Odia Kane and Shayne Yang of New Haven Promise recently talked to the leaders of the nation’s Promise programs to learn about the growth and mission of the movement. Take a look.
A Monumental Promise Moment
Just a week before the people of the United States elect the 45th President of the United States, the Promise Movement will gather in Washington, D.C., for the first time as the College Promise Campaign will host the 8th Annual PromiseNet Conference October 24-26th at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
PromiseNet is an opportunity for Promise community stakeholders to come together and share best practices around designing, implementing, and sustaining College Promise programs. This year it will bring together practitioners, researchers, and policymakers who are committed to expanding access to higher education and will enable discussions around local place-based scholarship programs, community economic development models and efforts to scale the Promise through state programs and federal proposals.
The movement to improve access and affordability in higher education is growing. Since the College Promise Campaign launched last September, more than two dozen new Promise programs have launched – from rural North Carolina to the country’s second largest city, Los Angeles.
Washington, D.C., will be the fifth city to host PromiseNet, joining Kalamazoo, Denver, Pittsburgh and New Haven. Important details to come.
Career Campaign: Ready To Launch
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It’s by no means easy, but it was both important and inspiring. “It” was the third-annual New Haven Promise Internship Fair, co-hosted by the Yale Community Hiring Initiative.
On Thursday night more than 130 New Haven Promise Scholars gathered at Yale’s Payne Whitney Gym. With basketballs bouncing 20 feet below, the Scholars met with hiring managers from more than two dozen agencies in the first step toward landing a paid summer internship in their field of study.
More than half of the Scholars in attendance will land one of those coveted positions.
“Not only will this provide Promise Scholars about a quarter-million dollars to help cover college-going expenses,” said Executive Director Patricia Melton. “They will also gain valuable career experience and networking opportunities that will help them return to New Haven after they graduate from college. And we are extremely pleased to have new agencies, like Yale-New Haven Health, Centerplan Development, Marcum and the City of New Haven jumping in.”
The program has already launched one full-time career and will ultimately do the same for many more as Promise begins to build its alumni base.
The first full-time job that was a result of the Fair came to Teodoro Garcia, a 2015 graduate of the University of Connecticut. After serving an extended internship at the Yale School of Management, he landed a finance post at the School of Medicine last fall.
Both of those departments participated in the Fair along with a number of other Yale departments, such as the Art Gallery, the Center for British Art, Information Technology Services, Human Resources, Graduate Housing, Finance and the Police Department.
Another Promise graduate — Erving Xochipiltecatl (pictured) — was handling a new role at the Fair, working the table as a full-time employee of New Haven Public Schools, which plans to employ current Scholars this summer. Like Garcia, he was among New Haven Promise’s first class of graduates, earning his diploma from Quinnipiac University in the spring.
In addition to the school district and New Haven Promise, several other businesses and organizations were looking to hire, including Teach For America, Southern Connecticut State University, Berchem Moses & Devlin Law, and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
Melton and Yale’s Community Hiring Director Chris Brown (pictured) talked to the hiring managers after the event and they showed great enthusiasm for the Scholars they met and many discussed recruiting additional departments, businesses and organizations in the future.
A number of other agencies are expected to open positions in the coming months and the hope is to have more than 100 internships this summer.
Cities Of Promise 