GOLD WITHIN
For 25 years, program has produced leaders the world needs By Mary Dieter
42 I DEPAUW MAGAZINE SUMMER 2022
L
eaders at DePauw University had been striving for a decade to diversify the campus by attracting more students of color as well as students from cities and states not well represented on campus. “It was not rocket science to understand that we couldn’t equip our students to live in a world in which they would be working if they didn’t have exposure to people from different races and different backgrounds,” said former President Robert Bottoms, who ignited the diversity initiative soon after taking office in 1986. So when DePauw alumnus Timothy Collins ’78, an investment banker, introduced Bottoms to a new foundation that sought to connect colleges with top New York City students overlooked by traditional recruitment – and even agreed to pay the $10,000 membership fee – Bottoms signed DePauw up. Twenty-five years ago this fall, the university welcomed the first cohort of New York students, who joined the Class of 2001 and received full-ride scholarships. They had been recruited via the Posse Foundation and, as a group, were intended to support one another as fellow members of their posse. Those students, and the nearly 400 who have followed since, endured a stringent application process to be offered admission at DePauw and, during their senior year of high school, were coached for months on study skills, conflict resolution and other issues to ease their transition to college. They also become acquainted with the peers who would be joining them at DePauw. When they arrived on campus, they met regularly as a group and individually with their mentor, a faculty or staff member who remained with the group all four years. DePauw was one of the first schools to sign on with Posse; 64 institutions now participate. The late Timothy Ubben ’58 was so impressed by Posse’s early success at DePauw that he rounded up friends to finance a program in Chicago and fund scholarships for the 2001-02 academic year. Since then, DePauw has accepted about 10 students each from New York and Chicago every year and has graduated about 83% of its Posse students, a smidge off Posse’s overall rate of 90%. “It’s a leadership organization,” Ubben said in an interview shortly before his death Dec. 13. Students “are selected based on what leadership they’ve shown,” he said. “The purpose of Posse is to produce leaders in the country, whether they’re a firefighter or whether they’re a board member at Goldman Sachs. Doesn’t matter. We’re producing leaders.” That sentiment is echoed by Posse’s founder, Deborah Bial, who was inspired to create the program in 1989 while working for a youth organization in New York City. An advisee told her he would not have quit the prestigious university he was attending had he had his “posse” with him. “Posse is a national diversity, college success and leadership program. It’s a merit-based program,” not a program “that’s based on any kind
