Linking Student Support with Student
Success:
The Posse Foundation
By Deborah Bial, president and founder of The
Posse Foundation
 |
 |
|
Photo courtesy of Posse Foundation |
The Posse Foundation is a college access and leadership
development program that identifies, recruits, and selects
student leaders from public high schools and sends them
in small cohort groups, called Posses, to top colleges
and universities across the country. The goal is to
increase the access and success of underserved students
at leading institutions.
Posse started in New York City in 1989 after one student
said to me that he never would have dropped out of college
if he had his “posse” with him. It seemed
like an incredibly simple idea: Why not send a tightly
linked team of students, or a posse, to college? Urban
students who experience the culture shock of an out-of-state
campus would then have a built-in support system.
Vanderbilt University became the first institution
to take a chance on the Posse program, which had no
history or record of accomplishment at that time. Fifteen
years later, The Posse Foundation has twenty partner
colleges and universities and a stellar record of success,
with nearly 1,000 Posse Scholars graduated or currently
enrolled. These young people have won over $85 million
in leadership and merit scholarships from Posse partner
colleges. Most importantly, the Scholars are succeeding
and graduating at a rate of over 90 percent, demonstrating
a direct link between access and success.
Each Posse consists of ten students from diverse backgrounds.
They are chosen because they exhibit outstanding leadership
and academic potential. The concept of a Posse is rooted
in the belief that a small, diverse group of talented
students—a Posse—carefully selected and
prepared for their chosen campuses, can serve as a catalyst
for individual and campus community development. These
small groups serve as interdependent and interconnected
support units within the institution and help promote
students’ individual and collective success.
Preparing Diverse Leaders
 |
Communications
Tips |
|
The debates over race-based
affirmative action have generated a large amount
of media coverage. It is possible to build on
existing media interest in a topic to generate
news stories that focus on related programs. For
example, reporters might be interested in programs
sponsored by The Posse Foundation that address
college access and success by focusing on non-cognitive
variables such as leadership ability. Reporters
frequently will look for angles for stories that
reframe a much-debated issue. If you have a Posse
program or something similar on your campus, consider
pitching a story about it to your local education
reporter. To do this successfully you may need
to educate the reporter about why college success,
especially for traditionally underrepresented
students, depends on more than test scores and
grade-point averages. Suggest that an article
could address the many factors that contribute
to college success. |
The Posse Foundation believes that the leaders of the
new century should reflect this country’s increasingly
rich demographic mix. Our nation’s future rests
on our ability to educate strong leaders from diverse
backgrounds who can develop consensus solutions to complex
social problems. Currently, neither the campuses of
top universities nor the country’s workforce adequately
reflect the changing demographics of the nation’s
population. The rising cost of higher education and
the competition for the highest-achieving students have
created homogeneous campus environments in the country’s
top universities. In turn, fewer students from minority
and low-income families are graduating from these institutions
and continuing on to senior-level leadership positions
in the workforce.
Among the factors contributing to the lack of persons
from ethnic minority groups and lower-income families
at highly selective colleges and universities are the
narrow parameters of the selection process. Two critical
factors for acceptance into top institutions are high
standardized test scores and an excellent academic background
from a strong high school program. While these sound
like reasonable criteria for measuring academic potential,
they unnecessarily narrow the pool of young people who
could succeed at the best schools. The criteria also
narrow the diversity and scope of abilities represented
in selective universities and colleges. Many capable
and promising students are unfortunately overlooked.
Compounding the challenges admissions officers face
in recruiting a diverse student body is the reality
of culture shock for many students. Young people from
nontraditional backgrounds who are admitted to selective
institutions often report feeling isolated from the
rest of the student body. Consequently, these students
tend to leave school at a higher rate than their white
and upper-income counterparts. Many universities recognize
the lack of racial and cultural diversity as a problem.
Most universities routinely seek ways to recruit and
retain underrepresented students. The Posse Foundation
offers an effective model for improving the pathway
to and through college.
Posse advances three major ways of addressing some of
the challenges of recruiting and graduating a diverse
student body:
- Expand the pool from which top colleges and universities
can recruit.
- Help institutions build more intercultural campus
environments so that they can become more welcoming
institutions for students from all backgrounds.
- Ensure that Posse Scholars persist in their academic
studies and graduate so that they can take leadership
positions in the workforce.
Training for Success
Posse achieves its goals through four program components
that focus on the following critical areas: recruitment;
preparation to navigate the collegiate environment;
ongoing mentoring in college, and support for structured
interaction with the broader student body; and career
transition activities.
- The Posse Foundation developed an innovative system
to identify, evaluate, and prepare students for the
Posse program. The Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP)
represents a unique evaluation process designed to
identify outstanding young leaders often overlooked
by traditional college admissions measures. DAP offers
students an opportunity to demonstrate their intrinsic
leadership ability, academic promise, skills at working
in a team setting, and desire to succeed.
- The Eight-Month Pre-Collegiate Training Program
is a critical element in the success of Posse students.
Posse Scholars meet weekly as a Posse for two-hour
workshops during their senior year in high school.
These meetings with trainers focus on team-building,
cross-cultural communication, leadership, and academic
excellence. In addition, Posse’s Writing Program
engages lawyers, journalists, professors, and others
to act as academic coaches.
- Once students are enrolled in college, the Campus
Program works to ensure the retention of Posse Scholars
and to increase the impact of the Scholars and the
program on the campus. Every year, Scholars host a
weekend-long PossePlus Retreat that brings members
of the larger student body together to examine important
campus issues. A mentor meets with Posse Scholars
during their first two years of college, and Posse
staff members make regular visits to Scholars, university
administrators, and campus mentors.
- The Career Program helps Posse Scholars make the
transition from being leaders on campus to serving
as leaders in the workforce by providing them with
the tools and opportunities they need to secure career-enhancing
internships and highly competitive jobs. The Career
Program also develops partnerships with prominent
national and international corporations and organizations
in order to offer unique internship opportunities.
Why It Works
A recent evaluation of The Posse Program conducted
by The Conservation Company found that the Posse Foundation
is identifying highly motivated students who can succeed
at
selective institutions despite their lower than average
SAT/ACT scores and despite the fact that they may come
from under-financed public high schools. The study found
that 70 percent of Posse Scholars have either founded
or been president of at least one campus-based organization,
club, or academic program. Posse Scholars also have
a significant impact on their campuses by hosting annual
retreats to discuss important campus issues, serving
as campus leaders, engaging actively in the learning
process, and speaking on social and political issues.
The program has been so successful that several Posse
partner institutions, including DePauw University in
Indiana and Grinnell College in Iowa, have each decided
to take two Posses per year (twenty students)—a
move that will yield eighty Posse scholars over a four-year
period on each of their small campuses.
Posse graduates are making the most of the premier
educational experiences they receive and are committed
to giving back to their communities. They become teachers,
engineers, lawyers, social workers, and bankers. They
are tutoring public high school students, joining community
initiatives, and returning to The Posse Foundation as
staff.
The Posse Foundation plans to expand its initiative.
This year over 4,500 young people were nominated for
223 Posse Scholarships. With sites firmly anchored in
Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, Posse
has just received a major grant from the Sallie Mae
Fund to open a new site in Washington, DC. The Posse
Foundation seeks to increase its number of partner institutions
over the next several years to respond to increased
interest.
For more information visit www.possefoundation.org.
|
