加载中…奥巴马总统的诺贝尔和平奖奖金捐赠对象：“大学之峰”组织
(2011-10-14 14:26:32)
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分类： 政治与经济 |
曾参加过“大学之峰”组织活动的莫里亚•佩里（Moriah Perry，左）与切尔西•雷伊（Chelsea Ray）目前在上大一的第一个学期。
2009年，奥巴马总统荣获诺贝尔和平奖。这个奖项有140万美元奖金，总统已将其捐赠给多个非营利组织。本文是关于几个接受捐赠的组织的四篇系列报道之三。
美国国务院国际信息局《美国参考》Kathryn McConnell从华盛顿报道，2009年，莫里亚·佩里、切尔西·雷伊以及泰里克·西蒙斯（Tyriq Simmons）还差一年就要进入高中毕业班了，他们希望毕业后升入大学。然而，这些学生当年并不知道如何选择学校，如何开始复杂的申请过程，或如何付学费。
幸运的是，学校的老师听说有一个组织能够帮助这些学生。第二年暑假，这三名学生参加了由“大学之峰”（College Summit）组织主办的讲座活动，学会了如何确定未来的职业目标，如何准备申请材料以及如何申请助学金。
在这一大学预备计划的鼓励下，这三名学生在新学年开始时，成为“大学之峰”组织的骨干力量，帮助其他学生了解如何申请大学。今天，这三个已满十八岁的青年已进入大学一年级学习。
佩里说：“大学之峰帮助我开始申请程序。”佩里毕业于马里兰州克林顿镇苏拉茨维尔高中，如今在宾州州学镇（State
College）的宾州州立大学就读。佩里喜欢体育，尤其爱好篮球，她打算主攻体育管理专业。
雷伊说：“大学之峰组织教我怎样尽早开始申请。”她也是苏拉茨维尔高中的毕业生，眼下在马里兰州的陶森大学就读，希望主修药剂学。她说，多亏有了该组织的帮助，她才没有错过最后申请限期。由于中学成绩优秀，加上参加了学校多项学生活动，雷伊获得苏拉茨基金会提供的奖学金。
创立一种准备升学的环境
毕业于哈佛大学神学院的施拉姆（J.B. Schramm）1993年发起“大学之峰”组织时，正在首都华盛顿的一栋低收入政府补贴楼里的地下室为青少年开办一家活动中心。
在鲍伊州立大学就读的泰里克•西蒙斯
看到低收入家庭的青少年中学毕业后不能升学，施拉姆感到失望，于是他召集了一些青年问题顾问和教师，帮助他为学生提供服务。他们创立的这家组织目前已帮助了10多万名学生。
他说：“我看到我们有年轻人原本可以读大学，却没有去。我看到我们社区的青少年不愿读完高中；他们不会得到大学教育带来的好处。”
施拉姆曾在哈佛做过一段时间的学习顾问。他说，高中要创造一种准备升学的环境，最有效的方式是邀请来一些有影响力的学生，让他们向在校学生介绍如何为升学的目标做执著的准备以及如何最终进入大学。他还说：“他们不一定非是学生尖子，但他们有理想，是其他学生效仿的榜样。”
他还说，“大学之峰”组织的成员每天都在帮助同学们设计他们的未来目标，同时又在帮助他们将目标与在校期间做出的选择结合起来。
西蒙斯与佩里和雷伊一样，也是“大学之峰”组织的受益者，他说，他因此学会了自信。他毕业于马里兰州寺庙山镇科罗斯兰德高中。他说，该组织使他学会不要听信有人说他没有本事。他如今在马里兰州鲍伊州立大学就读，所学专业为心理学。
今年6月，西蒙斯获悉他与纽约、洛杉矶和华盛顿等地其他59名“大学之峰”组织的参与者各获得2500美元的奖学金，该奖项全名为达登餐馆成功奥妙奖学金（Darden Restaurants Recipe for Success Scholarship），此奖专门授予那些有理想的学生，奖励他们致力于鼓励其他同学也上大学。在大学就读期间，获奖人每年均可拿到这笔年奖。
奥巴马总统将部分诺贝尔和平奖奖金捐给了10家非营利组织，其中几家为促进教育事业的组织，如波塞基金会（Posse Foundation）、联合黑人大学基金（United Negro College Fund）、 阿巴拉契亚领导与教育基金会（Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation）、美国印第安人大学基金（American Indian College Fund）、拉美裔奖学金基金（Hispanic Scholarship Fund）以及中亚学会（Central Asia Institute）。
奥巴马向“大学之峰”组织捐赠了12.5万美元。
Obama Nobel Peace Prize Donation: College Summit
By Kathryn McConnell | Staff Writer | 06 October 2011
College Summit alumni Moriah Perry, left, and Chelsea Ray are now in their first semester of college.
