{"id":20773,"date":"2026-10-22T12:20:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T16:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=20773"},"modified":"2026-10-22T12:20:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T16:20:48","slug":"students-win-inaugural-paralegal-scholarships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2026\/10\/22\/students-win-inaugural-paralegal-scholarships\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Win Inaugural Paralegal Scholarships"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col{padding-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-bottom:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-left:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);}.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column20773_3235f7-2a\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two undergraduates in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilmu.edu\/behavioralscience\/indexs.aspx\">College of Social and Behavioral Sciences<\/a> are among the first three scholarship recipients named by the Delaware Paralegal Association (DPA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jamie Debbrecht<\/strong> and <strong>Elon McCain<\/strong>, both senior students in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilmu.edu\/behavioralscience\/law-policy-and-political-science-curriculum.aspx\">Law, Policy, and Political Science program<\/a>, were selected based on their grades and an essay expressing their inspiration, aspirations, and what they have done to achieve their goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Debbrecht, who won top honors, is a master sergeant in the Air Force Reserves and has been working as a paralegal since 2018. She wrote about learning to handle pressure during her military service and her determination to hone her skills as a paralegal in her professional life. She was awarded $500 and a DPA membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">McCain, an immigrant, wrote about his experience coming to a new country and his desire to use his legal expertise to help asylum seekers in the immigrant community. He received $250. The third scholarship recipient is a student at Delaware Technical Community College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The DPA established the scholarships in honor of the professional organization\u2019s 50<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary and plans to award them annually. The goal is to cultivate the next generation of skilled, ethical paralegals, says Stephanie McConaghy, DPA spokeswoman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 <em>Eileen Smith Dallabrida<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two undergraduates in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences are among the first three scholarship recipients named by the Delaware Paralegal Association (DPA). Jamie&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[286,14,15],"class_list":["post-20773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-college-of-social-and-behavioral-science","tag-wilmington-university","tag-wilmu"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"ACADEMIC NEWS"}],"post_tag":[{"value":286,"label":"College of Social and Behavioral Science"},{"value":14,"label":"Wilmington University"},{"value":15,"label":"WilmU"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/criminal-justice-480x480.jpg",480,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Mckayla Imperatrice","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/mckayla\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","slug":"academic-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":489,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":489,"category_description":"","cat_name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","category_nicename":"academic-news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":286,"name":"College of Social and Behavioral Science","slug":"college-of-social-and-behavioral-science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":843,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":12,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":14,"name":"Wilmington University","slug":"wilmington-university","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":571,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":397,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":15,"name":"WilmU","slug":"wilmu","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":572,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":331,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20775,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20773\/revisions\/20775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}