Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Closes ‘Scholarship Gap’ for Community College Students

Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
44115 Woodridge Parkway
Suite 200, Lansdowne, VA 20176

News Release

Oct. 3, 2002
Contacts: Keith Haller, Linda Katz, 301-656-7900
Sheila Owens, (703) 723-8000
sowens@jkcf.org
Matthew Quinn, Executive Director
Joshua Wyner, Chief Program Officer

Foundation’s Third Scholarship Program Taps 79 Undergraduates Nationwide

WASHINGTON – The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which operates one of the nation’s most generous scholarship programs, announced today that it has awarded nearly $2 million to 79 undergraduate students – half of whom will transfer from community colleges.

This will be the most generous scholarship program in the nation for community college students wishing to pursue baccalaureate studies.

“Community college students intending to transfer often get shortchanged when it comes to receiving critical financial aid,” said Dr. Matthew J. Quinn, executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, in announcing the Foundation’s third major scholarship effort this year. “Our new Undergraduate Scholarship Program is working to correct that.”

The Undergraduate Scholarships will provide up to $30,000 annually to 79 students representing two groups: students transferring from community colleges to four-year schools, and juniors and seniors continuing at their current four-year schools.

“The Jack Kent Cooke program could provide a national model for well-designed scholarship programs,” said Dr. George R. Boggs, President, American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). “It puts the emphasis on a lifelong learning continuum that is essential for success in today’s world. For the community college students receiving these most generous scholarships, this assistance may mean the difference between a dream deferred and a promising future fulfilled.”

The students – from 37 states and Washington, D. C. – received their scholarships at the start of the 2002 fall semester. They are attending institutions including Yale University, Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame, Rice University, Mount Holyoke College, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Georgetown and George Washington universities in Washington, D.C.

“Few scholarship programs are available to upperclassmen,” Quinn said. “We want to make sure these talented students get the same opportunity for financial aid as their college freshman counterparts.”

Enrollment at community colleges is up, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. Nearly half – 44 percent – of all college students in the nation attend community college.

Community college students are among the hardest-working, determined people in school – a melting pot of diverse backgrounds – immigrants and first-generation Americans striving to carve a niche alongside older adults seeking professional improvement or forced into career changes, Quinn said.

With state budget deficits forcing cutbacks in higher education funding, the Foundation’s new program comes at a critical time.

Community colleges play a special role as the first point of entry to higher education for many minority students. Forty-six percent of all African-American undergraduates and 55 percent of all Hispanic-American undergraduates attend community colleges, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. Approximately 25 percent of community college students transfer into four-year institutions.

According to Quinn, “Some of the most creative and distinguished people in America have attended community colleges. We want to tap the next generation of creative talent in these schools.”

Notable people who have attended community colleges include Walt Disney; Clint Eastwood; Annette Benning; Dustin Hoffman, Calvin Klein; newsman Jim Lehrer; Kweisi Mfume; Pete Rozelle; Ross Perot; genome scientist Craig Venter; and Maryland Governor Parris Glendening. Congressional representatives Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, and Jesse Jackson of Illinois are among dozens of members of Congress who attended community colleges. Both Representative Constance A. Morella of Maryland and U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington taught at community colleges.

There are roughly 1,200 community colleges in the United States, serving about 10 million students with an average age of 29. Teachers, nurses and others in the healthcare profession often begin their education at community colleges. For 90 percent of the U.S. population, a community college is within a few minutes commute from home.

About the Foundation

Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is receiving more than $500 million in assets from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke, who built a media empire and also owned the Los Angeles Lakers and Washington Redskins. Even though Mr. Cooke yearned to go to college, his dream was cut short when he dropped out of high school during the Great Depression to find work to help his family. He died in 1997.

In just one year, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has become one of the nation’s most prominent scholarship providers while upholding its pledge to identify idealistic, intelligent, and involved students and help them carry out their dreams to build a better world.

• The Foundation’s “Graduate Scholarship” program is considered the most generous in the nation, awarding 50 graduate students up to $50,000 per year for six years.
   
• The Foundation’s national “Young Scholars” program provides scholarships and services to 50 low- and moderate-income students, throughout high school, who show exceptional promise.
   
• The Foundation’s new “Undergraduate Scholarship” program makes a major investment in 79 dedicated and diligent undergraduates, who would have had to forego completion of their higher education or take on crushing debt burdens without the Foundation’s support.

The Foundation takes an exceptionally long view when it comes to providing scholarships. According to Quinn, “A high school freshman who is selected by the Foundation to be part of our ‘Young Scholars’ program could receive up to $500,000 from the Foundation if he or she continued through all three of our programs.” He adds, “Eventually, the Foundation expects to provide $25 million annually to support individual scholarships.”

Earlier this year, the Foundation selected students for the Graduate Scholarship Program and the Young Scholars Program. It also provides college scholarships to families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

For more information about the Foundation’s Scholarship Programs, go to www.jkcf.org.

Note to the Editors: On the following pages, see brief profiles of eight Jack Kent Cooke Scholars and a list of all 79 scholarship recipients.

Individual bios and photos of the recipients are available immediately. Contact: Linda Katz at 301-656-7900.

These eight representative Jack Kent Cooke Scholars began studies at community colleges, with most earning perfect grade-point averages.

• Margarette P. Burd, formerly of Hallowell, Maine, and Prescott, Arizona, is using her scholarship to attend San Francisco State University, California on her quest to earn a doctorate degree in research psychology while pursuing new therapies to treat schizophrenia and other illnesses. Earlier, she held jobs as a waitress and with a construction firm to help fund her studies at Yavapai College, Prescott, where she was described by one dean as bringing a “dedication, openness, and joyfulness to her learning processes that are a delight to see.”
   
