FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MILWAUKEE — The Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation has given the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) a $2 million gift to help low-income students with children break the cycle of poverty through education.
The innovative Life Impact program, a partnership between UWM and the Pettit Foundation, will be announced at a 9 a.m. reception in the Fireside Lounge of the UWM Union Oct. 24. It is designed as a six-year pilot project with far-reaching impact. Starting with 12 students during the current 2005-2006 academic year, the program will expand to involve more than 60 students by the 2010-2011 academic year, for a total of 217 scholarships over the six years. The program will provide financial aid, career development opportunities, childcare assistance, personal coaching and other resources to help low- income students with children complete their education and move into satisfying, family- supporting careers.
The Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation has long focused on the needs of low-income people, particularly women and children, says Cecelia Gore, program officer. However, the Life Impact program is designed to demonstrate ways to overcome the root causes of poverty, she says. “The trustees of the foundation wanted to provide funding for programs that would help people move beyond poverty. That is very much in line with Mrs. Pettit’s goals for the foundation.”
Another goal of the pilot project is to demonstrate to legislators that supporting higher education for low-income parents is more economically beneficial in the long run than “cycling people in and out of government-funded programs,” says Gore.
The pilot project is designed to find the right mix of support services for low-income student-parents. Research has shown that post-secondary education benefits individual adults, their children, society and the economy, since college graduates typically earn more money, pay more taxes and consume more goods and products. Research also suggests that parents who are able to access higher education raise children who will do the same.
The current UWM students selected for the program are juggling jobs with families and classwork.
Sophomore Kami Graham, for example, is balancing college classes, a two-year-old son and a job while helping her mother, who has cancer. A car breakdown on a recent morning left her with the challenge of finding transportation across town—with a two-year-old in tow – to day care, then work, then class.
Nicole Rose, a senior in criminal justice, is on the go from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. some days because of work and college classes. Rose already has overcome formidable challenges to get this far. She became a mother at age 17 and raised her younger brothers under difficult financial circumstances when her own single mother died. She’s moved numerous times since then, but is now trying to provide a stable home for her eight-year-old daughter with the help of her former mother-in-law, who helps with child care.
The Life Impact program will include a variety of support services to help students in the program.
One key component will be a “life coach,” or advisor, who will work with and advise students on dealing with child care, family issues, transportation and other challenges they face. A key focus, says Gore, will be helping students make the transition to the workforce through career counseling and school-year jobs that connect them to their career field.
Many on campus and off campus resources will be tapped in order to provide the necessary support for the program participants. UWM’s Department of Financial Aid will work with students on financial matters, and the Children’s Center will help with childcare issues. UWM’s academic departments, the LINKS peer mentoring center, the Women’s Resource Center and the Office of Adult and Returning Students will provide support when needed. The Life Coach will not only maximize the services that can be provided on campus but will also work with government and social service agencies that provide assistance to families. Graduate students and tutors, will work directly with the students as well. UWM’s Career Development Center will help students get practical job market experience in their field before graduation, and follow and support their progress for 6 to 12 months after graduation.
The Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and its Board of Trustees had made a financial commitment to UWM, and decided the Life Impact Program was a good fit because of the university’s diverse student body, high percentage of nontraditional students and affordable tuition, says Gore. “With $5,000 scholarships we can help more students,” she adds.
After the pilot project is completed, UWM will seek funding from other community organizations to continue the program.
“The University is deeply grateful to the Pettit Foundation for this gift,” said Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago. “Accessibility and affordability are among our greatest challenges at UW-Milwaukee. By funding this inventive, exciting new program, the Pettit Foundation is reinforcing this university’s long tradition of welcoming and supporting nontraditional students. These students, their families, our university and the Greater Milwaukee community will all benefit.”
BACKGROUND ON LIFE IMPACT PARTICIPANTS
The student-parents in the first year of the Life Impact program already have demonstrated considerable commitment to improving their lives and those of their families. Here are a few stories:
“I’m doing this for my mother and my son,” says Kami Graham, 32, who is majoring in community education, with a minor in psychology. She also is working on a certificate in Cultures and Communities, and eventually hopes to become a school psychologist. Her mother has provided encouragement and inspiration as well as help with child care. “My mother wasn’t able to finish high school, and I want my son (Kamani, now two years old) to know howì¥Áo@
come residents. That inspired her to go back to school full-time.
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Another Life Impact scholar, Becita Justine Fields, is a sophomore microbiology major in the College of Health Sciences. She’s seen family members suffer from AIDS, Alzheimer’s and cancer, inspiring her to find ways to bring more preventive health care to under-served communities. Her plan is to go into public health work, with an eventual goal of working for the Centers for Disease Control. “I want to make something of my life.” With support from her father, her sister, Belinda and 13-year-old niece and sometimes babysitter, Deshanea, she commutes daily between her job as a school bus driver for the Milwaukee Academy of Science, the UWM campus and her home on Milwaukee’s Northwest side. Her daughter, Makayla, who just turned four, is at UWM’s Children’s Center so Fields can sometimes visit between classes. It would be helpful to live closer to campus, says Fields, but it just isn’t in her budget.
A veteran, Fields attended Georgia Military College while in the service, but was unemployed when she started college. Now that she’s working and going to school full-time as a single parent, she’s grateful for both the financial aid and personal support the Life Impact program will offer.
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Nicole Rose, 26, is nearing the end of the first phase of a journey that has taken her from a poverty-stricken community in central Illinois to a nearly completed criminal justice degree. “A lot of my friends didn’t go to school and didn’t want to go to school. My mother, who died when I was 17, asked me to finish college because if I didn’t, my younger brothers wouldn’t.” After her mother’s death, she raised her brothers.
Her ultimate goal, she says, is to become a lawyer or judge. As a teenager, she found herself on the wrong side of the law, and that’s inspired her to want to work with others who, like her, don’t have the financial resources and family support to deal with legal problems. One of her early inspirations was a state’s attorney who taught a government class at her junior college. “He said they wouldn’t hold my background against me if I wanted to become a lawyer, and that was my go-ahead.”
After spending time those important first years at home with her now 8-year-old daughter Malaika, Rose returned to college full-time. She transferred from the University of Illinois-Chicago to UWM for economic reasons and so she could be near her former mother-in-law, her only family support. Her mother-in-law works as a secretary at the school Malaika attends, and provides after-school care for her granddaughter on those days when Rose has late classes.
Rose, who works in UWM’s print shop, has been able to arrange her class schedule around her work. However, like many working student-parents, she was juggling a lot of expenses with a limited income. When she received word she’d received the Life Impact scholarship, she was worrying how she was going to pay the balance on her summer school tuition and her daughter’s fees at the UWM Child Care Center. “This really gave me some peace of mind.”
