Two of our own, Kathleen Schmand, Dean of the James E. Walker Library, and Dr. Samantha Johnson, Associate Professor of Health and Human Performance, were recently recognized as Athena Award Nominees. To learn more about these, and the other phenomenal women nominated this year, please visit Nine local Rutherford Athena Award nominees and scholarship winner have ties to MTSU.

For more than fifty years, AAUW Murfreesboro, the Fund’s parent organization, has been awarding scholarships for women to attend Middle Tennessee State University.

To continue AAUW Murfreesboro’s longstanding commitment to the education of women, in 2017, the branch expanded the scholarship program to award two scholarships each year: The Ruth Houston Memorial Undergraduate Scholarship and the Butler-Fouts Memorial Graduate Scholarship. The new graduate scholarship targets underrepresented women and is named in honor of Mattie Butler and Leola Fouts, who were active members of the branch well into their nineties.

For more information please visit the Mid-TN Fund for Women & Girls website.

AAUW Murfreesboro is proud to announce that our nominee, Dr. Chandra Story, was awarded the Rutherford ATHENA International Leadership Award on May 12, 2023.

Dr. Story was one of ten incredible women nominated for this award. Here is her bio:

Chandra R. Story is a public health professional with experience in clinical, community, and academic settings. Notably, she provided a TEDx Talk on cultural support and wellness. She is a member of the Tennessee Health Disparity Task Force and board president of the Middle Tennessee Fund for Women and Girls. Additionally, Dr. Story is a chaplain for the Kappa Tau Sigma chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. and a licensed minister at First Baptist Church Murfreesboro. Dr. Story is a professor of Community and Public Health at Middle Tennessee State University and the 2023 recipient of the John Pleas faculty award.

For more information on the ATHENA Award Program, visit their website.