School of Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) student Jonisa-Niani Davis has been named the inaugural recipient of the Tamara J. Gilmore Endowed Scholarship.
The recently established Tamara J. Gilmore Endowed Scholarship will be awarded annually to underrepresented female STHM students who are pursuing careers in hospitality and event management and who exemplify Ms. Gilmore’s professional and entrepreneurial spirit. A Temple alumna who died in 1999 at the age of 31, Ms. Gilmore was an accomplished business professional and entrepreneur within the hospitality industry.
PHLDiversity, formerly known as the Multicultural Affairs Congress, founded the scholarship before it was moved to STHM and endowed with a significant contribution by Ms. Gilmore’s uncle, Larry Miller, the President of Nike’s Jordan brand and an alumnus of Temple’s Fox School of Business. PHLDiversity will present STHM with a $5,000 check in support of the scholarship at its 2015 PHLDiversity Distinguished Diversity Speaker Series, to be held June 4.
“I am so grateful and blessed to have received this scholarship,” Davis said. “On the night I received the scholarship, I met with Eileen Miller, Tamara’s mother. She said that just by listening to my story and my future plans, she saw so much of her daughter in me. That statement warmed my heart and made me shed a tear. She also told me my family and I were now a part of her family.
“I plan to keep in touch with her family and follow in Tamara’s footsteps, as far as giving scholarships to under-represented and well-deserving students.”
A Tourism and Hospitality Management major with a Hospitality Operations concentration, Davis is serving an internship with The St. Regis Atlanta, her third with Starwood Hotels and Resorts. In spring 2014, she externed with the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia and, a year later, externed with the St. Regis San Francisco.
Davis, a Philadelphia native who is slated to graduate in May 2016, aspires for a career in the food-and-beverage and events-planning industries.
Visit STHM’s website for more information or to contribute to the Tamara J. Gilmore Endowed Scholarship Fund.