When you think about university alumni who offer academic scholarships, it’s easy to picture individuals near the end of their careers, financially well-established, perhaps eyeing retirement or already there. But a pair of married Maryville alums decided to take the leap while still in their twenties.
Mark Cohen, Bachelor of Science ’18, and Michelle Stading Cohen, Master of Occupational Therapy ’19, launched the Stading-Cohen Scholarship along with their families only a handful of years after graduation. Already, their gifts have made a difference in the academic and personal lives of more than a half dozen Maryville students.
Maryville was the springboard for the Cohens’ burgeoning careers, their close-knit friend group—and their relationship. After meeting on campus, they immediately clicked.
“Maryville had a profound impact on both of us,” Michelle Cohen said.“So we wanted to give back and be a part of the continued growth of the university.”
Real-World Lessons
Sam Beumer, Bachelor of Science ’26, a Maryville senior concentrating on business administration, is grateful to have received the Stading-Cohen scholarship three years in a row. The gifts have helped alleviate financial concerns and allowed Beumer to focus on academics and playing for the Maryville Saints varsity hockey team.
“Even a small amount goes a long way,” Beumer said. “It helps me to not worry about, ‘Okay, do I need to work all the time?’”
At the start of his freshman year, Beumer quickly felt at home on the Maryville campus. The Life Coach the university provides every incoming student helped calm any stress about immersing himself in a brand-new environment.
Having never taken an online class before, Beumer was unsure about the accelerated schedule.
“My Life Coach would check in on me through email or text and ask, ‘’Hey, are you worried about anything with the class?’” Beumer said. “And he would give advice like, ‘Just work at your own pace and if you need to take a break, take it and then come back to it.’”
As he settled into campus life, Beumer realized how much of what he was learning had real-world value. He recalled a project management class focused on building a baseball stadium.
The assignment taught Beumer about the myriad components of such an elaborate undertaking including timeline, materials, equipment, permits and preexisting utility conduits.
“It would have never crossed my mind that you have to check for things like a sewer or water or electrical line,” Beumer sayd. “But if you pop one of those, then you have more problems on your hands.”
Just as important as hard skills are soft skills, Beumer learned. Maryville’s Human Resources classes taught him the importance of considering others’ opinions and not clinging too tightly to one’s own. “To make sure everyone feels heard, even in small things,” Beumer says.
Listening skills came in handy not only in Beumer’s internship at a water and wastewater pipeline solutions company but also in the hockey rink. When it comes to strategy, someone playing center like Beumer tends to listen to other centers, and those playing defense to other defensive players. But the truth, he says, is that a goalie sitting out a particular game may have the broadest view and the best advice.
For example, he says, a goalie with eyes on the entire rink might notice the other team moving back out of the zone, giving his own teammates more time to move the puck. “The goalie truly has a different perspective,” Beumer says. “And the skills you learn in class help you listen to people with different perspectives, which then will also come in handy in the workplace.”
After graduation, Beumer plans to pursue an MBA at Maryville. He hopes to secure a position in construction project management. If all goes well, he’d like to one day pay it forward like the Cohens.
“At the right time in my life, I definitely would love to help out another student,” Beumer says. “Because I know that no matter what the amount, it would mean a lot.”
‘Knew I Had Chosen the Right Field’
After Erin Callico, BS ’24, MS.SPLP ’26, began her graduate studies at Maryville, she was disappointed to not receive any of the scholarships awarded through her speech therapy program. But knowing how competitive they are, she resigned herself to working more hours at the Cracker Barrel job she’d had since high school.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot,’” Callico says. “But that’s okay—I tried.” Then a few months later, Callico was sitting in the graduate student workspace, checking her email. She was shocked to open a message that read, “You’ve been awarded the Stading-Cohen Scholarship.”
“So I went to the link and I was like, ‘That’s amazing because I’m paying for school myself,’” Callico says. “Money’s stressful and school’s expensive, so even though I had some money saved from my job, just knowing that I had a little bit taken care of was really great.”
Ever since Callico was a little girl, she wanted to be a speech therapist like her aunt. She remembers going with her to the clinic and watching her impact on clients. “They got so excited when they would say a sound correctly,” Callico says.
Callico chose Maryville for her undergrad for the quality of the university’s speech and language program and its welcoming faculty. She arrived on campus with a large number of college credits under her belt. Thanks to her on-the-ball Life Coach, they all counted toward her degree. “She usually got back to me with answers the very same day,” Callico says.
Now, as a grad student, Callico treasures the hands-on learning available through the Maryville Speech and Language Clinic. Under supervision, Callico and others in the program help people of all ages with comprehensive speech, language, cognitive and swallowing therapy services.
Callico’s clients have included a 7-year-old with an expressive and receptive language disorder. Through stories and games like Candy Land, Callico was able to help her speak in longer and more detailed sentences.
Other clients included a young girl born with cleft pallet, a woman in her 50s who’d had a stroke and another adult with a brain injury. “Never the same kind of client twice,” Callico says.
