College of Wooster joins American Talent Initiative
WOOSTER, Ohio – The College of Wooster announced today that it has joined the American Talent Initiative (ATI), which aims to expand educational access and opportunity for talented low- and moderate-income students.
Launched in December 2016 with 30 public and private colleges and universities, ATI recently announced that it had enrolled its 100thmember institution. Those member schools, including Harvard, Williams, Amherst, Ohio State, and the University of Michigan in addition to Wooster, have committed to a collective goal of enrolling and graduating 50,000 additional low- and moderate-income students by 2025.
“We are proud that our student body has had many first-generation college students and children from families of modest means since our founding,” said Sarah R. Bolton, Wooster’s president. “That commitment has not just remained strong, it is growing, with the percentage of our entering class who are Pell Grant recipients increasing from 13 percent in 2003 to 18 percent last fall.”
In addition to continuing those recruitment efforts, Wooster will focus particular attention on supporting the thriving and success of these students, to ensure that they can make the most of the opportunities at Wooster and complete their degrees.
“Wooster has always sought the most talented students, regardless of background,” said Scott Brown, vice president for student affairs and dean of students. “By joining ATI, we become part of a strong community of peer institutions with whom we can identify and share best practices for admitting and actively supporting our students even more effectively.”
The American Talent Initiative is a Bloomberg Philanthropies project led by the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and Ithaka S+R.
The College of Wooster is America’s premier college for mentored undergraduate research. Wooster offers an excellent, comprehensive liberal arts education, culminating in a rigorous senior project, in which each student works one-on-one with a faculty mentor to conceive, organize and complete a significant research project on a topic of the student’s own choosing. Through this distinctive program, every Wooster student develops abilities valued by employers and graduate schools alike: independent judgment, analytical ability, creativity, project-management and time-management skills, and strong written and oral communication skills. Founded in 1866, the college enrolls approximately 2,000 students.
Posted in News on April 19, 2018.
