A UNIQUE PROGRAM BRINGS MORE DIVERSITY TO CAMPUS
Finding inspiration to study is easy for Klenton Tomori ’10. Eight years ago Tomori’s parents sold their home and borrowed money to leave the eastern European nation of Albania for a better life in the Boston area. Tomori’s father, Skender, and mother, Ruzhdie, live in West Roxbury, Mass. His 22-year-old brother, Florenc, is training to be an auto mechanic.
“When your parents sacrifice a lot to bring you all the way from another country, you have to study,” Tomori said. “But it’s been better than I thought, the college life, I am enjoying it.”
Tomori is a soft-spoken freshman and one of 10 Posse Scholars set to complete their first year at Union College in June. The students earned merit-based tuition scholarships through a process run by The Posse Foundation in Boston, which last year selected about 60 scholarship students from a pool of 1,300 area high school students. The Boston branch of the foundation works with selective schools like Union, Hamilton College and Bryn Mawr College to recruit ethnically diverse groups of potential student leaders. The schools provide the tuition scholarships and other financial aid. The Posse Foundation runs programs based in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles and plans to start another in Atlanta this year.
“They are high-achieving and highly motivated. They want to work hard. For some of them, that means learning to work differently because they haven’t been challenged in high school,” said Maggie Tongue, director of the Office of Post-Graduate Fellowships and mentor to the first Posse group.
The foundation has placed a bit more than 1,800 students at colleges and universities since its formation 18 years ago. The group was co-founded by Debbie Bial, a former youth leadership program worker in New York City who counseled inner city students who frequently left for college only to drop out six months later. During a conversation, one of those students told Bial, “I never would have left if I had my posse with me.” The foundation name grew from that exchange.
“They are really great at sticking with each other, encouraging each other and motivating one another. A lot of them are students of color and for a lot of them that means they are the only student of color in their class. And it can be tough to feel like they are not the same as the rest of the kids,” Tongue said.
The College will next year welcome a group of 11 new Posse scholars. The program was brought to Union after several years of discussion between Bial and Dan Lundquist, Union’s vice president of Admissions. Bial then visited campus, met with College leaders and described the intense interview process for Posse applicants.
“Many important lessons to be learned in college occur outside traditional academic settings,” Lundquist said. “We believe a rich educational experience is enhanced by breadth, depth and diversity. And that is what Posse is all about.”
Each future Posse scholar attends a two-hour weekly college preparatory class during the eight months leading up to freshman year. Roughly 90 percent of participants graduate, according to the Posse Foundation.
For Tomori and fellow Posse scholars Kenrick Liu, of Malden, and Deanna Cox, of Dorchester, the Union Posse group has helped overcome homesickness and improve management of study time. The group members also said small class size – about 23 students per class for first-year students at Union – and involved professors have helped ease the transition and made classes fun and challenging.
“When you come to college with a group of people you already know, it is a lot easier to feel at home,” Liu said. “The school is small enough that, after you meet your professors, they will know your name. It makes you more aware of the class. It makes you more aware of the professor. It’s better than just going to a class and taking notes and leaving. It puts more pressure on you because you have a reputation to uphold.”
The Posse program drafts students from the Boston area based on recommendations from about 250 Boston area guidance counselors, said Susan E. Dalelio, director of Posse Boston. In Boston a pool of between 1,200 and 1,300 nominees are winnowed down to groups of about 20 that meet with schools like Union. Posse Foundation and Union Admissions representatives select the final group.
“Debbie Bial said to me years ago, ‘When a college gets 10 Posse students, they get the impact of 20.’ She was referring to Posse students who break through traditional boundaries and cliques,” Lundquist said.