The following article was selected from the Internet Edition of the Chicago Tribune. To visit the site, point your browser to http://chicagotribune.com/. ----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding---------------- Article forwarded by: Michael Lach Return e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-48905,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- Student 'posses' challenge campus conventions By Dawn Turner Trice Regina Birchwell and nine other Chicago high school students know that when they arrive at DePauw University in Indiana next fall, their freshman year will require much more than the standard cramming for exams. "We understand that one of the reasons we're going there is to make a difference on the campus," said Birchwell, 19, a senior at Roosevelt High School on the Northwest Side. "We will be there as leaders, as people who speak out and challenge the status quo." Birchwell and the other students are part of a little-known diversity program called the Posse Foundation, which for 11 years has helped talented urban youths win four-year scholarships to colleges around the country. The New York City-based foundation, whose students have a 90 percent graduation rate, began working with Chicago students this year. The program primarily sends teens to private liberal arts schools in "posses," or groups of about 10. The idea is to provide a ready-made support system that also includes campus mentors who meet often with the students, assisting them with the academic rigors, social pressures and culture shock of campus life. As part of the deal, the students—most of whom are black and Hispanic, but also including whites, Asians and Native Americans—serve as cross-cultural bridge builders or emissaries for change on the campuses, which are largely white and rural. Deborah Bial, the Posse Foundation's founder and president, said the scholarships are based not on need or race, but on leadership. In that way, the so-called leadership scholarships sidestep the pitfalls that have landed some affirmative action programs in the courts. "Posse scholarships help break the stereotype that the black kids are [on campus] because they're charity cases," Bial said. "All of Posse's kids are smart, ambitious and know how to engage other people. These are kids who are strong communicators." Over the years, the majority of Posse's more than 300 scholars have come from the New York public school system and have graduated from universities such as Vanderbilt, DePauw, Rice and Brandeis, many at the top of their class. Last year, Posse opened a chapter in Boston. "These teens aren't shrinking violets," said Timothy Ubben, chairman of the DePauw board of trustees. Ubben said he saw how successful the New York Posse students were at DePauw and decided to bring the program to Chicago. The students "sit in the front rows in class," he said. "They're inquisitive. They're involved in organizations and will shake the place up." At Vanderbilt, an affluent, predominantly white university in Nashville that has supported the foundation since its inception, Posse students have started more than a dozen new organizations, including a Hispanic student association, a rape counseling group, a gay and lesbian outreach program and a multicultural choir. Posse students have been successful in student government: Two of Vanderbilt's three African-American student government association presidents have come from the group. Kate Boylan, an 18-year-old Posse scholar and freshman at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., said that although this is Posse's first year at Wheaton, she expects her group to do great things. "We're already very vocal on any subject at any time," Boylan said. "Wheaton is a very elite, very white institution in New England, and here you have these loud New York kids stirring up things." Ubben said it's not enough to attract good students to higher education; the focus also has to be on creating an atmosphere in which students, particularly minorities, want to stick around. "We're giving out a lot of dough," Ubben said of the universities' commitment to providing scholarships that average about $25,000 per year per student and compensating the posse mentors. "But we're getting a lot in return." Posse Chicago director Andrew Williams said the leadership element of the program is so important that in January all of Posse's new recruits will begin a 34-week workshop that not only will help them with their reading and writing skills but also provide leadership and diversity training. The goal is to help students understand the more subtle forms of racism that may occur on campuses while preparing them to "act as agents of change," Williams said. Though the students are diverse in terms of academic achievement and family income as well as race, Birchwell's acceptance by DePauw underscores the premium Posse places on leadership. It also highlights the group's skill at convincing schools that a student's potential for success is not measured solely by grade-point averages and standardized test scores. DePauw and Posse officials are so convinced that Regina—whose mother is white and father is Guatemalan—will flourish at the private school that she has been accepted despite a C-minus grade-point average and even though her SAT scores hadn't arrived. During the selection process "she was impressive at every turn," said James Lincoln, vice president of student services at DePauw. "There's an energy about her that's well in line with the typical DePauw student." But Regina's background is anything but typical. Since she was in the 2nd grade, she has helped raise her sister's seven children, and her family has lived in nearly 20 apartments around Chicago. "We believe that given the right conditions, Regina will do well," Williams said. In addition to the 10 Chicago students going to DePauw in Greencastle, Ind., 10 students from Chicago will go to Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and 12 will attend Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. The students will only have to pay for room, board and books. Birchwell said she doesn't expect the road ahead to be easy. The one behind her certainly hasn't been. "I've had to struggle all my life," said Birchwell, who was introduced to the nine other members of her posse at a reception last week. "Only now I'll have my posse to fall back on." -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. 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