UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Part of the Penn State College of Education’s stated mission is to make education equally accessible for everyone. A recent gift to the college is doing its part to help make that a reality.
Nancy Arnold, a Penn State graduate and current member of the Lancaster General Health Foundation Board of Trustees and College of Education Dean’s Development Council, has created an annually funded scholarship for the next five years that will defray tuition costs for students attending the Summer College Opportunity Program in Education, also known as S.C.O.P.E., beginning with this year’s recently completed program.
“We are deeply grateful for Nancy’s contributions to our future educators and, most importantly, for her unwavering commitment to ensuring S.C.O.P.E. remains accessible to students,” said Brenda Martinez, director of the College of Education’s Office of Education and Social Equity, which organizes and runs S.C.O.P.E. “S.C.O.P.E. is an extraordinary program, and through her efforts, our students have been able to fully appreciate the benefits of a career in education, especially within the Penn State College of Education.”
Arnold, who started her professional career as a teacher, said she wants to help students achieve their full potential by removing potential roadblocks for students who would benefit most from the program.
“They're achieving good grades in their classes, they’re working, and they also have to worry about the financial burden — that’s a disadvantage,” Arnold said. “Anything that I can do to help people achieve their goals, that's what I want to do. I want to try to eliminate some of the disadvantage so they can focus on being a student.”
S.C.O.P.E. brings high school students from diverse backgrounds who are entering 11th grade and interested in a career in education to the University Park campus each July for an intensive month-long college-credit course. The program is designed to help students develop proficiency in research, writing, reading, listening and speaking by having them select a contemporary issue in education to research.
Students start by writing a research proposal on their selected issue, then explore those positions and solutions surrounding their issue through resources such as the Pattee and Paterno libraries. They complete the project by developing a solution or by further clarifying their understanding of the problem.
At the conclusion of the program, students invite friends, family, faculty, staff and the general public to the college as they give their final research presentations and field questions about their work from those in attendance.
Arnold said she is a believer that S.C.O.P.E. is a way for the College of Education to change the education industry by laying the groundwork for more people from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to get a foot in the door.
“You look at the lack of diversity in the classroom and I think that issue is so important,” Arnold said. “I think the S.C.O.P.E. program is an outreach to that. To get potential students that come from a background that is underserved, underrepresented, and to get them interested in education and bring them to the campus to develop the skills that this program develops, I'm thinking we probably all should have had something like this.”
Those in the College of Education can see firsthand evidence of the program’s potential within its own ranks. Kaela Fuentes-Packnick participated in S.C.O.P.E. during the summer of 2004. She has since earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the College of Education and now serves as assistant director for alumni relations for the college.
“She’s phenomenal. I mean, she’s such a special person in her own right,” Arnold said. “We had Kaela come to speak to us at one of our council meetings, and I was just so overwhelmed and impressed by her and by the program. Later in our meeting, I said to [Director of Development and Alumni Relations] Steve Wilson, I'd like to contribute. It's a small program and I feel that it would be an easy program to cut, but it has such outreach both back to the schools that the students attend and to the people they come in contact with.”
S.C.O.P.E. hosted its first cohort in 2002. This past session had 16 participants whose research topics included underfunding in public schools, learning disabilities, the drawbacks of standardized testing and more.
Schools interested in receiving information about S.C.O.P.E. can email the College of Education’s Office of Educational and Social Equity at OESE-COE@psu.edu.
About Philanthropy at Penn State
Donors like Nancy Arnold advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.