When fully endowed, the Meredith Hope Emerson Memorial Fund for Study Abroad will be given to a UGA student each year for study in a French-speaking country, with preference given to current and former residents of the French Language Community.

"Meredith really loved her study-abroad experience while she was at UGA," her parents, Susan and Dave Emerson, said. "It made a wonderfully positive impression on her and changed her life.

"Setting up a scholarship to allow others to have such an experience is a very appropriate way of celebrating how her life was enriched through her time in France."

Emerson, a UGA student from 2001 to 2005, was recipient of the Cecil Willcox Award for Excellence in French in 2005.

An officer of the UGA chapter of the French Honor Society Pi Delta Pi, she received the Joseph Yedlicka Scholarship for Study Abroad awarded by the national organization of Pi Delta Phi in 2004.

She was a resident of the French Language Community during the 2003-04 academic year.

The language communities in French and Spanish at UGA opened in the fall of 2000 for interested students to blend their residential and academic experiences.

Tax-deductible gifts can be made by check or credit card.

Checks should be made payable to the Arch Foundation, with "Meredith Emerson" written in the memo line.

Send checks to Suzi Wong c/o the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, 124 Old College, UGA, Athens, GA 30602.

Wong is the gifts officer for the romance languages department at UGA.

To make donations by credit card, go to www.rom.uga.edu/emersonaward.html, click on "contribute now" and donate to the romance languages account.

Follow all links and at the "checkout" point, in the box for indicating special designation, write "in memory of Meredith Emerson."

For gifts of stock or matching gifts, or for other information or questions, call Wong at 706-542-9867.