Anonymous
By Keith Hamm
Their career goals may range widely from teaching to data science but what they all have in common is a mindset to create brighter futures for themselves — and others — through higher education. To help them succeed, a new program at UC Santa Barbara will be covering costs.
Now in its second year, the Promise Fellowship Program has announced its latest awardees, each pursuing an advanced degree at UC Santa Barbara with financial support from a program dedicated to empowering first-generation college students from low-income households.
“Promise Fellowships open the doors to graduate degrees for motivated and talented Promise Scholars,” said Leila J. Rupp, the interim Anne and Michael Towbes Dean of the Graduate Division. “These are exactly the kinds of students we need to recruit to our graduate programs. By providing full financial support, we make the dream of a graduate degree a reality for students who otherwise would not have had that opportunity.”
The 2023–24 cohort of master’s degree students is Lesley Figueroa (environmental science and management), who is also the first awardee pursuing a doctorate, Anthony A. Botros (materials), Erik Magaña (Gevirtz Graduate School of Education) and Rosemary Juarez (Bren School environmental data science).
“Our scholars have worked incredibly hard over these past four years,” said Holly Roose, program director of the UC Santa Barbara Promise Scholars Program. “They are very excited to start the next journey through the Promise Scholars graduate opportunity provided to us through the Graduate Division and the amazing donors who help fund us. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and continues to support our scholars.”
Through generous donors, divisional deans and the Graduate Division, Promise Fellows pursuing advanced degrees in education, data science, technology management, computer science, global studies and art, among other fields of study, will receive $40,000 annually over the span of their degree work. In addition, doctoral student applicants who are fully funded by their departments receive $8,000 during each of their first three summers.
“Knowing my parents left everything behind in Mexico to have a better future for me has been my biggest motivation throughout my life.”
The first in her family to pursue higher education, Figueroa said she is driven by the memory of her parents’ sacrifices.
“My father was only able to attend college for one week before he had to drop out to be able to provide money for his mother and siblings,” Figueroa said. “He had dreams of completing college and becoming a teacher but had to give that up and move to a different country to be able to support himself and his family. Knowing my parents left everything behind in Mexico to have a better future for me has been my biggest motivation throughout my life.
“There were moments I believed that I wasn’t going to be able to attend graduate school due to financial constraint,” she added, crediting Roose and Graduate Diversity Programs Director Carlos Nash with fundraising efforts to “complete the missing piece from my puzzle — the financial plan for my academic journey. I will forever be grateful for their help.”
“When I first got accepted to UCSB I was lucky enough to become a Promise Scholar and that helped ease my financial burden significantly.”
Botros, as well, initially believed that pursuing a graduate degree would be out of reach financially.
“I grew up in a low-income household so money has always been tight and while I always knew I was going to college, I wasn’t sure how I was going to achieve that financially,” Botros said. “When I first got accepted to UCSB I was lucky enough to become a Promise Scholar and that helped ease my financial burden significantly. I wanted to continue onto graduate school but I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to fund it without taking significant loans and burdening my parents.” The opportunities presented by the award are timely, said Juarez, who shared how the COVID-19 pandemic hindered potential in-person research opportunities during her undergraduate years as a geography major.
“I look forward to connecting and interacting with industry leaders and collaborating with my cohort at the Bren School,” she said. “I believe that obtaining my masters degree in environmental data science will allow me to pursue greater opportunities that not only broaden my knowledge, but allow me to accomplish and provide technical support in the environmental field. I cannot wait to learn what graduate school has to offer.”
UCSB alum Nien-Tsu Shen and her husband Ching-Chih Hsiao also provided support for Juarez and Botero.
“I believe that higher education makes society better, in all aspects,” said Shen. “In particular, it helps to close the gap between the haves and have nots in a capitalist world. I have always liked to see people at all ages seeking higher education, especially at the graduate level. When I learned about the Promise Fellowship Program, I felt that as a former UCSB graduate student, I needed to support it.”
While working toward their advanced degrees, the Promise Fellows will also provide mentorship and support to undergraduate Promise Scholars preparing for and applying to graduate school.
“Serving my peers and the community has always been my passion, I prioritize the needs of others and know that working with youth is important to build our futures as a community together.”
These acts of giving back are at the heart of the program, said Magaña, who served as a student leader and peer mentor in El Congreso de UCSB, Comunidad Latinx Graduación, Mesa Directiva and the MultiCultural Center, and has worked with migrant students as part of the California Mini-Corps.
“Serving my peers and the community has always been my passion,” he said. “I prioritize the needs of others and know that working with youth is important to build our futures as a community together.”
“The Promise Fellowship has given me the opportunity to fully focus on my goal of becoming a high school Spanish teacher,” Magaña added. “Teaching credential programs require student teaching hours that are uncompensated outside of course credit, so attending the Teacher Education Program here at UC Santa Barbara would have required me to take out extensive unsubsidized loans and work on the weekends and holidays to cover expenses.” With the fellowship, however, he could focus on his studies.
For more information on the Promise Fellowship Program, visit the Graduate Division website or contact Assistant Dean of Development John Lofthus.
It looks like some (maybe one) people here think just because you have a college diploma you’re “educated”, and if you just have a high school one you’re “uneducated”. I disagree completely. Don’t look down on folks who are plenty smart and successful but didn’t go the college route. They often kill it.
“It looks like some (maybe one) people here think just because you have a college diploma you’re “educated”” – can you point that comment out? I don’t see anyone saying that. In fact, I agree with you about trade schools. In addition, however, I also think we need to make higher education more affordable so that ALL those who are ready/qualified for it, can attain it. Allowing it to remain a business is driving our country’s education level into the pits.
This should be offered to all students. So many students have outrageous loans. Parents are not responsible for kids after 18. So many kids need help. To just give to low income parents is really not fair to the kids no matter what race or income their parents have. And seriously with rents and the cost of living in California and other states so many working non low income families are just squeezing by.
With limited resources for Promise scholarships, the program gets to pick and choose.
MEBK – are you going happily pay extra taxes to fund tuition for kids whose families can afford to send them to college?
“That said, there are some overeducated jerks around that think an education, even if they just jumped through hoops and didn’t absorb the principles, qualifies them as armchair experts on everything. A few of them can’t even figure out comment threading.”
– Anonymous
Jumped through hoops? You have no idea. Some things in life take that, for better or worse. Hoop after hoop. Often they seem to be ridiculous hoops. It takes effort and perseverance. I never went into the military but I’d put money on it that it was very similar to med school and beyond in that there’s no free pass. Always someone testing you, if for no other reason than to see if you can handle it. Because when the sh-t hits the fan, you want people around you that aren’t going to cave in.
Gifts or hoops? Which would you suggest the future generation gets?
“Anonymous” like BASICINFO805…..? LOL what a breakthrough there, Sherlock
Yeah, I bet “med school” was hard, but this isn’t about the difficulty of completing a college education, it’s about FINANCING one. You keep ignoring that. Why would you want to put someone through “hoops” in order to just pay for a college education? It’s not a “gift” to educate someone. It’s a benefit to our entire society.
Why would we make it harder for our nation as a whole to meet the intellectual level of the rest of the developed world?
MEBK – agreed that higher ed should be affordable (or free) to all. But many families are able to easily set their kids up for college and share the costs so it is great to see that those most disadvantaged get some much needed support too. I do feel responsible for my 18 year old and will help provide for his continued education because I can. To these kids, this support yields generational changes – their children will be the children of educated college grads and their path will be much easier where they will not need outside support.
If they get more generous donors, they will work their way up the list of need and give scholarships to more students – the richest 1% certainly have the means to do this…
In ten years, when you need a Plumber, you will be put on a waiting list that may be a week long… Doing a remodel…? Good luck in 10 years finding the electrician, framer or concrete foundation installer…
I wish these non-profits would support TRADE SCHOOLS instead of 4 year Universities.
Reward hard workers in real jobs.
We recognize that a good education doesn’t always require a four-year degree. That’s why we look for people who aren’t afraid to learn a useful skill and work their butts off.
Support the TRADES not paper-pushers and bureaucrats.
https://mikeroweworks.org/
My comment is directed at Coastwatch, Lucky, and Basic who all brought up trade schools on an article that IS NOT ABOUT TRADE SCHOOLS! You all don’t even realize how racist your comments are.
If this were an article on the importance of trade schools, I’d agree with you. But since this is an article about nonwhite students receiving educational grants and scholarships, you comment feels racist. You do realize it’s ok for minorities to receive higher education too, right?
Some of my good friends never went to college. They took up trades, found things they liked to do and were good at. With hard work they developed their own businesses and great, rewarding careers. Some of them are wealthier than I am, as a physician. Not everyone needs a college degree to succeed in life, that’s for sure. I’m telling my kid that. We do have college covered though. No new cars, no new phones, saving, planning, working hard – common sense economics. We’re not expecting the US taxpayers to bail my kid out if he needs loans. That would be a poor plan and irresponsible.
I think this is a good program. Complaining about student debt and getting blank checks written to college grads (Biden!) aren’t good in my opinion. Thanks SCOTUS for your logic. Hey, if you/your parents sign on the line for a loan and then years later expect SOMEONE ELSE to pay for it, well that’s just lame.
Most of the civilized world recognizes that it is in their interest to have an educated populace, and that free (or nearly so) higher education benefits everyone, and is an economic multiplier. They rightly see education as a service of civilization, and not a business to benefit the few.
There’s nothing wrong with learning a trade, but education makes the rest of your life more enjoyable and rewarding.
That said, there are some overeducated jerks around that think an education, even if they just jumped through hoops and didn’t absorb the principles, qualifies them as armchair experts on everything. A few of them can’t even figure out comment threading.
I will say, for some, a trade is a great thing and we should encourage it for those who might not fit well with the college environment/demands. At DP High, they do have an amazing construction program. More schools should have programs like this.
Again though, for those who DO choose/fit better with college, that education should be fiscally attainable for ALL who qualify. Those countries with free/low cost higher education are so much more advanced and educated than our populace in general. We keep chanting “USA, USA, USA” but it’s falling on deaf (and more advanced) ears that don’t care about us anymore. An educated public should be our TOP priority. We don’t need more weapons. We need more intelligence. We need to be on par with the rest of the developed world, not catching up to and comparing ourselves to dictatorships and developing nations (see BABYCAKES and his love of corrupt cops in resort countries).