Each year, a new group of highly motivated and gifted scholars is invited to join the EMU . From this group, two prospective students are selected to receive the annual full-tuition .

Nicole Litwiller of Sarasota, Florida, and Maria Yoder of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will begin their education in the fall of 2015 as contributors to EMU’s legacy of academic excellence.

During Honors Weekend in February, Litwiller and Yoder came to campus with 42 other candidates for the final interview process. The group averaged 1,269 on the SAT critical reading and math sections, 29 on the ACT and a high-school grade point average (GPA) of 4.11.

Full Tuition Yoder Scholarships

The Yoder Scholarships, established in 1993, are named for Paul and Carol Yoder of Harrisonburg, Virginia, both 1963 graduates of EMU. The rigorous selection process for the two scholarships includes a comprehensive academic and service resume, letters of recommendation, creative essays and interviews with Honors Program professors. Candidates who do not win the full-tuition scholarships receive academic scholarships covering approximately half of tuition, as well as membership in the Honors Program.

“We are looking for creative students with wide-ranging interests and strong leadership abilities,” said , a mathematics professor and faculty member in the Honors Program.

Benefits Include 1:1 Mentoring and Critical Thinking Boosts

Over the past three years, the graduation rate for EMU honors students was 100 percent, with a third completing double or triple majors. These students, representing diverse cultural, racial and religious backgrounds, participate in special academic and co-curricular opportunities to learn from and be mentored by faculty.

A majority of honors graduates responding to a 2009 alumni survey “strongly agreed” that the program increased their overall learning and deepened critical thinking skills. Forty-two percent of the survey respondents indicated an educational track beyond their undergraduate degree.

Maria Yoder: The Animal Lover

Maria Yoder loves cats and dogs, and as she took biology classes in the past year, she thought about becoming a veterinarian someday. Lately she’s been volunteering at an animal hospital. At EMU, she plans to enroll in the pre-professional health sciences program.

At Hempfield High School, Yoder is involved in sports, music, tutoring and academic clubs. She was captain of her school’s volleyball team, which won consecutive state championships in 2013 and 2014. She is also captain of the track and field team. A cellist in the school orchestra, she was selected this spring for the state orchestra.

At EMU, Yoder will run , her favorite sport, and join the team. She will play cello in the orchestra.

“I like to keep a busy schedule,” she says, “but I have to be organized and make sure to leave some time for relaxing so I don’t feel overwhelmed.”

Her parents, Randy and Marianne Kurtz Yoder, graduated from EMU in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Her mother earned a in 2013. Although EMU was high on Yoder’s list, she also considered Haverford College near Philadelphia and the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

Nicole Litwiller: Looking Forward to Cross-Cultural

Nicole Litwiller says that “EMU has been on my radar since I was young.” Her parents are both graduates – Larry ’80 and Nelda Rempel Litwiller ‘85. “I am excited to expand my faith and be challenged by professors,” she says. “Also, I love how EMU puts a huge focus on becoming more knowledgeable about other cultures worldwide.”

During the middle of her sophomore year, Litwiller went through an emotional experience when her family moved from Kansas to Florida the day after Christmas. She did not know anyone at Sarasota Christian School, but she looks back on that transition as full of “many new and fun things.”

Today she is president of her senior class, and she is trying to make the year an unforgettable one for her classmates. During her sophomore and junior years, she was on her school’s team that advanced to world competition both times.

A member of her high school soccer team and one of its three captains, Litwiller will probably play for EMU this fall.

Her major, at this point, is undecided. “I hope that through my classes, the cross-cultural trip and other experiences at EMU that my path will become clearer,” she says. “I am looking forward to many opportunities to experience the world.”

“My parents always tithed, plus,” says Paul, referring to giving more than the biblical standard of 10 percent of one’s income. “They were farmers when I was growing up… I remember them borrowing money to support the missionaries until their wheat check came in.” After Paul’s father stopped farming in mid-life, he shifted to pastoring and then (late in life) to fundraising for ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř (EMU).

Carol’s parents were also farmers and they too tithed religiously. “In every way, we’ve been blessed,” she says. “How can we not give?”

Paul cites a favorite quotation: “It is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

After 48 years of marriage, these 1963 graduates of EMU exude a sense of comfortable companionship. They wait respectfully in joint conversations, making space for the other to wrap up his or her set of sentences, before offering a new thought.

He is an eye surgeon; she used to be an operating room nurse. They live in a large all-brick house on a hill overlooking their own lake on the outskirts of Harrisonburg. But the Yoders’ demeanor is unassuming—one could almost see each of them helping with haying or hanging out the laundry, way back when.

After decades of quietly funneling large sums to many worthy projects in the Harrisonburg area—and to some outside of the region—Carol and Paul have at last  allowed themselves to be publicly recognized this year as the “Philanthropists of the Year” by the Shenandoah chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

What induced them to step into the spotlight? “We do understand the power of examples of philanthropy in encouraging others to give,” says Yoder. “And we are finally off all of the local boards on which we have served.”

When one or the other of them was on the governing committee of Rockingham Memorial Hospital, Eastern Mennonite High School, ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř, Park View Church, Virginia Mission Board and a local bank, the Yoders felt that “detractors might say we were using our positions for personal gain or power—to push our own agenda.” They also wanted their two daughters—Liesel and Nicole—to be able to blend into the student population at their Mennonite schools and colleges, rather than being perceived as offspring of one of the institutions’ underwriters. So they simply gave without fanfare.

The Yoders began their lifelong commitment to cross-cultural service when they went to Nepal in 1968. Needing to do alternative service as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Paul chose to work as a newly minted physician—he was between his internship and residency—under the United Mission to Nepal. When Carol and Paul returned home in three years later, they were carrying Liesel, adopted in Nepal.

About a decade later—after Paul’s practice was established and their children were in elementary school—Carol read a book about Medical Ministry International (MMI), which had begun with a small group of volunteer eye surgeons. Paul and Carol signed on and have been on at least one service trip per year for a quarter of a century.

Paul explains the ripple effects of the program: “We started going to Ethiopia six years ago. We met two Ethiopian doctors in their first year of surgical residency—they came to us and said they wanted to be ophthalmologists. We [MMI] sent them to the Dominican Republic for a four-and-a-half-year training program. Then they went back and we helped them set up a clinic. The next time I went to Ethiopia, I was assisting them!”

Carol explains that “MMI serves the world’s poor by trying to lay the groundwork for lasting solutions to their lack of medical care.”

Though fit and active, both Yoders feel that it is time at age 70 to step aside from almost all of their public responsibilities, making room for a younger generation to step up. Paul enjoys running, golf, tennis and skiing. Carol ran miles daily until age 69 and now simply walks strenuously. The secret of their robust health? “You just have to keep moving,” says Carol.

Paul is a member of EMU’s Commission for the Sciences, which is leading an initiative to renovate and enlarge the Suter Science Center.