Beca Josefa Gómez Orozco Scholarship

This term scholarship supports undergraduate sophomores, juniors and seniors in the School of Education majoring in Education with either a second major or minor in Spanish with an intent to study at SLU-Madrid. Minimum GPA of 3.25. Must demonstrate need. Renewable. Administered by Student Financial Services.

Beca Josefa Gomez Orozco Scholarship
Named in honor of Beca Josefa Gomez to continue her legacy of supporting those seeking a transformative international academic experience with plans to attend SLU Madrid and major/minor in Spanish.

Josefa Gómez Orozco was a woman that lived ahead of her time. Born in Spain in 1909, by serendipity. Josefa’s parents resided in New York city at the time, and boarded the fateful ocean liner Lusitania so their daughter could be raised in Almeria. Her dad was an entrepreneur dedicated to the grape import from Spain and to the betterment of US-Spain commerce.

Josefa was raised within the Catholic faith and exemplified early on the virtues of a life of servitude, love, and constant self-improvement. In a time, worldwide, where it was not trendy for women to go to college and work, she graduated in 1929 from Almeria University with a dual bachelor’s degree in education and business. Always humble and thoughtful of the needs of others, you would never know that she was the first woman in the city of Almeria to ever obtain a driver’s license. She worked as a teacher through her retirement, including the Spanish civil war era, raising her 4 children always accompanied by her husband and best friend – José Salazar Salvador, also a teacher.

Josefa dedicated her life to teaching, guided by the Christian values to serve God, her family and her community with love, passion, service, equity and respect for others and self. This scholarship is intended for young women and men that aim to continuously and consistently improve themselves, and the communities they represent, as she would have wanted.