Awards and Scholarships

Tia Sutton: So I had a pretty good experience at Boise State. I came in as a transfer student. I originally started at CWI and got my associate’s degree. My very last semester at CWI took a criminal justice class and I decided this is what I want to do instead. Like this is so much more interesting. I came in as a transfer student, so I didn’t have a very typical college experience. I didn’t stay on campus because I had family in town, so I stayed with them. So it was a little bit different. I was able to meet some people through the Impact Scholar program and through the criminal justice fraternities, can’t remember the name, but was able to meet people in my degree and then people who had some similar experiences, me and also some other transfer students at some events they had during the year.

How does the Intercollegiate Knights Scholarship help students?

Tia Sutton: The IK scholarship helped me tremendously. I remember a big thing that happened my first year was I’d have to stay on campus to complete homework because I didn’t have a laptop. And then I was able to use a library and check out computers. So I was able to do that on campus, but I wasn’t able to take that home with me. So when I got the IK scholarship, that provided me that extra money to be able to put that towards my classes. And then I was able to purchase a laptop myself. So I didn’t know what I wasn’t limited to staying on campus. I could go have coffee with a friend and then stay and do homework. Or I could stay late, stay up late at home doing homework, and I wasn’t tied to being at school. Even though Boise State had the resources, it was nice to have that flexibility and that scholarship provided me the funds to do that.

How does the Impact Scholars Program impact academic careers?

Tia Sutton: So the Impact Scholar program, it gave me support throughout my time here at Boise State. It got me involved with programs such as Bronco Day. I was able to give campus tours to other foster care youth who were looking at coming to Boise State and who were interested in going to college.

What kept you motivated to succeed academically?

Tia Sutton: So I think what motivated me was mostly my family and having mentors like Jim. Part of that scholarship was you got the you got the X dollar amount and then they also paired you up with somebody that was in your field. And Jim also ended up being my internship coordinator, so I already knew him on a more personal level. So his support and the support of my family and friends saying you’ve already been through so much, like you can do it. You push through a little bit longer and this will benefit you the rest of your life.

What did you learn from having a mentor in your area of study?

Tia Sutton: So it started with Anna Mooreshead, who was the the coordinator of the Impact Scholar program and then the IKs. They came up with the idea for the scholarship. They decided they thought that having a mentor for the students was a really important part of it. And since I was the first recipient, it was kind of like, you guys get to figure it out. You can just jump on in. So I know we started, we would meet every week and kind of just see, well, what do you want to make of this? How do you want this to look? How are we going to make this work for future recipients? So we would just talk. We talk about personal matters, we talk about school, we talk about anything that was on my mind. Jim was there a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on if I needed it. And we, I guess we just developed this. It was professional, but it was also a personal relationship where he would just give me the advice that I needed and sometimes would push me even if I didn’t need it or didn’t want it. So I think it was good. I assume that everybody else after me that I’ve received the scholarship has gotten a mentor. I don’t know how those relationships have been, but I hope that they’ve been somewhat like ours. I thought we did. I thought we did a good job. Everybody said we did a good job.

What was your experience like at Boise State?

Tia Sutton: So my experience at Boise State was pretty great overall. I decided that I wanted to continue to give back to a program in a school that provided me something. In this case, it was a scholarship and it was a mentor. I’m currently on the scholarship committee to pick future IK scholarship recipients, and they really appreciate my feedback as a student, as somebody with foster care experience and somebody that was able to benefit from the financial part of it and the mentorship part of it. So I think that’s something that I’ll do as long as I can. If I can’t do it financially then I will volunteer, come and support, stuff like that.

What do you hope for the future of the IK Scholarship?

Tia Sutton: I really hope that this scholarship can become greater and bigger. Instead of just helping one student, maybe in the future we can help 3 or 4 or more. Because I think it, it’s a very select group of people, but it’s a select group of people that have gone through some of the worst things you can think of. And they’re now this small percentage who are going to college and they’re going to college and they’re trying to achieve something that not everybody’s going to get and to face all those barriers and challenges. And to be at this point, I think they deserve all the help that they can get.

How did the Impact Scholarship begin?

Jim Kerns: Well, the Impact Scholar program was initially started by the the IKS. Anna Moorhead came to our alumni board meeting and presented this opportunity for us to evaluate whether or not we wanted to help kids in foster care. And she did a great job of presenting to us. And the I KS jumped on a, on a heartbeat. In fact, that day after the meeting, I remember clearly they said I KS are going to take it, We’re going to move it and we’re going to make it happen. We’re going to have $25,000 in there before you know it. I just got a report. They got 200 and some $1000 now and they’re and and that’s just four years, three years. And so it’s amazing. So the the whole idea was let’s get kids that want to go to college that don’t maybe have all the opportunity to go to college, give them that opportunity and give them some help and a hand up to be able to pursue a dream. And I think that that’s really what it’s all about.

Why did you become a mentor?

Jim Kerns: I wanted to become a mentor right away because I think that the mentorship was going to be very important to, I think to the excess of any, to the success of any program in my line of work as a, as a police officer, we did a lot of training and we did a lot of personalized helping people along. And as a supervisor, your job is to, is to mold people and, and get them to do the things that are the right things to do. And that was, it was a natural fit for me to be a mentor. And, and I thought right away, if we’re going to do this, I’m going to be involved in it. And I’ve been involved in it since day one. I’ve been a monthly contributor to the scholarship. I’ve been a mentor. I’ve put myself out there. Tia and I had a great time in the mentorship program because we didn’t know each other at all. And when we first met, it was like, OK, Tia, what do you want? She says, I don’t know. I said, well, if you don’t know, I certainly don’t know. So we worked on what does she want? Where does she want to go? What does she want to what does she want to do? How she want to get involved? And we gave her opportunities and we talked and we met, we met weekly for a while and then we met bi weekly. And then as it kind of kind of it kind of grew, then we met monthly, but we were we texted probably weekly for the two years that I was our mentor.

What is the benefit of giving to the IK Scholarship and becoming a mentor?

Jim Kerns: Well, I think that if you have any desire to help people, this is a great opportunity for you to help people. So many times scholarships are based upon the academics, or they’re based upon how well they do in sports, or they’re based upon how well they do in debate or whatever it might be. This is an opportunity for you to help people that truly want to go to college and they don’t have the opportunities that many other people do simply because the foster care system doesn’t give scholarships. And if that’s where you grew up and you really want to get out of it and you really want to have the opportunity to, to, to, to be successful, and that success is based upon your want to go to college, then we should be helping you. I can’t think of anything that’s more exciting than when we saw Tia’s graduation. It’s OK. Because I knew well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s because I knew that that’s what you really wanted. And then when you came back to the, to the, the celebration of, of graduates, our, our, our distinguished alumni awards, it was so proud to say, hey, this was Tia and she is an IK scholarship recipient and a graduate and she’s doing so good. I don’t know what else you could ask for.

What inspires you to continue being involved?

Jim Kerns: I think what inspires me is that we have success and with success comes more success. And why wouldn’t we want to do that? Why wouldn’t we want to have as many people be successful as we possibly can? And I think that’s what drives me is, is I see the success, I see the positivity in the the alumni association and the organization that has this drive to help people. And when you get to see the success it wants it it, it just, it makes you well up and say, I want to do it some more. And I think that’s why I’ve become so involved in the IK scholarship and so involved in the alumni association because there is a there’s a real ability to make a difference in someone’s life and that difference can be so impactful for the rest of their life.