Richard Gilder Merit Scholarship
This scholarship is established by the Rachor Family Foundation, Ltd., in honor of Wall Street stockbroker, Richard Gilder. A fifth generation New Yorker, Richard Gilder graduated from Mount Hermon School in 1950, and like his father, received a bachelor's degree from Yale (Class of '54). A temporary job on Wall Street led to fifty years in the the investment business. In 1968, he departed from A. G. Becker & Co., a venerable Chicago firm, to start his own brokerage company, now known as Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co., LLC.
Mr. Gilder's love of his home town became the focus of his outside activities. In 1971, he pioneered the renovation of Central Park and, in 1978, became a founding and continuing trustee of the Central Park Conservancy; participated in the transformation of the Hayden Planetarium, and of its parent, the American Museum of Natural History, into the world class institutions they have become; and, in 2003 he and his partner in American History, Lewis Lehrman, joined the Board of the New-York Historical Society, where Mr. Gilder serves as co-chairman. Earlier, he and Mr. Lehrman created the Gilder Lehrman Collection and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to promote the love and study of American History, now with teaching programs in fifty states, and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale. Together they are founders and sponsors of the Lincoln Prize, the Frederick Douglass Book Award, and co-sponsors of the George Washington Book Prize. Mr. Gilder is a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the American Museum of Natural History and is co-chairman and co-founder of the Club for Growth.
Scholarship Guidelines:
- The Richard Gilder Merit Scholarship is intended for juniors and seniors majoring in history.
- Applicants must have a minimum 3.4 cumulative grade point average on a 4.0 scale.
- Applicants must have a minimum 3.5 grade point average in history courses and complete History 220 and 221 by the time they apply for the scholarship. In addition, the applicant must have completed or be enrolled in at least three U.S.. History courses, with two of them at the 300 level or above.
- Preference will be given to students whose coursework indicates an emphasis on American History and whose career goals include pursuing a profession that focuses on American History (teaching, archiving, museum work, etc.).
- Scholarship will be applied directly to the recipient's tuition account.
- The scholarship selection committee will be comprised of three members of the University of Michigan-Flint History Department, one of whom must be an Americanist.