Seniors Gabriella Momah and Moises Roldan have been named Gates Millennium Scholars. The grant will fund 10 years of college education. Congratulations!
In 1999, a bold vision of what America’s future would look like began to take shape. In that view, America’s leadership would include 20,000 individuals, all people of color, who would make a significant impact on the future direction of the nation. Coming from among the most financially needy students and attending the nation’s best colleges and universities, they would represent the extraordinary promise inherent among all highly academically capable individuals, no matter what their background. Moreover, the planners envisioned that the researched experiences of the students’ matriculation and retention, the fact of these individuals’ extraordinary successes to terminal degrees, and the testimony of their voices, would spark conversation, and perhaps debate, leading to public policies and added philanthropic contributions in support of similarly able and financially challenged young people. That vision of Bill and Melinda Gates was funded by a historic grant of more than 1 billion dollars to UNCF—the United Negro College Fund—still the largest single gift to any scholarship organization.
One of the most unique aspects of the GMS program is the partnership and collective efforts of the four partner organizations providing services to the continuing Gates Millennium Scholars. GMS program staff members at the American Indian Graduate Center Scholars (AIGCS), the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF), the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) and UNCF service students from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is truly a national effort.