By KAYLEA BROWN, Senior Reporter
After 125 years of educating future teachers, Northwestern is honoring those who helped start the education program.
The legacies of the university’s first teachers, Sara Bosworth and Mary DeLisle, are being honored with the creation of a scholarship in their names that will go to students in the education program during their student teaching semester.
Work done by a subcommittee of the university’s Unsung Heroes Committee made the scholarship possible.
John Barton, chairman of the Unsung Heroes committee, said these are just two of the many influential but under-credited figures in Northwestern’s history.
“People had trouble finding information,” Barton said. “You had to go through the whole history to find one little thing that maybe you needed, and because of that, people had been left out.”
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
The history of Northwestern became easier to look through after Wayne Lane, a former Northwestern News adviser, published the book “Northwestern Oklahoma State University: A Centennial History” in 1996, one year before the university’s 100th birthday.
Barton said he and Lane were friends and had many talks, including a discussion about Newby Field, which is where the J.R. Holder Wellness Center is. Barton asked Lane if he would help him honor Wistar D. Newby, and Lane agreed.
Northwestern President Dr. Janet Cunningham asked Barton if he would help find a way to celebrate the history of buildings on campus. Throughout the process, Barton came across some people in Northwestern’s history who hadn’t gotten any recognition.
Two of those people were Bosworth and DeLisle.
Barton approached Cunningham about doing something for the several people in Northwestern’s history, and she agreed it needed to be done. The committee and subcommittees were formed in 2021. Barton made some suggestions about what the subcommittees should do.
“As I went through those [committees], I made some suggestions of things that I had thought of that would be appropriate,” Barton said. “That’s where I recommended to them that they look at the possibility of scholarships in Sara Bosworth and Mary DeLisle’s names, the first two teachers at Northwestern and the teachers of teachers.”
The subcommittee in charge of honoring Bosworth and DeLisle originally consisted of three individuals: Dr. Christee Jenlink, chair of the subcommittee and associate dean of education; Shannon Leaper, library services director and assistant professor of library and information science; and Donna Anderson, former superintendent of Cherokee Public Schools. Anderson has since been replaced by Ethan Sacket, student success coordinator and transfer student recruiter.
HONORING THE MISSION
Jenlink said the scholarship is important because it honors the original mission of the school.
“Northwestern has trained teachers,” Jenlink said. “That’s why Northwestern was established. … People were settling in the northwest area, and there were all of these children and they needed to be educated, but there was no one to teach them.”
Bosworth and DeLisle helped Northwestern meet the need of trained teachers and were paid only $900 per school term.
Jenlink described Bosworth as an impressive woman. Before coming to Northwestern, Bosworth worked as a county superintendent. She sued county commissioners because they were not taxing individuals to support public schools.
“She was a strong woman,” Jenlink said. “I think it’s important to understand she fought for funding for public schools, and here we are more than 125 years later still doing the same things. We fight for funding for public schools.”
Bosworth was a Latin and English teacher at Northwestern. DeLisle was a principal at Alva Public Schools before coming to Northwestern as a teacher. Little other information is known about DeLisle.
Jenlink’s knowledge of the Education Department is what helped decide what the scholarship would go toward, Leaper said.
HOW IT’LL HELP
The scholarship will go toward an education major during his or her student teaching semester. Recipients of the scholarship will be able to use the money however they see fit, whether they’re paying bills or buying new wardrobes.
Many students in the program have to quit their jobs during their semester of unpaid teaching, which adds a burden to those students, Leaper said.
“Educators, people who are going through the education program, need some award,” Leaper said. “It shouldn’t be a financial burden to … become what you’re trying to become.”
The scholarship isn’t yet fully funded, officials said. To help raise more money, Jenlink will be reaching out to students who have a teaching degree from Northwestern. The first donation for the scholarship came from Dr. Martie Young, a professor of education.
“This is all about ensuring that every child in Oklahoma has an effective educator,” Jenlink said. “Every child needs and deserves an effective teacher. This is about supporting individuals who want to be effective educators.”
