Paule awarded $36,000 graduate fellowship 

Cornell College senior Gwen Paule received one of two fellowships the R.J. McElroy Trust gave in its 40th year of awarding the grants.

The fellowship carries a stipend of $36,000 paid over three years. Paule was one of only two students selected from a field of finalists from colleges and universities in Northeast Iowa. 

Paule will pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign.

“Cornell helped me realize that trying is a must and that it’s much better to try and fail than to not try at all,” Paule said. “My resilience has grown here so much that opportunities to try for things like McElroy that used to scare me, excite me. The connections I have made here have encouraged my drive to keep pushing, and I can’t wait to see where that takes me. Thank you so much to Jai Shanata, Mark Kendall, Cindy Strong, and Craig Teague for continuously supporting my motivation.”

The fellowships, established by the McElroy Trustees in 1983, are designed to encourage a person of accomplishment, intelligence, integrity, and leadership ability to pursue challenging academic careers. Based upon satisfactory progress toward a Ph.D. degree, the annual stipend of $12,000 may be renewed for two additional years.

The McElroy Fellowships were established to support students seeking higher education in a non-professional degree area. The trust benefactor, R. J. McElroy, was a pioneer broadcaster who started the Black Hawk Broadcasting Company in 1947. He died in 1965.

Andrew Buchheim of Wartburg College was the other recipient.