Macs Vinson (McCormick ’17) vividly remembers breaking down in tears at Cozy Noodles & Rice, stressed about a midterm for a difficult class. Asian American Studies Prof. Nitasha Sharma, Vinson’s faculty mentor as part of Northwestern’s Posse Scholars program, sat across from them at the table.
In an emotional moment, Sharma counseled them, telling Vinson to go to office hours, ask questions and seek help from their professor. Vinson attributed their eventual success on the exam to Sharma’s guidance and grounding advice.
This mentorship, a critical aspect of the Posse Scholars program, was a key part of Vinson’s college experience.
“It gave me a base of community that I still lean on today, that champions me with my accomplishments, supports me when I’m down,” Vinson said. “It’s fundamentally a core part of my experience today.”
Now, 13 years after its introduction, Northwestern is ending its partnership with the program.
The Posse Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that partners with colleges across the country to provide full-tuition scholarships to students from diverse backgrounds who exhibit leadership in their communities.
Posse’s mission is to diversify the pool from which top universities recruit young leaders, build welcoming environments at these institutions for students of all backgrounds and ensure that the selected scholars graduate, according to the organization’s website.
For over a decade, NU has partnered with the organization’s Los Angeles site to select 10 Posse Scholars from the greater L.A. area each year to receive full-tuition scholarships. The students become part of a “posse,” a cohort of 10 students paired with a faculty advisor. At NU, the group meets once a week to discuss a variety of topics, including adjusting to college life.
“I’ve been at Northwestern for 20 years, and (Posse) is, without a doubt, the most rewarding experience that I had with a group of 10 scholars who were kind of carefully curated into a group,” Sharma said.
Ten classes of Posse Scholars have now graduated from NU, and many alumni told The Daily it changed their lives for the better. But when students and faculty were notified that the University was ending the program, it came as a shock.
Students, faculty surprised by discontinuation of beloved program
The University notified Posse Scholars and affiliated faculty in late June that it will be ending its partnership with The Posse Foundation, making the incoming Class of 2030 cohort the program’s last. Current students’ scholarships will not be affected by the decision.
Posse Scholars and faculty mentors received an email on June 23 with the news from Tabitha Wiggins, Campus Inclusion and Community assistant vice president.
“We are deeply grateful for the many Posse Scholars who have enriched the Northwestern community through their leadership, scholarship, and service,” Wiggins wrote.
They added that “this decision was not made lightly.”
In the message to faculty, Wiggins thanked mentors for their “support and dedication” and wrote that she is “committed to working closely with our campus partners and community members to ensure a thoughtful transition.”
In a July 15 statement to The Daily, a University spokesperson wrote that NU “regularly reviews how it uses its resources to support its academic mission.”
“By phasing out its Posse program, Northwestern will be able to reallocate those funds to further support its commitments to access, opportunity and belonging regardless of students’ hometown or financial means,” the statement read.
Sharma said faculty mentors were shocked by the news.
She added that the decision-making process did not include important stakeholders, including affiliated professors.
“These are the kinds of decisions that Northwestern is making now over the past few years, when it doesn’t have to, that makes faculty, who are committed to mentoring these students and committed to these kinds of programs and all that they stand for, it makes us not want to be affiliated with the University anymore,” Sharma said.
After receiving the initial note, several sent emails to Wiggins requesting a meeting, including English Prof. Daisy Hernández.
Though not a Posse mentor herself, Hernández serves as vice president of NU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and said she wanted to keep faculty informed about the University’s actions. She added that she has also taught several Posse Scholars as a faculty affiliate of the Latina & Latino Studies Program.
On June 30, Wiggins hosted a call with stakeholders, which Hernández said included faculty, Posse mentors and former Provost Kathleen Hagerty.
Hernández said that on the call, faculty learned that the provost’s office had contemplated ending the program for years. She added that administrators said the University wanted to focus on programs specifically serving first-generation and low-income students, as opposed to Posse’s merit-based scholarships.
