By Lillie Tretter, Staff Writer
On Monday, Nov 10, 2025, the Women of Gamma Phi and Gamma alumni will gather in the Walker Conference Center to award the very first recipient the Gamma Phi Endowed Scholarship. The Women of Gamma Phi is the very first and only club on campus to have an endowed scholarship; others offer scholarship opportunities, but none are endowed. Alumni and current members of the club have worked hard over the past two years to raise money to get the scholarship off the ground.
In 2023, after a beloved sister from the pledge class of 1973 suddenly passed away, Gamma alumni wanted a way to donate in her memory. After brainstorming, Selena Bartismier and Susan Cheatham met with other alumni on July 29, 2023. Their solution to honor their beloved sister and the sisterhood of Gamma Phi: an endowed scholarship. After working closely with Brant Matros from the development office and Karen Matros in the financial office of Ouachita, in early August of 2023, Bartismier, Cheatham and President Ben Sells met to sign the official documents.
“We had a maximum of five years to raise the principal, which was fifty thousand dollars, to start the endowment. I knew we weren’t going to take five years; we were going to have the money raised in just one year,” said Bartismier, co-signer of the endowment and head of the committee. For one year, they advertised and did fundraisers to make their hefty goal of fifty thousand in under a year. In July of 2024, just under a month before the one-year mark, the Women of Gamma Phi met their principal and became the first club on campus to establish an endowed scholarship. After reaching the principal, the next step was to put together an official committee and create a scoring matrix.
“Susan and I put our heads together and decided to add one older sister and two younger alumni because we wanted this to be a multi-generational committee,” said Bartismier. The committee consists of Bartismier and Cheatham, cosigners of the endowment; Gail Felton, pledge class of ’78; Taryn Buley, the vice chair of the committee and an alumna from the first pledge class after the club was re-founded in 2019; and Bailey Gibson, who graduated in 2025. The committee rotates every two years to ensure all the club’s alumni who want to serve their sisters on campus have the opportunity to.
The scoring matrix is made up of the characteristics of the ideal Gamma, focusing on faith, community involvement, leadership and academics. Not only does the recipient have to represent Gamma well, but they must also be a good representation of Ouachita as a whole. Lisa Easter, a Gamma alumna, and Clark Easter, a former Gamma beau and Colonel in the U.S. Military, helped create the scoring matrix. “The decision matrix is used in conjunction with the application form, and it provides a quantitative objective value for each application vs. it being a subjective decision,” says Bartismier.
“This scholarship represents the core values of Gamma Phi because it represents the best of Gamma. The way that it was accomplished so quickly in just under a year shows the perseverance and passion in the hearts behind so many Gammas,” says Taryn Buley, Vice Chair of the committee. For members of the club, it reminds them of the long-lasting legacy they are a part of because the scholarship is not going anywhere. The endowment will last forever, speaking to the longevity of the Women of Gamma Phi.
Each year, recipients are awarded the scholarship in the fall semester and will receive it in the spring. As the principal grows, the return interest will also grow, and more money will be able to be awarded. This year, there is just one recipient, the first of many who will carry forward the values, faith and sisterhood that help define the Women of Gamma Phi.
