$1 Million Scholarship Program for Injured Armed Services Veterans

Sessions Online SM Announces Fall Winners of $1 Million Scholarship Program for Injured Armed Services Veterans

Twenty Winners Announced for Online Art/Design Scholarship for Physically and Mentally Wounded Servicemen and Women

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sessions Online Schools of Art and Design, ("Sessions"), the quality leader in online education for creative professionals around the world, today announced the Fall winners of the Louis H. Schilt Memorial Scholarship program. Twenty students have been awarded places on the program, whose inaugural class began October 1st 2008.

The $1 million Louis H. Schilt Memorial Scholarship program was created to help physically and mentally injured servicemen and women or their spouses build new careers in the graphic and Web design fields. The scholarship recipients for Fall 2008 represent a broad range of injured veterans and their spouses including veterans with physical injuries from current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans with mental injuries such as PTSD, spouses of veterans, veterans from previous conflicts, and veterans with noncombat injuries.

The program represents a bold effort to use online education to provide career training for an injured veteran community that Sessions believes can benefit from its unique project-based, one-to-one mentoring educational model. The scholarship covers full tuition for the renowned, award-winning Sessions Graphic Design or Web Design Foundation I programs and provides students with state-of-the-art Apple iMac computers and professional-level graphic and Web design software.

Program participants have served in a range of armed services, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and hail from all over the United States: Kansas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Virginia, Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Missouri, and Texas.

Profiles of all Fall 2008 students can be viewed at the Louis H. Schilt Memorial Scholarship winners’ page  

The program uses innovative online instructional methods and technologies to serve this specific group of students. At the beginning of the program, students are mentored by school administrators in live chat sessions to help them identify their creative learning goals. All students have computers and software provided for them and students are able to study at their own pace, enabling them to structure their program around work or family commitments. Scholarship group interviews, events, and student work highlights will be published at the Louis H. Schilt Memorial Scholarship site at different stages in the program, documenting the stories and successes of students involved.

"There is no more challenging journey than that of the severely injured service person who must create an entirely new life, physically, emotionally and professionally," said Louis J. Schilt, Sessions Executive Vice President and Board Member. "A career in design is vibrant and exciting, as well as financially rewarding. Because Sessions offers an online learning environment that is both nurturing and mentoring, we offer an ideal educational experience that will help these men and women heal and flourish."

The scholarship was created in partnership with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families, to champion the program and build awareness for the scholarship among the tens of thousands of enlisted personnel and veterans in its network. The program is named for the late Louis H.
Schilt, a decorated World War II Marine veteran who was blinded in battle but who rebuilt his life and counseled numerous severely injured veterans during the course of his life.

About Sessions Online SM Schools of Art & Design

Sessions Online SM has since 1997 provided an unparalleled learning experience for creative professionals around the world. Coupling rigorous academic programs with a unique, "one-to-one" teaching/mentoring approach and groundbreaking student social and networking opportunities, Sessions Online SM School of Design, School of Game Art, and School of Fine Arts foster unlimited creative expression within the highly accessible and flexible environment of a human-centric fully online school.

Sessions Online SM Schools of Art & Design is accredited by both the Middle States Association Commission on Secondary Schools and the Distance Education Training Council. Sessions Online SM is also licensed by the New York State Department of Education. To learn more about Sessions Online SM, visit www.sessions.edu/portal