One full-tuition Loftur Bjarnason Scholarship is awarded each year to one undergraduate and one graduate student who have made Scandinavian language or culture a significant part of their studies. The deadline for the 2009-10 academic year is April 15, 2009. For more information about application see the Humanities College Advisement Center scholarship page or contact program director, Dr. Oscarson.
Loftur Bjarnason, emeritus professor of literature at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, was a long-time friend of BYU. A descendent of Icelandic immigrants to Spanish Fork, he studied in Iceland under Sigurour Nordal, the most renowned Icelandic scholar of the past century. Professor Bjarnason was secretary-treasurer of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and published a two-volume anthology and a number of articles of the sagas and on modern Icelandic literature. He regularly taught a course on Icelandic literature for the University of California at Berkeley, and he was twice a visiting professor at BYU. In addition to enriching our Scandinavian collection and soliciting further donations to the Harold B. Lee Library from Iceland, Professor Bjarnason established an endowment to produce funds for student scholarships and a lecture series in Scandinavian Studies.