Four earn Stroum Family Waltham Endowed Scholarships

A U.S. congressman, a former U.S. ambassador and a mayor were on hand when Brandeis officials announced this year’s Stroum Family Waltham Endowed Scholarship recipients on Friday, April 17.

Waltham High School seniors Mina Antic, Alyssa Maria Beaton, Rutvi Bhatt and Annie Nguyen were awarded scholarships to Brandeis that provide full tuition and is renewable for up to eight semesters of study.

Samuel J. Stroum, a Waltham High School graduate and Seattle businessman and philanthropist, and his wife, Althea, created the Stroum Family Waltham Endowed Scholarship in 1996 to provide tuition for the top Waltham High School seniors who are accepted to enroll at Brandeis. Although Stroum left Waltham before Brandeis was established, he felt his gifts to Brandeis were a way of giving back to the community in which he was raised.

Among those attending the event at the Faculty Club were Congresswoman Katherine Clark, Cynthia Stroum – Samuel and Althea’s daughter and former U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg – and Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy, along with Brandeis senior leadership, former Stroum Family Waltham Endowed Scholarship recipients, and proud family members of the newest recipients.

“My dad was known as a businessman and as a philanthropist, but really his greatest achievement was to give back. He grew up in Newton and went to Waltham High School. In 1996, when he started the scholarship, he was so proud,” Stroum said. “Nothing would have got him more jazzed than to being in this room with everybody.”

The four scholarship recipients, listed below, also each received a Congressional citation from Clark.

Mina Antic
Born in Serbia, Mina Antic immigrated to the U.S. with her family at a young age.  A school leader, Antic serves as vice president of National Honors Society and was captain of the volleyball team. She is a two-year freshman mentor, and was a delegate in Brandeis’ Global Youth Summit on the Future of Medicine. She also plays clarinet, performs with a traveling Serbian folk dance group, and enjoys studio art at Waltham High.

Alyssa Maria Beaton
Alyssa Beaton says she has a desire to forge her own path and appreciate the world on her own terms, which will make her a great fit for Brandeis. Beaton has earned top grades while working part-time for most of high school at a café, where she is shift manager. She is also a varsity athlete, peer leader in her religious community, and an intern at a law firm. She aspires to become a lawyer.

Rutvi Bhatt
Rutvi Bhatt started her application to Brandeis by saying, “When I moved to America in junior year of high school, there was a lot of thought put into which city we would settle in. The major factor in deriving this decision was Brandeis. It was the kind of school I had always hoped to be a part of.” Bhatt boasts a resume that includes work at MIT, interning at the Massachusetts State Treasury, being a keynote speaker at Women “Fore” Financial Literacy and volunteering with Waltham’s elderly population.

Annie Nguyen
Annie Nguyen wrote in her application to Brandeis that she does not just want to be a biologist, though that is certainly among her goals, she also wants to be a community leader. Nguyen has served as president of the Asian-Culture Club and has been a member of the Waltham-Community Fields Youth Crew, which educates low-income community members about sustainable food, farming and Food Justice. She is also a talented artist and a three-sport athlete (tennis, cross-country and vovinam).