On the afternoon of December 18, students of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), together with their peers and members of the academic community, gathered for the annual ceremony of awarding diaspora patrons’ scholarships at the Lithuanian Emigration Institute and The Valdas Adamkus Presidential Library-Museum. It has become a cherished tradition to award VMU students with the named Bronius Bieliukas and Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė scholarships funded by the Lithuanian Foundation (LF) each year before Christmas.

The event was attended by Leonas Narbutis, a member of the LF Board, who spoke to those gathered about the activities of the Lithuanian Foundation—from its difficult beginnings 60 years ago, when several doctors from the Lithuanian diaspora conceived the idea of establishing a foundation dedicated to preserving national identity in the diaspora, to the realization of this vision. Although there were many skeptics at the time, the foundation not only fulfilled but far exceeded its founders’ expectations. Over the past five years, the Lithuanian Foundation has allocated more than one million US dollars annually from interest on its accumulated capital to support initiatives, assisting Lithuanians living both in the diaspora and in Lithuania. Students were greeted by the Director of the Lithuanian Emigration Institute, Prof. Egidijus Aleksandravičius, who spoke about Lithuanian traditions of patronage, Bronius Bieliukas, Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė, and other diaspora patrons, reminding everyone that such examples oblige not only scholarship recipients but all Lithuanians to continue these fine traditions of patronage.

The named Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė scholarship awarded by the Lithuanian Foundation was presented to Eimantas Pileckas, a second-year master’s student in the Central and Eastern European and Lithuanian History study program at the Faculty of Humanities of VMU. This year, the Bronius Bieliukas scholarships were awarded to Gabrielė Navickaitė, a first-year master’s student in Comparative Cultural Studies; Sabina Baltrūnaitė, a first-year master’s student in Modern Linguistics; Gabija Ševcovaitė, a second-year master’s student in Central and Eastern European and Lithuanian History; and Eivydas Mozūras, a fourth-year undergraduate student in History—all from the Faculty of Humanities.

During the celebration, scholarships named after former VMU Rector Professor Bronius Vaškelis were also awarded. This year, three named scholarships were presented to doctoral students of Philology Gintarė Navakauskaitė and Eimantė Korytė, as well as to doctoral student in Art History Monika Citvaraitė-Lansbergienė.

Photos by Jonas Petronis.