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Rutgers Students STEP Into the Future
By Eric Hinton
August 24, 2007
A six-week labor of love concluded at Rutgers University's Newark campus Thursday night as 11 incoming undergraduate students of the university's business school graduated from the inaugural Scholars Training and Enrichment Program (STEP).
The program is designed to provide high-potential black and Latino students the necessary skills to be successful in their first year at Rutgers' business school. While living on the Rutgers-Newark campus for six weeks, STEP fellows received training in the fundamentals of managing college life and gaining career experience in the business world.
With their parents present, the students officially graduated from the program as they prepare to begin their freshman year at Rutgers.
"We've made a difference in these students' lives. They've certainly made a difference in ours," said Prof. dt ogilvie, who initiated the program. "The goal of this program is to give students of color every opportunity to succeed during their first year and avoid problematic experiences. That's exactly what STEP does."
She cites statistics that show that black students are 20 percent less likely to graduate in six years and more likely to drop out than white students. She said the goal of STEP was to help reverse that trend by increasing the number of black and Latino students who graduate.
Funding for the program came from Tyco International, PSEG, Citigroup (No. 22 on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) and DiversityInc.
STEP fellows are immersed in an intensive full-time academic program designed to prepare them to excel in the business-school curriculum. Over the six-week span, they studied math and English for business, as well as accounting, finance, information systems, management and marketing. On Fridays, STEP fellows participated in enrichment activities, such as field trips where they studied entrepreneurship. That included a recent visit to DiversityInc's Newark office.
Program Director Faithann Brown believes the hard work the students put in will pay enormous dividends. "When I came on in June, we had no phone, no office, no computers. But we had a clear vision of our objective and what we wanted these students to achieve," she said.
Once the fall semester begins, the STEP graduates will have access to ongoing counseling, mentoring and tutoring as needed. In their sophomore year, they will have the opportunity to serve as peer counselors and mentors to the next incoming class of STEP students.
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