Amherst was one of eight highly selective colleges to receive grants from the Foundation, which totaled $6.78 million. All of the colleges were chosen from a pool of 47 applicants based on the strength of proposals submitted to the foundation for aiding their mission of socioeconomic diversity.
The grants will be focused on creating programs at the colleges that encourage talented students from community colleges to transfer to highly selective four-year colleges, while offering them the financial aid and academic assistance necessary to help them with the transition. The College's faculty and staff will work with Massachusetts community colleges to identify strong students and assist them in the transfer process, as well as ensure that those who transfer to the College are able to make a smooth transition.
The announcement of the grant money, coming on the heels of the recent BusinessWeek article, puts a further focus on Amherst's admission policies and the College's mission to find talented students regardless of socioeconomic background.
The grant money will go towards establishing relationships with nearby community colleges and creating programs to identify and prepare strong students from these colleges to come to Amherst. The College will focus on six nearby community colleges and working with 15 total community colleges in Massachusetts, and is considering expanding the program outside the state in the future. "We've already had one very successful meeting with representatives of the various community colleges to start talking about the recruitment and support effort," said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Tom Parker. "We're all quite excited."
The College will also appoint a new admissions fellow to work exclusively with community college students, as well as increasing staffing in the Dean of Student's Office and Office of Admissions to make this new program function. In addition, the College plans to assemble Amherst students who have transferred from community colleges to act as "telementors" and assist the potential transfers. There are also plans for Amherst faculty to visit community colleges and share information on liberal arts education, while Amherst faculty and staff will work closely with staff at the community colleges to identify those students who are best qualified to transfer.
The College had to win the grant over stiff competition. A committee from the Foundation narrowed 47 applicants down to 18 finalists and visited each campus, examining existing programs and speaking to administrators about their plans. "In a series of proposals and conversations with the Foundation, Amherst outlined clear plans to increase the number of community college transfer students we matriculate and to devise outreach and mentoring strategies that could serve as a model for our peers," Dean of the Faculty Gregory Call explained. "We are delighted to be one of only three liberal arts colleges to receive an award."
This new program fits in with the broader goals of the admissions department the College. "In a lot of ways this is just part of the whole larger effort to expand our reach into talented members of populations who haven't heard much about Amherst," said Dean of Students Ben Lieber.
"This is a larger part of what [President Tony Marx] has spoken about in a lot of his speeches and certainly in the [BusinessWeek] article, that we would like to be a place that provides access to a broader range of socio-economic backgrounds," added Parker.
Parker also emphasized that he did not feel that Amherst was in any way failing in its current work for socio-economic diversity. "We're already doing really well," he said. "We're a pace setter in this, but we want to do better." Parker was excited about the potential of focusing on low-income transfer students specifically, saying that the program would make each junior and senior class significantly more diverse socioeconomically.
The school's admissions policies generated a great deal of debate and discussion among students following the publication of the BusinessWeek article, and this proposal is likely to raise many of the same issues.
Anthony Jack '07 sided strongly with these proposals, saying that students that were judged to meet Amherst's academic standards that come from community colleges should be given a chance to attend Amherst. "You can't say that because a person is at a certain school they're not worthy of an Amherst education, because maybe it was financial, geographical, familial or something else," he said. "I have a lot of faith in the admissions office, and if they deem a student capable, then I say go for it."
Parker emphasized that the College would not compromise their academic standards when admitting transfers from community colleges. "One condition of the grant was that there be no diminution of academic quality," he said.
Call also commented, saying, "We are confident that we will be able to find many bright community college students who will thrive at Amherst-the handful of community college transfer students Amherst already enrolls graduate at the same high rate and with the same good grades as students who start here as freshmen."
Marissa Drehobl '09 also approved of the new program. She argued against the notion that admitting more low-income students will keep other better-qualified students out of Amherst. "Recruiting low-income students isn't going to change anybody else's chances of getting in," she said.
The eight colleges that received the grants, in addition to receiving $6.78 million from the foundation, also pledged a total of $20.5 million themselves, including financial aid and other resources, toward helping talented low-income students attend their institutions, with an emphasis on working closely with community colleges. The eight institutions pledged to enroll a combined total of 1,100 community college transfer students over the course of four years, beginning in the fall of 2007.