President's Office

Positioning A Scholarship Program
to Attract Talent and Provide Access

A Presidential White Paper
Addressed to the Cornell College family
from Leslie H. Garner Jr.

February 2007 

“I grew up in a family of very modest means and had big dreams of becoming a lawyer. Cornell helped me financially when I would not otherwise have been able to attend. I am a loyal giver because I know there are other high schoolers in the world, like I was, with big dreams and insufficient means, who are capable of bringing positive change in the world if they are fortunate enough to call the Hilltop home.”

Tamra L. Toussaint ’86, senior counsel, Kimberly-Clark Corporation

A college education, especially at a college like Cornell, is a great equalizer. Cornell College has a proud tradition of need-blind admission and of educating first-generation college students. Almost universally, Cornell graduates credit their education with leading to more fulfilling lives. Many, if not most, of those graduates also relied on financial assistance to attend this institution. Cornell’s willingness to invest in its students and in the extraordinary opportunities which it provides them is a central reason why we are recognized as a “college that changes lives.”

Financial assistance to students indeed represents the college’s most significant ongoing investment. Cornell offers scholarships to students who have shown the promise and desire to become intellectually robust. And for the students to accept their scholarships, the college must show that it can, in fact, help make them so. Simply put, an intellectually robust person can best handle the intellectual challenges of the time, just as a healthy person is better poised to survive the challenges of disease. Intellectual robustness is central to the mission of a liberal arts college and is becoming increasingly more important as the new generation faces disparate intellectual challenges.

In today’s competitive climate, Cornell must do more to compete for, and ensure financial access to, the brightest and most motivated students. To this end, Cornell is establishing endowed scholarship funds that will capture the attention of deserving students by rewarding their accomplishments, compensating for financial need, and offering unequaled opportunities, leading to intellectual robustness. These talented students eagerly seize these opportunities, making meaningful contributions to the Cornell community and, upon graduation, to the larger society.

While a first goal is to provide financial assistance, to have a true impact, our scholarship endowment must be able to offer more than price-discounting to students who already have no shortage of lucrative scholarship offers. It must offer extraordinary opportunities to ambitious, intellectually curious students who have high expectations for academic engagement and pre-professional preparation. For example, we are considering patterning a scholarship program after the Morehead Scholarship—a four-year, full-pay scholarship to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, with summer enrichment programs, mentoring from leading scholars, and high-profile internships. With such a scholarship program Cornell could more consistently compete for the nation’s very finest students.

I know from personal experience the value of such a scholarship. As a Morehead Scholar I was given tremendous opportunities. I leveraged my scholarship to study overseas for a semester, to explore the university fully, and to do everything I had dreamed of academically. The scholarship facilitated a transformational experience and made a real difference in my life. I want access to that level of extraordinary experience for Cornell students.

Cornell’s endowed scholarship program will give these deserving students the flexibility to take advantage of all Cornell has to offer, including international study, special student-faculty research, creative expression, scholarly endeavors, leadership, and service. The special opportunities for study and mentoring attached to the scholarship would ensure that these scholars graduate with exceptional credentials for admission into the nation’s finest graduate and professional schools and for competing for high-profile post-graduate scholarships such as the Rhodes, Fulbright, and Goldwater.

This caliber of graduate will serve to affirm the value of the scholarship program and of a Cornell education, ultimately causing a ripple effect on recruitment by compelling high-caliber students, along with their parents and counselors, to take notice of Cornell.

Endowed scholarships can be targeted at specific cohorts of students, from the highly credentialed student to the highly motivated student from a less enabling background.

There is a growing national concern, especially in American private higher education, that diminishing emphasis is being placed on need-based scholarship assistance. As we look to the future, scholarships will be increasingly important in an era of changing demographics. We know there will be a significant population of young people who are very bright but who have higher levels of financial need and little to no direct family experience with liberal arts college education. We need to ensure access to Cornell for these students through scholarship support and through demonstration of the value of a liberal arts education, in part, through the special opportunities available to them.

Through support of a scholarship endowment, you can create opportunities for students like Tamra L. Toussaint ’86, senior counsel for Kimberly-Clark Corporation, whose Cornell scholarship gave her access to an education that allowed her to fulfill her dream of becoming an attorney. In this way, your support can provide upward mobility and play a role in reducing the opportunity gap that is widening in American society.

Scholarship students will arrive at Cornell with a passion to learn and will contribute greatly to the campus. And upon graduation they will bring their talents and education to society at large. Their named scholarship will help them enjoy life to the fullest. There is no surer way than scholarship support to make a difference in the lives of so many fine young people.