Fayetteville State (FSU), Texas Southern (TSU) and Virginia State universities have been chosen to participate in a pilot high school-to-college scholars program in a joint initiative of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and Strada Education Network, the two organizations have announced.
Strada is providing a three-year, $1.8-million grant to create the TMCF Fleischer HBCU [historically Black colleges and universities] Scholars Program, which is modeled after the Fleisher Scholars Program established in 2009 by entrepreneur Morton Fleischer, to help academically promising students from economically fragile backgrounds.
“Seeing our program expand into HBCUs through this investment from Strada to TMCF will no doubt create a multiplier effect where these scholars transform into business leaders making a significant impact in our communities,” said Fleischer.
Dr. Harry L. Williams, the TMCF president and CEO, hailed the new program as “a true capacity-building opportunity for our member schools” that will “provide the pilot schools with tools and technology to bolster recruitment efforts and hopefully achieve the same level of success as the original Fleischer program.”
The program will begin next summer and bring 50 rising high school seniors to a “boot camp” at each of the university sites, involving potentially 450 students total by the end of the pilot, said Williams.
The hope is that the program will succeed and, with help from funders, expand to include all 47 schools that are part of TMCF, Williams said.
“We see this groundbreaking program as a true capacity-building opportunity for our member schools,” he said.
