FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy’s Gus A. Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education held a reception to honor the Spring 2025 recipients of the Dunaway Family Celebrating Excellence and Dunaway Family Economic Excellence Scholarships on March 31.
Each recipient received a one-time $2,000 award to support their scholarly endeavors while at Florida State.
The Dunaway Family Celebrating Excellence Scholarship is a tribute to Mark and Julie Dunaway’s vision to broaden scholar and policymaker awareness about successful African Americans whose works are not well-known. The Dunaway Family Economics Excellence Scholarship, another scholarship offered by the Dunaway family, focuses on economists who are not widely recognized.
The scholarship aims to help students from all backgrounds learn about these individuals’ origins, contributions, and accomplishments. These scholarships are intended to celebrate excellence and are open to all COSSPP students, regardless of race or ethnicity.
The 2025 recipients included David Bastista, Lindsay Baker, Gabriella Behar, Whitney Bouk, Kaitlyn Kane, Lisa Navarro, Varun Raju, Mikayla Robinson, Seth Simpson, Maegan Smarkusky, Hayden Thomas, and Jersey Tidwell.
Applicants reflected on media related to their accomplishments, including books, articles, video interviews, and podcasts.
The winners were selected based on their strong, thoughtful, and complete essays on a series of reflection questions about the accomplishments of a prominent economist of their choosing. One of these economists was Professor Emeritus Jim Gwartney, who taught in the Department of Economics here at Florida State and was a previous director of the Stavros Center.
To learn more about the Stavros Center, visit cosspp.fsu.edu/stavros.