by Chanel L. Donaldson | Oct 4, 2019 | Partner Highlights
$16,000 in scholarship awards available exclusively to New Jersey students in Essex and Passaic Counties!
As a commitment to our mission of serving those in need and our local community, Seton Hall is offering this exciting new award.
Essex and Passaic Counties have been chosen to support students living or attending high school in the counties in which Seton Hall has a campus. Our main campus in South Orange and our School of Law in Newark are in Essex County, and our Interprofessional Health Sciences Campus is in the towns of Nutley and Clifton, which are in Essex and Passaic counties.
This award can be combined with other awards and can be used to cover any directly billed costs, including undergraduate flattuition charges, fees and university-sponsored room and board. This award is renewable if the student files the FAFSA annually, maintains satisfactory academic progress, earns at least 30 credits per academic year, and remains Pell eligible.
Applicants must file the FAFSA form and apply for admission by January 15 of their senior year of high school to be considered for the award. There is no special scholarship application required for this award. The scholarship is automatically awarded in late January to students who meet the eligibility requirements outlined below:
Award Eligibility
- Incoming freshman who apply for fall admission and submit a FAFSA by January 15
- Minimum SAT score 1120 or ACT 23
- Unweighted minimum HS GPA 3.0 (B)
- Attend high school in or have a permanent address in Essex or Passaic County, New Jersey, for at least a year
- Pell eligibility as determined by the FAFSA
Award Amount
This $4,000 award is renewable for three additional years for a total award of $16,000. When combined with other Seton Hall scholarships and need-based grants, this award helps make Seton Hall nearly tuition free to students receiving maximum Pell and TAG awards! In addition, students can still qualify for need-based aid and apply for other scholarships. Learn more at www.shu.edu/scholarships.
Application Procedure
There is no application required for this scholarship; the scholarship is automatically awarded to students who are admitted to Seton Hall and meet the eligibility requirements.
This article was originally published here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Sep 27, 2019 | News1
NCLC Executive Director, Reginald Lewis, was recognized as one of NJ’s 2019 Education Power 50 by NJBIZ.
The leaders profiled in the Education Power 50 list are responsible for managing organizations, making policies that directly affect the institutions, or are themselves directly responsible for imparting knowledge to students, apprentices, and the citizenry at large. Those featured include teachers, administrators, executives, and public officials. While each of their backgrounds are varied, their work is all focused on the same goal: Making New Jerseyans smarter about the world around them. In that way, they all help make the state a better place to live, work, and do business.
See the full Education Power 50 list here.
Read Reginald Lewis’ feature here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jul 23, 2019 | News1
NEWARK, NJ — Barclays has awarded $25,000 to the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) to support summer programming for Newark high school students in the College Pathway Initiative.
Since 2017, the College Pathway Initiative has recruited a diverse group of Newark 10th graders to participate in early college planning and preparation. Students remain with the program through high school graduation and the transition to college. The first class of College Pathway Initiative Fellows graduated high school this year and about 90 percent of those graduates are starting college in the fall.
Students visit the Barclays Whippany Campus on July 19, 2019
The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays allows NCLC to extend the College Pathway Initiative to include summer programming. Approximately 50 rising high school juniors and seniors are participating in five weeks of college prep and career development programming with an emphasis on 21st century learning skills. The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays also integrates writing skill development, arts and social justice, and community service.
In addition to providing funding for the Summer Leadership Institute, Barclays is also supporting the program’s career development component with experiential learning opportunities. On July 19, Barclays professionals hosted a mock interview session with the students at their Whippany Campus. The Barclays staff also shared insights with the students on their career pathways and professional networking.
“The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays is an amazing opportunity for our students to use their summer wisely by engaging in early college and career preparation. We are extremely grateful to Barclays for making this possible for Newark youth,” said NCLC Executive Director Reginald Lewis.
For more information about NCLC and the College Pathway Initiative, visit nclc2025.org.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jun 10, 2019 | News1
A CPI Fellow works with Program Associate Christine Harding (r.) and Mentor Lisbeth Masache (l.) to review her financial aid package.
(Newark, NJ — June 10, 2019) Newark’s graduating high school class of 2019 will include 25 College Pathway Initiative (CPI) Fellows, almost all of whom plan to immediately enroll in college in fall 2019.
With support from the Kresge and Ford Foundations, CPI was launched in 2017 as a demonstration effort to test innovative strategies for engaging Newark high school students in college preparation. The Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) at Rutgers University-Newark manages the program.
