The Diplomat
Franklin & Marshall’s weekly online newsletter
College Forges New STEM Partnership with Posse in Miami
From left, F&M President Daniel R. Porterfield, Ph.D., Posse Foundation Board Chair Jeff Ubben, Dean of the College Kent Trachte and Posse President and Founder Deborah Bial at Posse's annual gala in May. F&M is embarking on a new partnership with the foundation in Miami, the College's second Posse recruitment city.
Franklin & Marshall College has embarked on a new partnership with the Posse Foundation to recruit students from Miami, President Daniel R. Porterfield, Ph.D., announced at Common Hour this morning. Miami is the College’s second Posse city, along with New York, where F&M has been successfully educating Posse Scholars since 2005.
The program in Miami will be F&M’s first Science Posse and only the third in the United States. Together, the Foundation and the College will recruit high-performing students from underrepresented groups interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Ten new Franklin & Marshall STEM Posse Scholars from Miami will matriculate in the fall of 2012, along with 10 students from New York City.
“We became partners with Posse because of the way the program attracts remarkable students and aligns with Franklin & Marshall’s commitment to excellence and equity in higher education,” President Porterfield said. “We’re expanding the partnership now because the outstanding performance of Posse Scholars at F&M is a testament to the fit between this model and liberal arts learning. Recruiting STEM Posse students from Miami will allow F&M to respond, in yet another way, to the profound American imperative to recruit and educate the next generation of science and technology leaders upon whom so much of our national competitiveness, security and health will rest.”
The Posse Foundation partners with 38 colleges and universities to identify students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential and steer them to institutions committed to undergraduate success. Then, about a year before the students start college, the foundation mentors the scholars in supportive, multicultural teams called “posses.” Colleges and universities have awarded more than $406 million in leadership scholarships to nearly 3,700 Posse Scholars since 1989.
F&M is working with the Posse Foundation to pave the way for the College’s first Miami cohort. Dean of the College Kent Trachte will bring an F&M team to Miami in December for the selection process. Several faculty members in the sciences will accompany Trachte, as will Daniel Lugo, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid.
“One of my first conversations with President Porterfield, even before he took office, was about the importance of our relationship with Posse,” Trachte says. “Members of the College’s faculty have long had an interest in finding and launching more students from underrepresented communities into roles of STEM leadership in our country. This is actually a renewal of F&M’s great achievement in the sciences beginning after World War II. This new partnership brings together Posse’s vision with our longstanding goal of leadership in this vital national priority.”
Brandeis University launched the first Posse STEM program in 2007. Earlier this year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison also began recruiting STEM Posse Scholars. “We’re excited to be among the first institutions to help Posse broaden its mission in this regard,” Trachte says.
Posse has sites in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. An eighth site—New Orleans—launches this fall.
