President of the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU), A. Hope Williams, recently sent an email asking recipients of North Carolina Need Based Scholarships to thank their legislators to ensure this important funding continues.

Here is her email:

“The North Carolina General Assembly currently funds the North Carolina Need Based Scholarship (NCNBS) at $88.9 million. That funding provides scholarship assistance to almost 20,000 North Carolinians attending an NCICU institution, and we are asking for additional funding to provide more state aid.

“The General Assembly convened in January and the state budget is at the forefront of issues to be addressed. We need your help in asking North Carolina students who receive the Need Based Scholarship to contact their legislators before the end of April to thank them for this funding. The legislature receives many requests for funding each year and Senate and House members need to hear from students in their district that the NC Need Based Scholarship makes it possible for them to attend and stay in college. Legislators also need to hear that their constituents are asking for continued and additional support for the NCNBS.

“We talk with legislators about the importance of the Need Based Scholarship all the time. But hearing first-hand from students in their district about how the Need Based Scholarship makes attending and graduating from college possible has the most positive, direct impact on legislators. These contacts may be the only direct contacts legislators receive from students to describe what a difference the grant means in their ability to attend college. In recent years, legislators have heard from students attending only about half of our campuses. We need your help to increase this level of response. It is rare for legislators to be contacted to be thanked, so these contacts make a significant impression.

“Students and parents can find out who their legislators are and send them a message by going to the ‘Contact Your Legislators’ section on the home page of the NCICU website.  Straightforward directions are on the website.

“Copies of the messages sent through the website are available to NCICU so we can see which legislators are being contacted. This allows us to give you feedback about the number of contacts from your institution and to ask for help if some legislators are not hearing from students.”

Dr. John Hutton has been working on a new children’s book for a series that is being published by the White House Historical Association. He said, “We are trying to put out one or two a year for the next several years. Each book will have to do with a subject that might interest children, based on the White House’s fabulous history.”

The book he is currently working on for publication this year is about a little girl, Gigi, who grew up visiting the White House with her mother, who worked for one of the first ladies. Gigi rides ponies on the White House grounds, helps walk the President’s dogs, trick-or-treats in the West Wing, meets Olympians and Queens, and generally has a good time there.

Dr. Hutton’s illustrations start with a detailed pencil drawing. Then he traces the sketch onto good paper and start the finished work. Sometimes he does this with pen and ink and watercolor, but for this project and others in the series, he worked with gouache watercolor, which requires several layers of paint. Each painting takes about a full day of work.

Here are a few stages to show how Dr. Hutton worked on a page in which Gigi is having a ball swimming in the White House pool!

Rosa D. Otero
Art, Art History, and Design Department Chair