“CPI is a demonstration effort because our goal is to test innovative strategies for keeping young people engaged so that they remain on track for three critical phases of the program,” said NCLC Associate Director Barry Ford. “We want our Fellows to graduate high school on time, immediately enroll in college or some post-secondary option, and ultimately earn their desired degree or credential. And we’ll be with them every step of the way through that process.”
The current graduating cohort was the first recruited to participate at the time of CPI’s launch. Each year since, NCLC staff have recruited a diverse group of Newark 10th graders for the program. CPI is currently on its third cohort.
Once Fellows are admitted to CPI, they participate in twice-monthly college prep programming. Beyond simply the typical college readiness activities – like SAT prep, FAFSA and application assistance, or college tours – CPI interweaves fun elements to pique student interest with two curriculum tracks in arts and social justice. In the arts track, Fellows work with local artists and Rutgers-Newark faculty in workshops that include portraiture and digital 3D modeling and printing. The social justice track engages Fellows in seminars on leadership, Newark’s history, and youth advocacy. Keeping students interested is a key element to ensuring they remain with the program during their high school and college years.
“In [CPI] I learned more about liberal arts type, abstract ideas. That helped me grow – as a student and as a person. I used to be more shy, but [CPI] helped me become more self-assured. I had to do a college interview and if it wasn’t for [CPI], I would have been so nervous. I was much more prepared than I would’ve been without them,” said Technology High School graduating senior Keidy Alcantara who will attend NJIT in fall 2019.
Of the Fellows graduating high school this year, about 90 percent have indicated that they are enrolling in college in the fall. This is a big win because immediate college enrollment, or enrolling by the October after high school graduation, is a key indicator of eventual college completion. A recent NCLC study found that of Newark students who graduated from high school between 2011 and 2016, only 54 percent immediately enrolled in college and only 23 percent earned any type of degree or credential within six years.
Many of the first graduating cohort will attend colleges close to home, like Rutgers University-Newark, NJIT, Montclair State University, and Essex County College, a trend matched by most of their peers. NCLC found that approximately 67 percent of 2011 to 2016 Newark high school graduates enrolled in a college or university within 10 miles of Newark.
“As we enter the college enrollment phase for our first cohort, we will focus on working with our university partners to ensure that our students – and by extension all Newark students – get the appropriate financial, social-emotional, and academic support to persist toward degree completion. We are intentional about having partnerships with local colleges and universities for this very reason,” said NCLC Executive Director Reginald Lewis.
To commemorate the high school graduation of the first cohort of CPI Fellows, NCLC is launching a social media campaign called #CPIFirstClass, which will highlight five graduating seniors. Follow NCLC on Instagram (@nclc2025) to read the Fellows’ reflections on high school and how CPI has helped them in their transition to college.
For more information about NCLC, visit nclc2025.org.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jun 4, 2019 | News1
Mayor Ras J. Baraka, Newark Public Schools Superintendent Roger León, Newark Public Library Director Jeffrey Trzeciak, Panasonic Foundation Executive Director Alejandra Ceja, United Way of Essex and West Hudson CEO Catherine Wilson, and Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) Executive Director Reginald Lewis launched #NewarkReads on Tuesday, June 4, 2019.
#NewarkReads is a comprehensive literacy initiative that will begin this summer with the Mayor’s Book Club. The first phase, a sixth to eighth grade pilot, will be followed by a high school to adult segment in September. The literacy coalition will provide residents of all ages with approaches to improve reading, writing, listening, and thinking skills, focusing on adult literacy and birth to third-grade interventions.
As of 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available, 47,000 Newark adults lacked basic prose literacy skills, and 56 percent of Newark youth scored partially proficient on NJ ASK and HSPA standardized literacy tests. Almost 90 percent of the students who scored partially proficient on these tests came from economically disadvantaged families. These literacy statistics place Newark in the bottom six percent of all New Jersey districts. This gap ties directly to a lifelong economic opportunity gap and has financial, social, and civic consequences for individuals as well as Newark as a whole.
NCLC, a citywide initiative working to build Newark’s college-going culture, jumped at the opportunity to be part of the Coalition.
“The bulk of NCLC’s work entails building and sustaining a college-going culture to ensure that our kids are on track to graduate high school on time and prepared to succeed at the college level. Research has shown that these things are really out of reach for students who are not proficient readers,” said NCLC Executive Director Reginald Lewis. “NCLC reallocated $30,000 of a state grant being shared with the Newark Public Library to the launch of the Mayor’s Book Club. Literacy is clearly at the heart of our work.”
Click here for more information about #NewarkReads.
Click here to register for the Mayor’s Book Club.
Visit newarknclc.org to learn more about NCLC.
