{"id":80,"date":"2012-09-18T15:45:26","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T20:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/?page_id=80"},"modified":"2023-06-07T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T13:21:09","slug":"rossing-award","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/rossing-award\/","title":{"rendered":"History of the Rossing Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-modular-content-collection><h4 style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">About Viola Rossing<\/h4>\n<p>Viola Rossing was born in Argyle, Wisconsin, on March 13, 1889, the daughter of Lars and Helena Rossing, proprietors of a thriving general store that opened in 1870 and remained in business, with Viola\u2019s help, for over 100 years.<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 2px solid black;\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/files\/2012\/09\/viola.jpg\" alt=\"Viola Rossing\" width=\"229\" height=\"335\" align=\"right\" border=\"2\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Viola graduated from high school in 1906 and attended Red Wing Ladies Seminary for one year, then took her place in the family business as a full partner along with her two brothers, Hjalmar and Victor. Viola, like her mother before her, was by all accounts a dedicated and tireless business woman who stuck with the store through prosperity, hard times, and war years.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1930s, Viola established a fund to pay for the education of her nieces and nephews who chose to attend a college of the Lutheran church\u2014Luther, St. Olaf, and Wittenberg. Four of them graduated from St. Olaf.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Rossing Prize<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Viola M. Rossing fund was set up by Betty Rossing Forell, a niece of Viola who was one beneficiary of the college fund, and husband George Forell to honor Viola\u2019s memory. In a letter sent to then-college president Melvin George, Betty Rossing Forell wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>I admire Aunt Viola for her accomplishments as a businesswoman, accomplishments truly unusual for her generation. Therefore I am designating my gift to start a fund, the income of which will be used for an annual prize for the best scholarly paper or creative work produced by a St. Olaf student in Women\u2019s Studies..\u00a0 . . .Many departments at St. Olaf award such prizes as marks of achievement in different disciplines. There is, however, no prize in Women\u2019s Studies. This seems a fitting way to honor Aunt Viola.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Today the Viola M. Rossing Fund supports Gender and Sexuality Studies at St. Olaf College, including an annual award recognizing interdisciplinary achievement. <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/pages\/womens-studies-awards\/viola-rossing-prize\/\">The Rossing Prize<\/a> is an award intended to recognize excellence in the scholarship and creative work of<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>senior Gender and Sexuality Studies majors or concentrators.<\/p>\n<p><!-- begin-migrated-from-panel-builder --><!-- end-migrated-from-panel-builder --><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About Viola Rossing Viola Rossing was born in Argyle, Wisconsin, on March 13, 1889, the daughter of Lars and Helena Rossing, proprietors of a thriving general store that opened in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-80","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/gender-sexuality-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}