{"id":18865,"date":"2015-05-20T16:45:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T22:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=18865"},"modified":"2015-05-21T13:25:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T19:25:42","slug":"uccs-luncheon-honors-karen-possehl-scholars-of-uncommon-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=18865","title":{"rendered":"UCCS luncheon honors Karen Possehl scholars of uncommon resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"More<\/a>
More than 400 attended the Karen Possehl Women’s Endowment Luncheon May 20<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The journey of Tiffany Sinclair has taken some unexpected turns. She endured the sudden death of her husband of 25 years from toxic shock syndrome, the diagnosis of her 11-year-old daughter with brain cancer, then the death of her mother from liver cancer.<\/p>\n

But that was not the main takeaway from\u00a0the 11th<\/sup> annual Karen Possehl Women\u2019s Endowment luncheon, which attracted 400 attendees to the Gallogly Events Center May 20. The main takeaway was that thanks to generous UCCS donors, Sinclair overcame all that and more to graduate from UCCS this month with a master\u2019s in counseling and human services.<\/p>\n

Receiving the letter years ago that UCCS had accepted her as a KPWE scholar, Sinclair said, \u201cI remember being shocked. I thought, \u2018Wow. Somebody heard my story.\u2019 It was really the inspiration for me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>
Students and donors connected at the 2015 Karen Possehl Women’s Endowment luncheon May 20<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sinclair was one of nine graduating KPWE scholars honored at the Unstoppable Women\u2019s Luncheon, UCCS\u2019 largest annual fundraising event. The event raised $26,000 from attendees plus an additional lead gift from Karen and Jim Possehl.<\/p>\n

The KPWE program\u2014established through the efforts and generosity of UCCS faculty, staff and community members, and endowed by a gift by Karen and Jim Possehl\u2014provides scholarships to women with financial need, strong potential and the resilience to overcome personal obstacles to complete their college education.<\/p>\n

Other honorees Wednesday included Teresa Gallegos, Courtney James, Jana Pendergraft, Maykla Pittman, Lauren Potereiko, Deandra Sanders, Yves Sturdevant and Lauren Yanez. The event also honored former Colorado Springs city councilwoman Jan Martin as the 2015 Unstoppable Woman, an award given annually to a community leader.<\/p>\n

The nine graduating KPWE scholars join 140 other scholars who have been supported since 1996 by this life-changing scholarship program. How life-changing? UCCS Chancellor Pamela Shockley-Zalabak reeled off a few impressive statistics that reinforced this program\u2019s value. For example, KPWE scholars at UCCS have had a 93 percent graduation rate\u2014though similar cohorts of nontraditional students have graduation rates in the 30 percentile.<\/p>\n

Beyond tuition support, KPWE scholarship recipients also receive support for child-care expenses and are paired with Colorado Springs-area community mentors that enrich the students\u2019 personal, career and leadership development.<\/p>\n

The 2015-16 year will mark the 20th<\/sup> class of KPWE scholars, a presence at UCCS for nearly half of that campus\u2019s history. Scholars have received more than $350,000 in scholarship support and $30,000 in childcare support since inception.<\/p>\n

Mary Mashburn, the 2007 Unstoppable Woman honoree, told the audience to close the event, \u201cEvery year, I wear the same jacket to this event, and I contribute what I don\u2019t<\/em> spend on a new jacket for this event as a donation to KPWE.\u201d This is the ninth year Mashburn has worn this jacket since receiving the 2007 award.<\/p>\n

Karen Possehl, also a CU Foundation trustee, talked from the podium about something she\u2019d read six months earlier. \u201cI\u2019ve had this little piece of paper with me for six months because it made me think of our scholars,\u201d she said. \u201cIt says: Your present circumstances don\u2019t determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Photos by Jeff Foster and Wendy Pearce Nelson<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 11th annual Karen Possehl Women\u2019s Endowment luncheon attracted 400 attendees to the Gallogly Events Center May 20. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":18867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/KPWE-300x1691.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-4Uh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18865"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18874,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18865\/revisions\/18874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}