Seven years ago, I wrote about a New York City-based diversity program called the Posse Foundation that had just opened shop in Chicago. Its objective was to help talented urban teens — most of whom are black and Hispanic, but also include whites, Asians and Native Americans — win four-year scholarships to colleges around the country.
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Last week, its founder and president, Deborah Bial, was in Chicago when she learned she was one of 24 fellows to win this year’s John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur “genius” grant. She was sitting in a rental car, waiting to go into a meeting at Northwestern’s Law School.
“The phone rang, and this guy says he’s a professor from Yale,” she said. “He says, ‘Are you Deborah Bial?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Are you alone and sitting down?’ I said, ‘Yes?’ He said, ‘Have you heard of the MacArthur program?’ I started to cry.”
She said that she knew immediately that the grant — $500,000 over five years with no strings attached — would bring more attention to the non-profit organization. She hopes that will translate into more universities partnering with the organization, and more teens not only going to college, but also graduating and moving on to play leadership roles in various companies.
What I appreciated about Posse from the beginning was that it targets teens who may not be at the top of their classes academically, but who have had tough lives and displayed great leadership abilities in overcoming hardship. The students are awarded “leadership scholarships,” which are not based on need or race. This way, scholarships sidestep the minefields that have landed some affirmative action programs in court.
Posse began in 1989 when Bial was running leadership workshops in New York. She met a young man who had been accepted at a university, went, but dropped out six months later. He told her that he would have succeeded if he had had his posse with him. Bial said he was not atypical.
As Bial said to me seven years ago, these kids aren’t charity cases. They’re smart, ambitious and strong-willed debaters.
In the program, many students attend private liberal arts schools — within Posse’s network — and leave in groups or “posses” of about 10. The idea is to provide a support system for students who are suddenly placed in environments far removed from what they’re accustomed to. As part of the deal, the students serve as cross-cultural bridge builders on the campuses, which are largely white and rural.
Since 1989, Posse, which has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, has placed about 2,000 students at 28 colleges and universities around the country. Posse has a 90 percent graduation rate and has won about $175 million in scholarships for the students.
“By the year 2020, we want to be in 10 cities and we want to be working with 5,000 students a year,” Bial said. “We want to have between 80 and 100 partner colleges and universities. And, we will have about 7,000 alumni in the workforce.”
She said Posse’s vision goes beyond connecting students to college. It’s helping to transform campus communities and campus climates and making sure students are graduating from top-tier schools and going on to leadership roles in companies.
Posse Chicago’s executive director, Chastity Lord, told me that since 2000, 80 percent of her students have returned to the city after graduation to work. (Three Posse alumni are Chicago Public Schools teachers.) The Chicago office also had its first Fulbright Scholar this year, and he’s now in Costa Rica. Lord said he was the first to graduate from high school in his family.
When I asked Bial what winning the grant meant, she began by referring to it as “our genius award.” I wondered if she really felt that way or whether it was just the nice thing to say.
“This is such a collective effort,” she said. “I’m so honored that I got recognized, but it’s a recognition of our entire team, the colleges and universities and the scholars because we’re all working together.”
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