By Jeff Wilson

The scholarships that Ink Winter has received have strengthened their bond to SIU since transferring from Rend Lake College.

Studying Japanese and German in SIU’s College of Liberal Arts, Winter has been awarded the Collins Family Saluki Scholarship and Helmut and Marry Liedloff in German Scholarship.

“It kind of warms my heart,” Winter said. “I’ll look more fondly on my time at SIU because of these scholarships. Someday I want to give back to people in a similar way.”

Despite commuting from Du Quoin, the Pinckneyville Community High School graduate is heavily involved both on and off campus. They are the secretary of two organizations, the Saluki Rainbow Network and Alternative Lifestyles, Identities, and Sexualities (ALIAS), and are also a COLA senator in the Undergraduate Student Governement and member of the Saluki Tabletop Gaming RSO.

“My scholarships prevent me from needing to take out student loans. If I didn’t have them, I would need a full-time job, which wouldn’t allow me to be so involved,” Winter said. “I work part-time now, so I’m thankful for the freedom scholarships offer.”

Winter plans to attend graduate school at SIU and study linguistics with a focus on Japanese.

“After graduation, I hope to travel and study the impact of bilingualism in certain areas,” they said.