Thursday, September 20, 2001

More scholarships awarded to local students
By Kami Lewis
Staff Reporter

Nineteen community scholarships were awarded this fall, seven more than awarded last year, said Cornell Thomas, Special Assistant to the Chancellor.

The community scholarship program partially funds the tuition of students from five local high schools through an endowment funded by local corporations, Thomas said.

Thomas said the program brought 74 applications from students at Diamond Hill-Jarvis, Dunbar, North Side, and O.D. Wyatt high schools in Fort Worth and Sam Houston High School in Arlington.

“As awareness about the program increases, and as TCU’s image changes, more students are looking at TCU as a possibility,” Thomas said.

He also said the traditionally low enrollment from the community has much to do with perceptions from the past that are no longer valid.

“TCU has been perceived (by some in the community) as a white, racist, elitist institution — an island within itself,” Thomas said. “This has completely changed, but perceptions still linger. We’ve been exploding that myth.”

Darron Turner, the director for Diversity Affairs, helps recruit from the high schools and assists students in the transition to college life.

“Part of the level of success we’re having in the community is seen in students who apply for these scholarships and don’t get them, who still seriously consider TCU as an option,” Turner said. “That’s a big change from the past.”

Turner said the scholarship students will enhance the TCU community.

“The students in this program are some of the best of the local talent,” Turner said.

“All of them had scholarships to attend other schools. The program is an effort to keep this talent within the community.”

The community scholarship program receives funds from the Belief Foundation, which committed $20,000 per year for five years, Thomas said, and the Citigroup Foundation, which committed $24,000 per year for five years.

In addition to these funds, there is a verbal commitment from the State Farm Foundation for an even larger amount which Thomas did not disclose.

“TCU’s financial commitment to this program won’t continue to grow,” Thomas said.

“Instead, we will continue to develop corporate sponsorship and look to the students involved in the program now to help support it in the future as they go out into the community.”

Thomas said the program was developed in part because of corporate feedback about TCU students.

“When a corporation tells me it won’t recruit from our campus because of a lack of diversity, I say to them, help us become more diverse,” Thomas said.

Students who receive the community scholarship must participate in at least one organization on campus their first year, and must take on a leadership role at TCU by their second year, Thomas said.

“The litmus test of this program will be the question: Does it enhance every student’s ability to leave here and better experience the global community? I believe it will,” Thomas said.

Kami Lewis
k.e.lewis@student.tcu.edu