Students raise funds for Crouse award

There's a new scholarship at IU named for Ashley Crouse. But big donors won't be behind this award. Instead, it will comprise crumpled $5 bills, change, checks, books and skipping meals -- it is a scholarship funded by the students whose lives Crouse touched. The Ashley Crouse Memorial Scholarship will ensure that she will continue to touch students in the years to come, said Senior Adam Nevel, a friend of Crouse's and a member of a linguistics class that is spearheading the scholarship effort.\n"I just hope it will help people realize how great she was, and how much she would love to know she was helping someone else," Nevel said.\nThe scholarship is being created by the IU Department of Spanish and Portuguese, one of the departments in which Crouse was earning degree. Crouse, a senior at IU by credit hour and an active member in a large variety of student organizations, was killed in a car accident April 12. \nThe $5,000 to $10,000 award will be available in the spring if fundraising goes as planned, said Kimberly Geeslin, a Spanish professor who had Crouse as a student. It will be awarded to a Spanish major who is pursuing Crouse's interests, in hopes of capturing the spirit of her involvement on campus, Geeslin said. \n"Right now we are drafting the details, and it will be much more specific," she said. "But it is our hope for it to embody the spirit of Ashley's energy and involvement." \nGeeslin added the creation of the scholarship is not just a departmental effort. Geeslin's Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics class, in which Crouse was a student, has been heavily involved in fund raising. \n"The project was created by the class; it was just horrible to lose her," Geeslin said. "She meant a lot to a lot of people."\nNevel said everyone in the class was close to Crouse and that's why the students are pushing to create the scholarship.\n"Two of us studied abroad with her," Nevel said. "She touched everyone in our class, and everyone misses her."\nMembers of the class are pursuing a variety of fund-raising options, from putting change containers around campus to getting greek houses involved.\n"One thing we're pursuing is miss-a-meal programs," Nevel said. "It's when (greek houses) skip dinner for a week and the money saved is donated." \nHe also added his class is encouraging students to sell back their textbooks and donate the proceeds to the fund.\nSpanish professor Jane Drake, who said she had Crouse as a student in several classes, is currently collecting donations. Students can drop by her office in Ballantine Hall, room 878, with donations. Checks should be made out to Indiana University, with the Ashley Crouse Memorial Scholarship written on the memo line. \n"The most important thing is to remember Ashley and show how much she meant," Geeslin said. "The scholarship isn't going to be one big donation. It will be students coming together." \n-- Contact Senior Writer Mike Wilson at mhwilson@indiana.edu.