Midwestern State University graduate student Isabella Black is no stranger to financial insecurity, but for the first time in her life, she has a space she can call her own thanks to a special scholarship. She is the recipient of this year’s Arbor Creek Scholarship, which provides a one-bedroom apartment at Arbor Creek Apartments to a graduate student rent-free for one year.

Black is a first-generation student who grew up with intense financial insecurity but has managed to thrive in spite of those setbacks. While the norm may be having a parent help with getting into college, Black was on her own. “I had to start from scratch,” she said. “Having a space I can call my own is something I’ve never had before. Now, I feel at ease to have a home base. It’s one less thing to worry about. I grew up with little to no transportation and a background of intense financial insecurity, but now have a sense of stability.”

Black graduated cum laude in Fall 2022 with a bachelor’s in history and minor in sociology. Graduate school has been easier so far because the classes she’s taking are subjects that are already her strong points, and she maintains a 4.0 GPA. Her main interests are post-war politics from 1945-1990. “I’m fascinated by the policies set during those years because we still reconcile with those choices made today,” she said. Black is a graduate teaching assistant and teaches Survey of American History Since 1865.

In Fall 2022, Black won first place in the Moffett Library’s Research Awards for her work, “Indianizing Midwestern State University: The Relationship Between the Kiowa and Midwestern State University, 1952-2006.” She studied articles from 1952-1976 in the Wichitan, Wichita Falls Times, and the Wichita Falls Record News and found that in 1952 an adoption ceremony was held between the Kiowa Indians and Midwestern State. “There are a lot of inconsistencies with the way the relationship between the Kiowa and MSU has been portrayed, but I hope this paper can rectify some of that,” she said.

Black is now part of a project by the Department of History to update Professor Emeritus of History Everett Kindig’s book Midwestern State University: The Better Part of a Century, which was printed in 2000. The period she’s researching, 1998-2003, was a pivotal time in the history of MSU Texas – it covers the retirement of Louis J. Rodriguez in 2000, the presidency of Henry Moon, and the impact 9/11 and geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East had on MSU Texas students.

Black said her research gave her a better understanding of her university. “It makes you more appreciative of the place you’re in,” she said.

Black makes time for campus involvement and was instrumental in reviving the campus History Club, which was last active in 2013.