More minority students will be able to participate in this summer’s Cherub program thanks to a $30,000 grant from the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company Foundation, said Barbara Reeder, director of Northwestern’s National High School Institute.

“It’s extraordinary,” Reeder said. “It will help us out enormously.”

The Cherub program offers classes to high school juniors who show promise in the areas of music, theater, debate, journalism and media arts. Most of the 800 Cherubs every summer pay $5,000 each to attend classes at Northwestern and experience college life firsthand by living in dorms.

Although minority enrollment increased from about 10 percent in 1997 to 14 percent last year, journalism Cherub coordinator Roger Boye said he wants to see more minority students in the program.

By providing up to six full minority scholarships, this grant is “one cog in a larger operation in trying to get more minority representation at Northwestern,” said Boye, Medill associate dean.

The Wrigley grant brings the total number of scholarships available to minority students this year to at least 25. Earlier this year, the program received a two-year, $70,000 grant from the Surdna Foundation to provide six scholarships for minority students. The Office of the Provost has provided an average of 13 scholarships each summer for the past three years.

About 4 percent of each freshman class attend the Cherub program. About half of each summer’s Cherubs apply to NU, and of those accepted, about 60 percent enroll.

Lauren Todd, a Medill freshman and designer for The Daily, said she remembers the program she attended two years ago as “overwhelmingly white.” She said more minority participants should result in a richer, more diverse experience.

Todd said she is grateful that she was able to attend the program with financial aid from a scholarship and an NU grant. Coming from a single-parent family, Todd said she may not have been able to enjoy the program otherwise.

“It just opened up my eyes to so many different things – people from all over the country … new perspectives,” Todd said. “It was the best summer I ever had.”

The program lasts five weeks, and students from every state and about seven different countries usually attend. Program administrators had previously focused on recruiting minorities from the Chicago area, but they can now look more aggressively outside Chicago, Reeder said. But the program still could use more funds, she said.

“It is a drop in the bucket of what we want to do,” she said.