Current Posse Scholars had a similar meeting with Wiggins and vice president and dean of enrollment Stacey Kostell after they were notified about the decision.
Rising Weinberg senior and Posse Scholar Amy Argueta said she was disappointed by how the news was delivered to students. Given the University’s past vocal support for Posse, she said it was surprising to hear that administrators had been ambivalent about the program for years.
“I think that even if they had decided we have to cut this program in order to reinvest into other things, I think that they could have been a lot more transparent about that,” she said. “That’s the direction that they were going because nobody had any idea.”
Argueta and Hernández said administrators on the call mentioned the Beacon Scholars program, a four-year scholarship program that supports first-generation and lower-income students, as an alternative program the University is looking to focus on.
But Argueta said she wasn’t convinced the University needed to choose one program over the other when the two have different purposes and models.
“I think that presenting it as an option of it’s either Posse or this, I thought that felt very wrong,” Argueta said.
For Sharma, the conflation of Posse with Beacon Scholars ignored Posse’s important qualities and curriculum. She emphasized that the tight-knit cohort of 10 people enabled close faculty-student relationships, compared to Beacon’s 1:60 staff to student ratio.
“They invited us to go to a Zoom to learn about Beacon, and I’m like, ‘Why do I have to learn about Beacon? I know about Posse,’” Sharma said.
She added that because administrators didn’t consult faculty about the decision, she feels they didn’t understand the program’s “success” or unique features.
Although The Posse Foundation does not screen based on financial need or background, 57% of Posse Scholars are first-generation college students, according to the organization’s website. Many NU Posse Scholars told The Daily their cohorts were diverse economically, racially and ideologically.
Sharma, who has taught in both the Black Studies and Asian American Studies departments, said while other programs may bring a diverse group of students to NU, Posse helps these students stay.
“We know from mentoring in these ethnic studies programs that a lot of quote unquote ‘underrepresented’ minorities come into these predominantly white institutions, and the institutions hail that as the diversity, even if we use different language now,” Sharma said. “But the question is, what happens once they’re here? And that’s what Posse provides: It holds on to the retention.”
Rising Medill sophomore and Posse Scholar Mia Martinez said because Posse’s mission is to build a diverse group of leaders capable of guiding communities, the program’s termination will create a gap on campus.
“Even though something that Posse staff has emphasized to us is that this is not going to affect our scholarship at all, you can’t help but wonder how it will, since a big part of Posse is the community, and that community is going to be gone,” Martinez said.
Martinez said she was caught “off guard” by the decision, questioning why the decision had been made with such “little notice.”
Rising McCormick sophomore and Posse Scholar Lauren Dickens said support from her cohort, as well as the three cohorts from other grades, has been important to her experience at NU.
As someone who has enjoyed participating in leadership programs through high school and now in college, Dickens said she will miss the aspect of passing down knowledge and community to younger Posse Scholars.
“When you get dropped off in college, you feel a little lost a little bit, or scared of a new place,” Dickens said. “But if you have a group of 10 people, and we all come from the same location, you feel a little more comfortable and more close to them.”
Rising Communication senior and Posse Scholar Saniya Tillis said she bonded closely with other scholars, especially through events like an annual weekend-long retreat hosted by the foundation.
She said her original retreat was the first of many experiences with Posse that pushed her to foster conversations that have continued at NU.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in other spaces at Northwestern how they really push everyone to work together to think and to try to improve the campus,” Tillis said.
Several students and alumni also cited Posse’s Posse, a group of University faculty and staff designated to connect scholars with resources, as an important feature of the program.
Many scholars said they would have never attended NU if not for Posse.
Former Posse Scholar Zach Oliva (Medill ’26) said he comes from a middle-income family. His dad is an immigrant, and both of his parents went to college. He said he’s like many students whose parents make too much to qualify for financial aid but not enough to cover the cost of NU tuition, or even tuition of California’s public universities.
