gives the Ball State University Teachers College the discretion to distribute scholarship funds to help students pay for tuition, books and technology expenses, course fees, and housing. The majority of funding—$800,000—will go toward math education, while the remainder will support art education.
“Bill was always very grateful for the education he received at Ball State,” Foundation President Jim Wehrly said. “It helped propel him into a very exciting and fulfilling career as a teacher of middle school mathematics and as a publisher of classroom materials. It would give he and Evelyn, who was an accomplished painter, great pleasure to assist under-resourced students preparing to teach mathematics or art to have the same opportunity.”
Bill earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in education from Ball State Teachers College in the 1950s and was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He taught middle school math in Los Angeles and Los Altos in California and in Germany for Department of Defense Schools.
In 1972, Bill and his wife Evelyn established the Stokes Publishing Company, which published books and manufactured classroom teaching tools.
Bill died in 2019 and Evelyn died in 2002.
To fund your favorite Ball State programs, contact or visit the Ball State Foundation at bsu.edu/foundation.
About the Ball State University Foundation
Established in 1951, the Ball State Foundation works in partnership with the University to help realize its strategic goals. It supports the university, its mission, and its students by carefully stewarding, prudently investing, and strategically allocating private gifts for scholarships, faculty, and programs.