Bert Nash Award in History

The Western Michigan University Department of History is very pleased to announce that Michele C. McLaughlin and her mother, Kathryn N. VanDis, have generously endowed a legacy gift that will support a new undergraduate scholarship for the department as well as an Department of English scholarship and a WMU Medallion Scholarship. Michele’s gift to the department will finance a new scholarship named after her maternal grandfather, Bert Nash, which would support one of the Department of History’s deserving undergraduate social studies majors. The Bert Nash Scholarship will provide a student deemed to be a promising teacher.

Byron Burton “Bert” Nash (1879-1959), Michele McLaughlin’s grandfather, was “a tremendous teacher and the wisest person” she ever knew. Although he worked as a stationary engineer in Chicago, at the Kalamazoo state hospital’s steam plant, and as a caretaker for the Bloomingdale cemetery after his retirement, Michele describes Bert as a teacher at heart, someone from whom she learned a great deal. Naming the scholarship after her grandfather will recognize his influence on her life. Bert Nash imparted a love of learning to both VanDis and McLaughlin. VanDis graduated from Western Michigan College of Education, as WMU was then known, in 1945 with a degree in history. She later worked as an assistant to the president of Kalamazoo College from 1962 to 1988. McLaughlin’s decision to dedicate the Bert Nash Scholarship to the Department of History was influenced by her mother's love of history. McLaughlin's decision to fund a new social studies scholarship as well as an English education scholarship that has been in place since 2003 is also partly due to her maternal grandmother’s side of the family. McLaughlin noted that she has many teachers in her family.

McLaughlin has been an employee of WMU since 1973, and is also a 1982 graduate of WMU with a B.A. in biomedical sciences and a B.B.A. in business. Since starting at WMU, McLaughlin has worked in Accounts Payable, the Medieval Institute, the departments of Chemistry and English, and as associate registrar, from which she retired in 2011. Since then, however, she has been working part-time for both Lee Honors College and WMUK. Perhaps most remarkable about her affiliation with WMU is the fact that McLaughlin has averaged taking at least one course per year since 1982.

One of McLaughlin’s favorite professors at WMU was Howard Mowen, a faculty member in the Department of History from 1949 to 1982. As she recalled, Professor Mowen was not only a scholar but was someone who could make the historical subject matter interesting and engaging. The Bert Nash Scholarship provides financial support to a promising young social studies major who might someday similarly engage and excite young people about the value of history.

Recipients

2019-Megan Poolman

2015—Sierra Varela
2014—Tyler Bos, Michele McLaughlin and Tyler Gilland
2013—Renea Wrenbeck and Mary Davis