Minority program reaches milestone

More than 100 scholars now study on campus

Chancellor’s Scholar Toby Garrick, a senior majoring in electrical engineering, says the scholarship program has given him an invaluable social and academic network on campus.

She was told by many that she most likely wouldn’t succeed.

Her ambitious plan — to establish a privately funded scholarship to attract and support talented minority and disadvantaged undergraduates — was, well, a little too ambitious, they said.

Yet Assistant Vice Chancellor Mercile Lee persevered with her idea, which blossomed into the Chancellor’s Scholarship Program.

“I knew that something had to be done to increase the number and retention of ethnic minority students on campus,” says Lee of her desire to start the program she now directs. “The university needed to reflect the diversity of talents, abilities and backgrounds within and among ethnic minority groups that occurred quite naturally with the majority student population.”

From its meek beginning as a pilot project with just six students enrolled in 1984, the Chancellor’s Scholarship Program is now prospering.

It met its first goal of enrolling 25 scholars annually three years ago. Its second goal — to have at least 100 scholars on campus — was achieved last fall. There are 107 Chancellor’s Scholars currently attending classes at UW- Madison.

“The challenge now is to maintain the support of these numbers, provide the experiences that we feel are important and to endow the program,” Lee says.

The scholarships are awarded to historically underrepresented minorities — African-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic/Latinos — and are based on merit, not need. A faculty and staff selection committee examines the class ranks, grade point averages, leadership qualities, letters of recommendation, test scores and personal essays of each applicant in deciding whom to select as Chancellor’s Scholars.

Financial support comes from the contributions of alumni, faculty, staff, student organizations, corporations, foundations and friends of the program.

To bolster their undergraduate experience, Chancellor’s Scholars take part in a variety of academic and co-curricular activities and meet monthly as a group to discuss campus resources, opportunities and current issues with faculty and staff. They are encouraged to volunteer their time in a variety of service opportunities, including tutoring and planning activities for children. And they are paired with a professor or staff member who serves as a “mentor-friend.”

Chancellor’s Scholar Heather Matthews of Chicago was paired with Gail Robertson, assistant professor of physiology, when she came to the university four years ago. “She and I have become very good friends,” says Matthews , an African-American who will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and intends to enter medical school this fall. “We acknowledge that our lives are busy, but when we do meet we talk about personal as well as career and academic issues. No matter where I go this fall, we will stay in touch.”

Knowing how she has benefited from her relationship with Robertson and other mentors, Matthews wants to become a mentor herself in the future.

“I want to reach out to young people early in their academic careers, in elementary and high school,” she says.

Toby Garrick, a senior majoring in electrical engineering, found a strong support network on campus through his friendships with fellow Chancellor’s Scholars.

“Many of the minority students in engineering are Chancellor’s Scholars, so that helps a lot,” says Garrick, who is African-American and grew up in Milwaukee. “We worked together and studied together.”

Despite the rigors of majoring in electrical engineering, Garrick fulfilled his commitment to serving others by tutoring middle school students through the Urban League of Greater Madison and fellow undergraduates through the Wisconsin Emerging Scholars program, a workshop-based calculus program.

“[The program] really personalizes the university,” says Graeme Zielinski, who is Mexican-American and a May 1996 graduate in journalism and political science now working as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune.. “My God, when you’re 18 years old and scared to pieces of an institution that’s bigger than anything you’ve ever seen, with demographics that can be threatening to some minority students, the program really helps you.”

Scholars past and present say that the relationships they form as part of the program engenders loyalty to the program and university. One of the strongest relationships is with Lee, who serves as an adviser, confidant and friend, roles that continue past graduation.

“I still keep in touch with her,” says Zielinski, whose family is considering establishing a scholarship for the program in his mother’s name. “She always expresses concern for what’s going on with me and is willing to drop what she’s doing and talk. She remains in many ways a surrogate mother for me.”