Ivy League Connection On Edge

The Ivy League Connection (ILC) is responsible for sending the brightest students from the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) to summer programs at prestigious universities in the East. ILCers take courses at institutions such as Cornell, Yale and Vanderbilt, learning challenging, college-level material and experiencing college life. By visiting other schools in the region and speaking with admissions officers and current college students, ILC participants also gain insight about their college options and application process.

The ILC has come a long way since its debut in 2005 and has been recognized for its accomplishments. It is a recipient of the California School Boards Association’s Golden Bell Award and the Magna Award from WCCUSD itself. Many alumni of this program study at top schools in the nation, including Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Unfortunately, after the election of a new school board this year, the fate of the ILC became uncertain. According to ILC administrator and co-founder Don Gosney, “maybe the biggest difficulty the ILC faces is the financing for these scholarships. These are privately funded and we have to reach out to our sponsors to convince them that our students are worth the investment of $300,000+ of their hard-earned money.”

Due to budget cuts, the ILC has had to cancel two programs this year, the Macroeconomics program at Brown and the Presidential Powers program at Columbia. The Freedom and Justice course at Cornell has been replaced by the Green Cities course so that travel scheduling would be compatible with Hotel Management at Cornell.

Hercules High School senior Katelyn Spilman, who took Cornell’s Hotel Management course, commented, “It’s really disappointing to me actually because the ILC program is such a great thing for our district. All I can say is that I hope it doesn’t get completely cut.”

In addition to program cuts, the activities that ILCers once benefited from may be reduced. Visits to Ivy League, midwestern, and southern college campuses will be curtailed and dinners with alumni and admissions officers will be held at places more suitable to the ILC’s current finances. This also means that fewer alumni from top schools will be present at these dinners, ideally “1.5 per student,” as Gosney reports.

Now, more than ever, the ILC needs the help of parents and students. “The most important thing that parents and students can do is to make phone calls and send emails to the sponsors and school board members when asked to do so,” Gosney said.

Hercules High School junior Chiamaka Nwadike, who participated in the Vanderbilt Med 101 program, is optimistic: “I think that the ILC isn’t exactly where it was in the past, but it’s not in a permanently bad place. The program is still young and has yet to secure sources of funding that are stable enough. I think that the ILC is a [blessing] and if our school board knows what’s beneficial to the students, they’ll allow the ILC to continue to work with us [and] contribute to our district for years to come.”

#feature #sidebar