June 29, 1998
Middlebury College Partners with Posse Foundation—Program
Sends New York City Students to College in Groups
Middlebury College has become a partner institution
with the Posse Foundation of New York City, a program designed
to help inner-city high school students attend selective colleges
and universities, Middlebury College President John M. McCardell,
Jr. announced today. The College joins three other partner institutions-Vanderbilt,
Depauw and Brandeis.
The Posse Program identifies, recruits and selects
student leaders from New York City high schools to form multicultural
teams called “posses.” These teams are then prepared,
through an intensive 32-week Posse Training Program, for enrollment
at top colleges and universities.
The Posse Program was developed by Deborah Bial,
an alumna of Brandeis University, who, while working with New
York City youth in 1989, noticed that many of them were dropping
out of college after short periods of time. “At that time,”
said Bial, “the word ‘posse’ was hip in youth culture, meaning
a group of friends who look out for one another and back each
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“One particular student stated that year that
if he had his posse with him, he never would have dropped out.
It seemed an incredibly simple idea. Why not send a posse, or
a team, of students together to college? Students from the city
experiencing the culture shock of an out-of-state campus would
then have a built-in support system,” Bial said.
The program is structured to prepare the students
to meet and deal with the social, political, cultural and academic
issues that in the past have limited the success of students from
diverse backgrounds.
The Posse Foundation has designed a recruitment strategy
called the Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP), an innovative approach
to identifying highly able students who may be missed by traditional
college admissions processes. The Posse Foundation identifies
its primary selection criteria as leadership ability, social status
among peers and communities, demonstrated ambition, ability to
work with people from different backgrounds, and desire to succeed.
Members of Posse’s network of more than 100 New York City public
high schools and 30 New York City community-based organizations
nominate potential candidates and allow Posse staff to begin its
process with hundreds of pre-screened students.
The first evaluation process includes workshops which
place students in situations where they can illustrate their public
speaking skills, listening, negotiating and communication skills.
DAP then identifies students who are strong team players, have
leadership ability, are good communicators and who are motivated.
Approximately 60% of these first-round students are
then invited back to participate in the second phase of the process,
the individual review. At this stage of the recruitment process,
Middlebury College representatives will be involved in a finalist
workshop with Posse staff and 20 scholarship candidates. Together,
Middlebury administration and the Posse Foundation will agree
on ten Posse scholars for the next entering class.
The first Middlebury posse will participate in the
32-week training program during winter and spring of 1999, and
will arrive on the Middlebury campus in the fall of 1999. Once
on campus, the members of the posse will meet regularly to talk
about their experiences, help one another with the challenges
they encounter, and to organize campus-wide events and activities.
Recent research shows that 92% of Posse students
graduate within five years, a higher rate than those of average
student bodies in the nation’s elite institutions of higher education.
“This is a remarkable achievement,” said McCardell,
“that testifies to Posses’s effectiveness in identifying,
training and supporting students who will succeed.”
“One of the main goals,” said Bial, “is
to graduate outstanding leaders from diverse backgrounds from
the top institutions in the country. The reason for this is that
we need the leaders of the next century to really represent the
demographic realities of the United States, especially in the
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Said McCardell, “I am confident that with the
commitment and involvement of the entire campus community, this
exciting and vital program will dramatically energize our continuing
efforts to enhance the diversity of this College.”