• Stefan A. Correa grew up in Quito, Ecuador, then moved to Miami, Florida, pursuing a rigorous course of study in physics, mathematics, and engineering at Miami-Dade Community College, where he also organized food drives, participated in walk-a-thons for AIDS and cancer research, and taught tennis to adults and children. As a physics major at the University of Texas at Austin, Stefan’s desire is to be a “visionary leader and innovator bringing society and science closer together for a brighter future for everyone.” Deeply aware of social issues like poverty and hunger, Stefan intends to prove how “by sharing our resources, everyone can live in suitable conditions and have access to education.”
   
• Ronald D. Crouch finished high school in his hometown of Oxford Ohio, and spent years traveling and living in Alaska. A train trip through Siberia transformed his life. “Crowds of people came to the windows to beg or sell what little they had…it seemed as if I had stumbled on a place the world had forgotten, a place that continued to suffer as the world progressed.”
  
  Ron switched from the study of automotive systems and hydraulics in Alaska and enrolled in psychology courses within the honors program at Prince George’s Community College, Largo, Maryland. Now, he’s attending George Washington University, Washington, D.C., integrating his training with the needs of the community and volunteering at the D.C. Crisis Hotline. “I want to take my skills to the policymakers, the hospitals, shelters, and maybe even the streets.”
• Cheryl M. Hill of Halifax, Virginia, was forced out of a factory job as a sewing machine operator after 25 years in the industry. What’s more, her skill was no longer marketable. “When I first lost my job, I thought it was the end of the world. Now I realize that it was just the beginning of a better one.” Married and the mother of a now 13-year-old son, Cheryl enrolled in medical administrative support coursework at Danville Community College (DCC), Virginia. “The thought of two years of classes and studying was like Mt. Everest looming in front of me,” she remembers. But once she started, she realized she wanted more education.
  
  Attending classes at night, she held a 30-35 hour a week job in the school’s financial aid office and also emerged as a tutor; campus leader; and active volunteer with her son’s Boy Scout troop, and shelters for the homeless and battered women. As local chapter president of the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society, she raised nearly $18,000 for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation after September 11.
  
  “I am glad I had to put off college, says Cheryl who is now earning a Bachelor of Science degree in organizational management and development at Bluefield College, Virginia. “ I know that I would not have appreciated it as much at 17 as I do now at 44.”
   
• John St. Croix is a single dad in Harwich, Massachusetts, raising his 16-year son Timothy, whom he adopted as an adolescent while living in Washington, D.C. He worked in the nation’s capital for a U.S. Senator and became a deacon in an inner-city church sponsoring mentoring programs for hundreds of urban youth. He also served on the board of directors for a homeless shelter and for the West African Childhood Development Foundation, an African relief fund. He was a volunteer with the National Young Leaders Conference.
  
  Then John decided to move his son away from city life to pastoral Cape Cod, where John received an associate’s degree at Cape Cod Community College. He is now earning a bachelor’s degree at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and plans to teach in the Boston public schools while also aspiring to earn an advanced degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. “I find public service rewarding and spiritually uplifting,” he says. Adds a former English professor at Cape Cod Community College, “He will serve as a wonderful role model…a man who will impart important lessons both explicitly and by example.”
   
• When Amy M. Smith was six, her family left Michigan to establish a small socio-economic development project with a rural hospital in Honduras. While growing up, Amy spent hours helping to fill prescriptions, take inventory in the pharmacy, bathe newborn babies, and read patients’ vital signs.
  
  Following high school, she volunteered for one year in an Ecuadorian village with no electricity or running water. “It was here that my interest in nutrition as a means of improving health care and living standards was further developed,” she says.
  
  With an associate’s degree from Durham Technical Community College, North Carolina, Amy is studying nutritional sciences at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and plans to become a physician.
  
  “I know I cannot save the world alone, but with adequate training, I can return to Latin America and can try to alleviate suffering and offer assistance.”
   
• Cynthia Talbert, who left her native island of Dominica in the West Indies to study business administration at the Bronx Community College (BCC), New York, plans to return to her homeland and become an “economic ambassador,” representing Dominica internationally. But first, she will complete her BCC studies for one more semester, then transfer to Baruch College of The City University of New York, where she will pursue international business management studies, possibly leading to a Ph.D. degree.
  
  Involved in volunteer activities since age seven, she became “painfully aware of
  the difficult life that others lived, and this motivated me to help them.” While at
  BCC, Cynthia struggled to work two jobs, as a tutor and a secretary, to remain in
  school full time.
  
  What’s driving Cynthia is her dream to one day “make an important contribution to my country.” Another dream is “a world where no racism ever existed. So many precious lives could have been saved, wars would not have happened, crime, hatred and poverty would almost cease to exist.”
   
• For Lisa Ludwig of Waukesha, Wisconsin, travel throughout America and overseas has “fertilized the soil of my mind” and taught her to cultivate indigenous and environmental philosophy. Lisa currently attends the University of Wisconsin in Waukesha while working in a university bookstore. She will transfer in the spring 2003 to the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where she will complete her baccalaureate degree in philosophy. She then hopes to pursue doctoral studies to become a writer and professor.
  
  A single parent of her five-year-old daughter Savannah, Lisa revels in introducing her child to the world of nature, camping, and “all that is out there for the human senses to savor.” Lisa reminds people to take their time. “The little things are often the biggest.” Parenthood, she says, is the “most educational and enlightening experience of my entire life.” And “perpetually learning is the only way I want to live.”