“It will very easily change your life and the way you see your world around you,” said Shoham Geva, a senior at Skyline High School, about The Joyce Ivy Foundation and her summer pre-college program at Brown.
“The core of the Joyce Ivy Foundation mission is seeking to broaden the college horizon of young women from the Midwest,” said S. Caroline Kerr, the CEO of the Joyce Ivy Foundation. The foundation provides scholarships for women in high school to attend summer programs at rigorous colleges.
The foundation started with a group of Michigan natives who went out of state for college. They came back home after graduating and talked about the amazing and enriching experiences they had and as they talked to their peers they realized there was a lack of knowledge about college opportunities outside of Michigan. They decided to create a summer scholars program to send students away from home to study at college campuses over summer breaks.
The foundation was named in honor of Director Michael S. Pritula’s sister Joyce who died of cancer. “Joyce…had extraordinary intellect, great leadership, great charisma but wasn’t quite certain that she would be extremely capable and successful on highly selective college campuses,” said Sherryl Fletcher, the Executive Vice President for Program Development & Advancement. “[Michael S. Pritula] wanted a way to honor her memory and her exuberant personality and the opportunities that she pursued as well as those that she was capable of pursuing,” said Fletcher.
This year the foundation is offering scholarships to students from Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. There are a few ways that students get involved with The Joyce Ivy Foundation. The foundation recruits young women with high test scores and GPAs. Students also hear about it from their guidance counselors, teachers and Joyce Ivy alumni. There is an online application requiring a 500-word essay on one of the topics from The Common Application, a 200 word essay describing the applicant’s leadership qualities and experience, copies of PSAT, SAT and/or PLAN, ACT test scores, a letter of recommendation from a teacher or a counselor and some financial information. On top of that application, students also need to apply for the summer program they want to attend. The Joyce Ivy Foundation gives financial support to students who intend to study at the following schools: Barnard, Brown, Cornell, Emory, George Washington University, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, NYU, Smith and Stanford. Students can also contact the foundation to ask if they will approve a summer program at a different institution. The 2013 application went live at the beginning of January and is due March 15. There is a selection rate of about 40-50%.
“So many summer scholars describe it as life-changing,” said Kerr. One girl’s story that stands out to her is that of a Joyce Ivy alumna who was the first student from her high school to apply and go to an Ivy League school in 50 years. She is now at the University of Pennsylvania. “In some [cases] they’re the first in their families to venture from home,” Kerr said.
Once applicants have been notified of their award, they attend a dinner hosted by the foundation. Scholars who are going to the same college campuses are seated together. “[The reception] is meant to celebrate and honor the work of what these young women have accomplished,” Kerr said.
“What was exciting about [the reception],” said Fletcher “was that I was seated each year with the summer scholars who were going to attend Johns Hopkins University’s pre-college or summer college program. So I had an opportunity to congratulate them, to help them begin to think about what they could do while they’re in Baltimore, to help them understand what the courses might be like and to encourage them to engage with all types of young men and young women from all around the world who attended the Hopkins program,” said Fletcher, who used to be an admissions officer at Johns Hopkins University.
The Joyce Ivy Foundation names a leader of the year who speaks to the summer scholars at the reception. They collect input from the board of directors and volunteers and then the board of directors decides on a leader “who really embodies the spirit of female leadership: taking risks, [stretching] beyond your comfort zone and whose past stories seem to really align with the mission of the foundation,” said Kerr. The 2012 leader of the year was Deanna Mulligan who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Mulligan grew up in a small town in Nebraska and graduated from the University of Nebraska and later went to Stanford for business school. “If you look at the Fortune 500 companies, less than 15% of the leadership of those organizations are women…so she really just had an exceptional career and accomplishments,” said Kerr.
Last year the foundation added a College Admissions Symposium which takes place the same weekend as the dinner. The first day of the symposium was aimed towards college counselors and the second day was designed for young women and their families. One of the Joyce Ivy Foundation’s goals is to inform their scholars. There is a panel of college admissions officers who give advice to the summer scholars. They also bring in a few alumnae who talk about their past summer experiences and tell the summer scholars what to expect.
A large area of focus for the foundation is their alumnae base. Right now there are 237 alumnae. “We’re really looking for ways to keep those alums connected to one another and to the foundation,” said Kerr. There is a large group on facebook where alumnae communicate with each other. If Joyce Ivy Scholars are going to the same summer programs they will often meet up on campus. When Joyce Ivy alumnae are enrolled as undergraduates at colleges to which the foundation sends scholars, they connect with the summer scholars and other alumnae at the same campus. The foundation also relies on alumnae to inform other bright high school women about the foundation.
The leaders of The Joyce Ivy foundation are spread out all over the country but often have roots in the Midwest. “Being a woman who grew up in the Midwest, there’s a lot about it that’s just close to home. And I think one of the things I really admired about the organization from very early on is the foundation really came about because Michigan natives decided they wanted to get together to figure out a way to get young women more information and opportunities,” said Kerr who now lives in Massachusetts.
“For me, it’s an opportunity to provide a lot of the years of admissions experience…combined with my absolute love for my home state of Michigan,” said Fletcher who lives in Maryland.
These summer scholars get a taste of independence and what it feels like to be a college student. “One of the really cool things about the experience is you know it’s the first time you really get that kind of freedom,” said Geva. At Brown, Geva attended a two-week leadership institute about social change through film documentary. In her class she made a documentary about Americans’ perceptions of Muslims. “What I really loved about that was that it combined two things I like which is public policy and film so that’s a career intersection that I’m exploring,” said Geva.
Geva gained a new perspective on the college search process from her experience at Brown. “I think I was kind of approaching college like you need to have these privileged academics and extracurriculars and you’re lucky if you get in somewhere. And it kind of made me realize that it’s more about finding the college that fits you and that you really want to find a place where you’re engaged and you’re excited about attending,” she said.
After coming back from her program Geva felt more confident to take on leadership roles in her community. “Joyce Ivy was a catalyst for me to really begin being involved and engaged in the same way I was at Brown in my community and in the state because it really showed me that I was capable of interacting on that level academically and it also gave me a lot of confidence for what I was capable of doing as a leader,” she said.
For information on how to apply visit http://www.joyceivyfoundation.org/index.html
