Chris Borton

Christopher B. Borton was born in New York City on February 12, 1965 and died on June 14, 1996 after a brief but valiant battle against cancer. During his childhood he lived in New York, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Los Baños (The Philippines), and Menlo Park (California), and traveled on five continents.

Chris, a graduate of Davis High School, spent his academic career at the University of California at San Diego (Warren College graduate, class of 1988: German literature and computer science) and the University of Göttingen, Germany. He pursued graduate work at the University of Amsterdam and at the University of California at Berkeley.

Chris' professional career included programming as an independent contractor and owner of "Magnetic Frisbees," and part-time work at KPMG and the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Chris was also a cofounder (1990) of Storm Technology, a pioneer company in the area of image processing and JPEG technology.

Founding

Chris's good friend and fellow UCSD graduate Mike Scanlin proposed the idea of a memorial scholarship to Chris' parents Ray and Verena shortly after Chris' death.

Through the Education Abroad Program of UCSD, Chris spent a year at the University of Göttingen in Germany, an experience that profoundly influenced the direction of his life. Together with his childhood experiences of living in different cultures and later studies and travels abroad, it made him the world citizen he was.

Thus, in 1996, the Chris Borton Memorial Scholarship Fund was established to assist University of California San Diego students wishing to study abroad.

Board

The fund's board of directors, and its officers, responsible for the management of the fund, and selection of the scholarship awardees, currently consists of:

The board meets several times a year to conduct the fund's business. Once a year (April/May) it receives candidate applications from UCSD's Programs Abroad Office and selects that year's recipients. Later in the year, it publishes a newsletter to give all contributors and awardees an update on the fund's status and the whereabouts and activities of past and present awardees.

Award amount and fund management

To preserve Chris' legacy and award scholarships to as many deserving students as possible, for as long as possible, the founders and board have decided to aim for preservation of the Fund's principal assets as a guiding principle. Continuing contributions by many generous donors and conservative asset management have enabled us to do so, and even grow the Fund. As the Fund grows the board may decide to award more scholarships, or increase the amount.

The amount awarded is a fixed amount, regardless of actual duration of study abroad. The amount, however, is principally targeted at those students who will spend the major portion of an academic year abroad. If students abandon their study abroad program, forfeiture of the award results. From the beginning through the 2006/2007 academic year the scholarships awarded have always been $3,000 per student. Starting with the 2007-2008 academic year the board has decided to increase the amount of the award to $3,750. For 2008/2009 and after, the scholarship has been increased to $5,000.

Recipients

So far the fund has been able to award 38 scholarships (through the 2010/2011 year) . In 2002 only two of the three awardees were able to take advantage of the scholarship, and 2003 presented the board with a field of candidates in which there was a near tie for third place. Consequently the board decided to make an exception and award four scholarships for 2003. Another situation with a virtual tie between 3 candidates resulted in an extra award in the 2006/2007 year as well. The 2008/2009 year resulted in three clear "winners" and the board decided to award a $5,000 scholarship to each of them (and those chosen in subsequent years).

Countries

Recipients of the scholarship award have visited and studied in the following countries: