In recent times women have proved to be leaders and trend-setters in the academic world. However, when you look at statistics in the professional world, there exists a serious inequality in the balance of women versus men holding top executive positions in larger companies. In 2011 for example, it is estimated that women held only 16.1% of board seats at boardrooms of fortune 500 companies. In response to this, several scholarship programs have been organized to promote higher education leading to business leadership for women.
One example is the scholarship founded by Jane M. Klausman for women who want to study business. It was established to help improve the number of women undergraduates and masters degree holders in the field of business and business management. The scholarship seeks to help improve the women to men boardroom ratio and overcome the barriers that are caused by gender issues.
Since its establishment in 1998 by its visionary founder, who is also a member of the zontas club, USA, a total number of 275 scholarships have been awarded to women. This scholarship operates either at the zontas club, district and international levels, with recipients being awarded about $1,000 each at the district level. At the international level, these scholarships for women give out about twelve international scholarships to the tune of $5,000 each. The scholarships come once a year and recipients can use it for various kinds of expenditure that are associated with their academic life. Examples are living expenses, books, or tuition to any university, institution or college of their choice as long as the business courses or degrees offered by those institutions are accredited and confirmed to be certified by relevant agencies and authority.
To be eligible for the scholarships the applicant must be a woman pursuing business related degrees and must be able to show that they are outstanding and have potential to be successful in their field. The scholarship is also open for online students, but members and employees or zontas international are not eligible. To apply for these scholarships for women, interested persons are expected to contact the nearest zontas international club in their local community. After this, the applications must be nominated by the local zontas club. Then the local selections are sent to a zontas governor at district level where a committee has to select one applicant per district and the result will be delivered to the headquarters of the zontas. Then the zontas international will have to select the finalist.
The deadline for applying for a zontas scholarship depends on the how the local zontas clubs have arranged or organized their timetable. By July 2012, all applications of interested students are presented to the governors for the selection of the district recipient. Then the result is transferred to the zontas headquarters where the final selection will take place in the first week of September. By mid October all the lucky applicants will be contacted. These scholarships for women are made possible by investment income generated by the klausman bequest, and Zontas. Friends of zontas club also donate to the foundation to help them achieve their goals.
