Dr. Kenneth & Mary Alice Hansen Memorial Scholarship

Applicants for the Hansen Scholarship must:

A. Be full-time students of Western State Colorado University.
B. Be studying in the Education program to become a teacher.
C. Have and maintain a GPA of 3.0 or greater.
D. Have appropriate abilities, skills and promise, as observed by the Education
faculty.
E. Preference will be given to non-traditional (adult) students as defined by the WIT
program. These students may be undergraduate students working towards a bachelor
degree or graduate students that have already obtained a bachelor’s degree but are
returning to Western to become teachers. Priority consideration will be given to
undergraduate students.
F. Preference will be given to students with financial need.

Originally established by Mary Alice Hansen and her family to celebrate the memory of Mary Alice’s late husband, a long-time Western professor of Education. After Mary Alice’s passing in April 2014, the family added her name to commemorate her.

Mary Alice was born in December 1915 in Chickasha, Oklahoma. She attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman and graduated with a bachelors degree in English in 1937. Ken was born in Jamestown, North Dakota in September 1917. He began his college education at College of the Ozarks before moving to the University of Oklahoma where he received his bachelors and masters degrees. In 1939, Mary Alice and Ken began their life-long journey together.

During the 1950’sand early 1960’sKen Hansen was a vital part of WCU. During that time he not only taught hundreds, if not thousands of students, he was active in the state and nationally, always promoting public education. In 1964 he was leader of a team, under the auspices of the Dept. of State, to study American schools in various African countries. Mary’s hope was that Ken would not be forgotten in the mists of time. Perhaps this scholarship will bring to mind his fundamental interest in his students.

During WWII a great many emergency certificates were issued in order to keep teachers in the schools. Usually these teachers had not completed their college work. After the war, there was a push on the part of these emergency teachers to complete their college degrees. It was one of Ken’s greatest pleasures to help these students in every possible way so that they might accomplish their goals. Ken’s teaching career began with a teaching assistantship at Oklahoma University, but was interrupted by five years as a civilian personnel officer with Army Materiel Command during WWII. It is fitting that this Scholarship should benefit non-traditional students whose education has been interrupted.

In his book, Public Education in American Society, published in 1956, Dr. Hansen urged students to have enthusiasm for teaching. He quoted Chaucer, in his praise of the medieval scholars “and gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.” Dr. Hansen goes on to say, “If a person simply doesn’t enjoy making the effort to become a teacher, or if he cannot teach gladly, then the possession of all the appropriate skills and personality traits in the world cannot make him a good teacher.”

The memory of Dr. Kenneth Hansen’s vigor and passion for teaching, and Mary Alice’s loving, artistic, and adventurous spirit are carried on through this scholarship. Mary Alice continued living in Gunnison and Montrose after Ken’s passing, spending 60 years in western Colorado before going home to Hendersonville to be surrounded by family in the final precious moments of her life.