Eastern Student Lauren Wells of Stratford Named Recipient of the ECSU Foundation's Victoria Leigh Soto '08 Memorial Endowed Scholarship

2015 Feb 18

Eastern student Lauren Wells '14 of Stratford, CT, was named as a recipient of the ECSU Foundation's Victoria Leigh Soto '08 Memorial Endowed Scholarship for the 2014-15 academic year. Wells's major is Elementary Education and Visual Arts.

The scholarship was created in honor of Eastern Connecticut State University alumna Victoria Leigh Soto '08, an elementary school teacher, who lost her life protecting her first-grade students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, on Dec. 14, 2012.

Soto was a dean's list student while she attended Eastern as an elementary education and history double major. She was also a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society. Her dream job was to teach and nurture young children in the primary grades.

Eastern started the scholarship in honor of Soto and her heroism and to support students studying to be teachers who have unmet financial need.

Extremely grateful to have received the award, Wells said, “The way Victoria lived her life and how she died protecting her students is a huge inspiration to me. The way in which she immediately thought about her students before herself is a characteristic I hope to acquire once I become a teacher.”