Oliva said while there should certainly be programs and opportunities specifically for low-income and first-generation students, he believes they should coexist with programs supporting a wider range of students, including middle-income ones.
“Given the way the financial aid system is structured, the way the admission system is structured in the U.S., I think that it’s really disappointing that a very unique program is being removed,” Oliva said. “And I also don’t buy that it was costing the school too much.”
Alumni, faculty reflect on Posse decision amid federal DEI crackdown
Many Posse students, alumni and faculty expressed concerns about NU’s decision to end the program amid the federal crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion nationwide. Some cited NU’s November agreement with the federal government as an example of the University’s capitulation to the government’s demands at the expense of students and faculty.
Alejandro Banuelos (Weinberg ’17) said although he and other Posse Scholars experienced “collective disappointment” upon learning of the decision, they were not surprised.
Banuelos said he believes that Posse is dedicated to more than just increasing representation from a specific city, pointing to workshops scholars participate in before arriving on campus, which he likened to “DEI programming.” Although he said topics of discussion ranged from gentrification and capitalism to equity versus equality, he said a single perspective was not emphasized; it was just a place to talk.
“They weren’t just picking up a bunch of kids from L.A. and leaving them in Evanston,” Banuelos said. “They were very much training us to be changemakers.”
While Posse does not screen for financial need or race, the organization seeks to reflect the demographics of each city in its merit-based selection of scholars, a spokesperson from The Posse Foundation told The Daily.
“When you look at the demographics of the students we serve, because they’re coming predominantly from the public high schools, in big cities, and in particular for Northwestern, L.A., our populations reflect the demographics of those populations,” the spokesperson said.
Banuelos said Posse significantly contributed to diversity at NU. Growing up, his father worked in bread manufacturing plants, and his mother was a waitress. He said Posse brought people from different backgrounds together into cohorts that served as miniature communities.
As a community organizer, Banuelos said much of his work today was influenced by his time at NU, where he participated in various activism and advocacy projects.
He said this has manifested in Posse journalists, filmmakers and more.
“I don’t know if I would have arrived at that work in the same way, or if I would have been as effective, if it wasn’t for Posse, and if it wasn’t for my experiences on campus,” Banuelos said.
Hernández expressed frustration about the University’s decision being made while she said the federal government is “attacking DEI programs and the study of Black history.”
She added it was discouraging to see the University end a program “that many of us understand to support BIPOC student leaders.”
Sharma echoed Hernández’s sentiment.
“It’s inevitable that we’re going to read (this decision) in line with what’s happening with the choices the University has made over the past few years, choices that in some ways it’s been quote unquote ‘forced’ to make, and in other ways in which it’s been proactively acquiescing to the federal government,” Sharma said.
Both professors said NU’s decision to end Posse is the latest in a series that has ignored faculty and student stakeholders.
Despite end of program, impacts of Posse partnership last
Though prospective Posse Scholars will not have NU as an option in the near future, Sharma hasn’t given up yet.
She said she and other faculty mentors hope to meet with Provost Erik Luijten and ask the University to reconsider its decision.
The Posse Foundation also expressed interest in renewing the partnership. A spokesperson told The Daily that the organization is “grateful” for its collaboration with NU.
“From our perspective, it’s been a beautiful relationship,” the Posse spokesperson said. “We’re hopeful that perhaps in the near future we can pick things up again.”
For many Posse students and faculty, the program has forged strong bonds that last long after graduation.
Sharma said she still maintains a group chat with most of her cohort, where they share life updates and photos.
For Argueta, the key to Posse is not only the community of leaders it brings to campus, but the support it provides them. She said in many ways, the group has become like a family to her. Through all the obstacles that come with college, she’s been able to lean on her “posse.”
“It helps ward away lots of that feeling of isolation and loneliness and imposter syndrome that lots of college students experience, especially going out of state to an institution like Northwestern,” Argueta said. “Knowing that you have people from home or close enough to home who are here to support you, I think has been game changing in my college experience.”
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
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