Since 2006, the Posse Scholars program has been helping Union recruit an ethnically diverse group of high-achieving scholarship students from the Boston area. A recent $1 million gift from the Karp family, including Trustee Doug Karp ’97 and Jana Karp ’99, is aimed at keeping the Posse program at Union for years to come.
“We believe strongly in Union. We want to make sure that it is a great place a hundred years from now, and the Posse Scholars program is part of that. We want to make sure this program is off and running. We are hoping that other alumni and friends will make gifts too,” Doug Karp said.
Each year the Posse Foundation helps the College select a group of about 10 students from a pool of more than a 1,000 candidates from Boston-area high schools. The Posse Foundation manages similar programs based in cities including New York City, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. The Boston branch of the foundation works with selective liberal arts colleges like Union, Hamilton College and Bryn Mawr College to recruit an ethnically diverse group of potential student leaders. The colleges provide tuition scholarships and other financial aid.
“This program has transformed people’s lives, and we’ve also seen how it benefits Union. Even though times are tough, and it is hard to make decisions about charitable giving, this type of program at Union remains critically important,” Doug Karp said. “I think Union helps shape who you are. If you are lucky enough to have attended the College, you know that you grow a lot in those four years. I think that opportunity should be available to everyone.”
Doug Karp joined Union’s Board of Trustees in 2007 and has since watched the Posse program take root. The first Posse class at Union will graduate in 2010.
He is executive vice president of New England Development, a company founded in 1978 by his father, Stephen R. Karp. Today, the development company manages several large Northeast shopping centers, hotels and resorts. Doug manages retail and mixed-use development projects and is asset manager for Nantucket Island Resorts, a collection of premier hospitality and retail properties on Nantucket.
As a teenager, Doug helped found Lids, a chain retail outlet found in malls across the country that sells baseball-style hats from major sports leagues. The store began in 1992 as a Christmas kiosk in a Newton, Mass. mall and grew to 400 stores in 40 states.
Jana Karp is a teacher at St. Patrick School, a grammar school in Roxbury, Mass. with a tradition of academic excellence dating back to 1885.
The Posse program 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. Over the past 20 years, Posse’s college and university partners have awarded more than $260 million in Posse scholarships to 2,620 students across the country.