Orienting Lesley’s newest Urban Scholars

Pictured: Urban Scholars faculty and incoming students meet for Summer Transition Week.

The start of any school year can be intimidating or at least fraught with uncertainty, especially for first-generation university students. Their admission to a bachelor’s degree program is evidence of a track record of academic achievement and potential, but the lessons of campus culture transcend the classroom.

That’s where our Urban Scholars Initiative comes in, providing advice, mentoring and community support to help students with limited previous exposure to college life succeed and thrive at Lesley.

“We share a lot of advice about ‘owning the college experience,’” says Maritsa Barros, interim chief diversity officer. “We provide them with the information and inspiration to be their best selves and work to their highest potential — to dig deep to discover their gifts and purpose in life.”

The latest cohort of 23 Urban Scholars recently completed their Summer Transition Week, 30 hours of virtual sessions (owing to the COVID-19 pandemic) to help them begin to learn more about Lesley, as well as themselves. The sessions included mentee training, information about careers, understanding financial planning, and other nuts-and-bolts seminars.

However, Summer Transition Week delved deeper with programs such as “How to Love Your Best and Worse ‘Self’: An Ode to Self-Care,” “Liberating the Mindset” and “Understanding Your Learning Preferences.”

“We encourage them to think beyond just obtaining a college degree to get a job or career that pays the bills,” Barros says of the Urban Scholars. “We want them to work towards building a lifestyle, to build a life that they can live on their own terms and leave a legacy.”

Launched in 2013, the Urban Scholars Initiative supports the financial, academic and emotional needs of young adults, most of whom are the first in their families to go to college.

The initiative provides tuition assistance, tutoring, and mentoring to enable our scholars to graduate from college with modest or no loan debt. In order to identify talented students, we have partnered with nonprofit organizations that prepare first-generation and low-income students for the demands of higher education.

“I know I am not alone in the process,” reported one Summer Transition Week participant in an anonymous evaluation of the program. Other respondents, similarly, found the program helpful and believe it will prepare them to tackle their next, imminent stage of life as Lesley students.