Before her first day at the clinic, Callico was nervous about working with actual people. But it didn’t take long for her to realize she could count on her supervisors and her own knowledge to relax into the work.
“I wasn’t expecting it to just feel so right,” Callico says. “And that’s when I knew I had chosen the right field.”
Callico’s original goal for after graduation was to work with children. But thanks to valuable internships at an adult assisted living and a memory care facility, she’s also drawn to an older population. Now she’s thinking of applying for full-time work in an elementary school setting and working as needed at an assisted living.
Like Beumer, Callico would also enjoy being able to help future Maryville students if she has the means.
“Knowing how tough grad school can be but also how rewarding, I would love to be able to do that for somebody else,” Callico says.
Lifeline for Another Generation
The Cohens enjoy knowing they’re investing in lifelong learning by helping students a decade or less younger than themselves realize their dreams. While they don’t have input into who gets chosen, the couple likes to think it might be students who are immersed in campus activities and sports, as they were.
They both understand on a personal level the difference scholarships can make. Michelle Cohen, who was drawn to Maryville’s “close-knit and homey” community as well as its Occupational Therapy freshman direct entry program, was grateful to receive financial assistance from several sources.
“Scholarships definitely provided financial security, and allowed me to feel more confident in spending the additional time being a student athlete,” she says.
As Cohen worked her way through her Master of Occupational Therapy program, she became more and more involved in student activities. Already in an assistant coaching role for the golf team, she joined the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and then Team IMPACT, a national non-profit that matches children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses with collegiate sports teams to achieve skills and build connections.
Throughout her busy time at Maryville, she appreciated the cooperation between athletics and academics. “Sometimes there’s this reputation of student athletes butting heads with teachers because you have to miss a lot of school,” she says. But her golf coach proactively reached out to her instructors, who appreciated the heads-up.
“The occupational therapy program is such a close knit community that the teachers notice when you’re not in class,” Cohen says. “So if you don’t show up, you’re going to receive a text message like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Are you safe? Is your car in a ditch?’”
Cohen now works as an occupational therapist at Shriners Children’s St. Louis Hospital with children who have congenital hand differences, a job she loves. She recently earned the additional distinction of certified hand therapist.
A few years ago, the Cohens had the heartwarming opportunity to meet with some students who received the Stading-Cohen Scholarship, sponsored by the Cohens, her parents Greg and Terry Stading and her brother Nick Stading, ’14. She enjoyed answering the students’ many questions whose topics ranged from current courses to future success.
“Being able to be a lifeline for another generation as they go through college then into the workforce is very meaningful,” she says.
Lasting Impact
Like those of his wife, Mark Cohen’s years at Maryville were a whirlwind of activity. Along with working toward his business degree, he served as an officer for three years on the Campus Activities Board (CAB) before becoming president. Having scholarships meant he could devote the time necessary to his involvement during the school year, while participating in work study during the summers.
Through CAB, Cohen honed his skills for organizing social and entertainment gatherings. The experience was instrumental in his finding an academic and professional focus on marketing and event planning. “It was life-giving,” he says.
As a senior, the expertise Cohen gained through CAB helped him land a job with St. Louis’s Ballpark Village, a dining, sports, entertainment and nightlife complex. After graduation, he became marketing manager.
During a pandemic furlough, Cohen took on private marketing clients at no charge, thinking he’d be called back to Ballpark Village. But when he wasn’t, everything shifted. As his clientele increased, Cohen decided to form his own marketing company. He called it Two Twelve Media, inspired by a book given to him by a former Maryville director of student involvement. The book hits home the fact that while 211 degrees doesn’t create a boiling point for water, 212 degrees does. Just that one degree turns water into steam—an energy source powerful enough to move a train. The concept—which dovetails with what Cohen learned in his classes—also signifies that progress happens gradually, Cohen says.
“Your business is not going to do a million dollars the first year,” he says. “It’s about taking simple steps to grow the business one degree at a time: sending that thank you card, knowing your client’s birthday, knowing their Starbucks order.”
That thinking has paid off, Cohen says. Since Two Twelve’s inception, its revenue has grown 1,200%.
Like his business, the Stading-Cohen Scholarship concept percolated over time. As Cohen remembers, the idea came up one year at a family Christmas celebration and after a while, grew from possibility to reality. “It was definitely a group thing,” Cohen says. “To support something that brought our two families together.”
While Cohen likes the prospect of recent scholarship recipients one day helping other students, he feels even more rewarded by the gifts’ more direct impact.
“It’s exciting to think a recipient may do something beneficial in their field, for the community or maybe the country,” he says. “If they give back that way, that’s really, really cool, right?”
91 91
Founded in 1872, 91 is a comprehensive and nationally ranked private institution with an enrollment of well over 9,000 students. Maryville offers over 90 degrees at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels, as well as several certificates that align with the undergraduate and graduate education levels. Maryville is recognized as the third fastest-growing private university in the United States by The Chronicle of Higher Education, serving students from 50 states and 56 countries. More than 50,000 Maryville alumni globally, many of whom work and live in the St. Louis region.