The Whitten Maher Memorial Scholarship for Writing and Design honors the life of James Madison University alumnus Whitten Maher, whose premature death on December 20, 2012, ended a promising future in writing and design.

A double major in Political Science and Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication, Maher shared his gift for inspiring a sense of hope grounded in good reason through his work as the Design Editor and Senior Writer/Columnist for James Madison University's student newspaper, The Breeze.

Maher won awards from the Virginia Press Association for his designs and writing, including an opinion column called “Gadfly” that was praised for “putting a local face on topics with national importance.” At the time of his death, Maher was employed as Communications Associate for Demos: Ideas & Action, a Manhattan-based non-profit public policy organization.

The Whitten Maher Memorial Scholarship for Writing and Design was established to acknowledge and support undergraduate work that conveys the compassion, intensity, and well-informed reason of its namesake.

The scholarship is open to ALL returning full- or part-time James Madison University undergraduate students in ALL academic disciplines. Each scholarship recipient is awarded at least $1,000 toward the following year's tuition. Please go to the Cost of Attendance Calculator to see the estimated cost of attendance for your program of study.

Over the past ten years, the Whitten Maher Memorial Scholarship has awarded scholarships to 17 JMU sophomores, juniors, and returning seniors. For more information and to apply for the scholarship, visit our Submission Guidelines page.