In 2009, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The honor came with a $1.4 million award, which the president donated to several nonprofits. This is the third of four articles about some of the organizations that benefited.
Washington — In 2009, Moriah Perry, Chelsea Ray and Tyriq Simmons were high school juniors who wanted to go to college. But they didn’t know how to choose a college, how to begin the complicated application process or how to pay for tuition.
Fortunately, teachers at their schools knew about an organization that could assist them. The next summer, the three attended workshops put on by the group College Summit and learned how to pinpoint their career goals, tackle college applications and qualify for financial assistance.
Enthused by the college preparatory program, at the start of the school year Perry, Ray and Simmons served as College Summit peer leaders, guiding other students through college applications. Today, all three 18-year-olds are in their first year of college.
“College Summit helped me get the college process started,” said Perry, who graduated from Surrattsville High School in Clinton, Maryland, and is attending Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. Active in sports, particularly basketball, Perry intends to focus her studies on sports management.
“College Summit taught me to start early with my application,” said Ray, a Surrattsville graduate who is attending Towson University in Towson, Maryland, and hopes to major in pharmacy. “Without it, I would have missed my deadlines.” Because of her high grades and many student activities in high school, Ray received a scholarship from the Surratts Foundation.
CREATING A CULTURE OF COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS
J.B. Schramm, a graduate of Harvard University’s divinity school, was running a teen center in the basement of a low-income housing project in Washington when he started College Summit in 1993.
He was frustrated by seeing young people from low-income homes who did not move beyond high school, so he gathered a group of youth counselors and educators to help him help the students. The organization they founded has helped more than 100,000 students.
Tyriq Simmons at Bowie State University
Schramm, a former academic adviser at Harvard, said the most effective way a high school can create a culture of college readiness is to get influential students to demonstrate to others how to commit to the goal of preparing for college and then going to college. “They may not be the top academic students, but they are motivated and looked up to,” he said.
College Summit participants “help their classmates connect the dots between their goals for the future and the choices they make in school each day,” he said.
Simmons, the third student who took advantage of College Summit, said it taught him self-confidence. “It taught me not to listen to the ‘no’ voice that says I can’t do something,” said the graduate of Crossland High School in Temple Hills, Maryland. He is now studying at Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland, and majoring in psychology.
Simmons will continue to participate in College Summit as an alumni leader advising high school students who want to go to college. “I want to be able to help those who are like I was, with no clue about the college application process,” he said.
In June 2011, Simmons learned that he was one of 60 College Summit participants in New York, Los Angeles and Washington who won a $2,500 Darden Restaurants Recipe for Success Scholarship, which goes to promising students who work to motivate their peers to go to college. The scholarship is renewable annually during a student’s college career.
President Obama contributed portions of his Nobel Prize money to 10 nonprofits, several of which promote education, including the Posse Foundation, the United Negro College Fund, the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, the American Indian College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the Central Asia Institute.
Obama donated $125,000 to College Summit.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)
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