Delivered
NSBE makes good on a promise to help students in St. Lucia
By Adrienne P. Samuels
When Krystal McDoom was a kid living in Vieux-Fort, St. Lucia, she used to dream about being a ballerina, and then a doctor and then a lawyer. But it wasn’t until her older brothers — also her biggest role models — started taking technical drawing and technology classes that she became interested in engineering.
In St. Lucia’s equivalent of high school, McDoom got more involved in higher level math and physics and eventually went to a local community college — the Caribbean island nation’s only community college — where she got a few years of STEM classes under her belt. She then worked for a construction firm, still dreaming of attaining a four-year engineering degree and someday becoming her own boss.
“Our families didn’t have the money to send us to school, because it’s so expensive,” says McDoom, who was part of the 93 percent of St. Lucian students who do not get a university education. “I’ve been trying for three years to go to college. I didn’t have the $90,000, plus the international fees…. I always knew that the lifestyle that I wanted for me and my family I could only achieve (through) financial independence. The only way I could get financial independence? The first step is going to college.”
McDoom’s comments represent the overwhelming sentiment of 28 St. Lucian students who arrived in Chicago this past Aug. 22 and woke the next morning with their dreams of attending a university fully realized. McDoom and the others are the first beneficiaries of an impromptu scholarship program put together in weeks by NSBE, Goldman Sachs & Co. and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).
Building a Pipeline
The original plan was to provide several St. Lucians with scholarships at a U.S. university for the 2011–12 school year. This idea sprang up after NSBE’s 2010 Annual Convention in Toronto, when Executive Director Carl B. Mack was asked to visit St. Lucia to give a motivational speech. Mack at first was reluctant to make the trip (“I don’t consider myself to be a motivational speaker,” he says.) but later changed his mind. It helped that he had recently begun helping Clarkson University with its diversity efforts, in exchange for scholarships from the school to students who might diversify the STEM fields.
Armed with information about the Clarkson partnership, Mack planned to give a few speeches in St. Lucia and talk to students about scholarships for the 2011 school year. He arrived on the island near the end of June and met with students in RISE–St. Lucia, a community organization led by Stephen King, M.D., a forensic pathologist who seeks higher education for all Sr. Lucian youth. Mack spoke before numerous groups during his visit — including Prime Minister Stephenson King (no relation to Dr. King) and his cabinet — and was a big hit in the St. Lucian media.
IIT entered the equation after Mack returned to the States in early July. After getting a go-ahead from NSBE’s National Executive Board, Mack talked with an official of the university who mentioned that the Chicago-based school was also looking to diversify its student population. Three days later, Gerald Doyle, IIT’s vice provost of Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid, called Mack with an offer of 75 partial scholarships for St. Lucians who could get to the school for the fall 2010 semester — one year earlier than NSBE had planned.
“Pipeline development is one of our areas of focus this year, and it’s not just about getting young students interested in engineering,” says NSBE National Chair Phelps, 23, a master’s degree student in mechanical engineering at Cornell University. “It’s about building a pipeline from the island of St. Lucia to potentially create those future engineers and technologists who can build the economy and grow that nation.”
‘Not A-B-Cs’
Leonard Montoute, St. Lucia’s minister of Social Transformation, Youth and Sport, agreed that the government would support 28 students financially by aiding them in qualifying for college loans.
The students were happy to hear it, but their drama continued. The next 14 days were packed with last-minute loan negotiations with banks and do-or-die arrangements for visas and travel.
“I always knew that I would get a scholarship, but I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how,” says new IIT business administration student Lucius Doxerie, 27, who hails from the rough and tumble community of Marchand, in East Castries, St. Lucia.
For Doxerie, the second eldest of the St. Lucian group, IIT “is far from easy.” The six-foot-tall Rastafarian is away from home. He’s in a city where the temperature regularly dips below freezing. And, he’s in a dorm room where access to his beloved cocoa tea is nonexistent.
Yet, he won’t complain. Just weeks into his new life in the U.S., he is focused on studying.
“It’s challenging, because (I’m) learning new concepts. But I’m someone who loves to learn, and sooner or later I’ll rise to the occasion and handle my business,” says Doxerie, who was a social worker in St. Lucia before getting the NSBE scholarship. “Education is the only thing that is going to break the poverty cycle.”
The program will continue next year, provided more scholarships are financed, says Mack.
“St. Lucia needs it,” he says.
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