Our community relations team at Case Western Reserve University has had much to celebrate this fall.
Last month, CWRU President Eric W. Kaler announced a significant expansion of our Cleveland Scholars program to award the full cost of attendance to admitted graduates of Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and East Cleveland City School District high schools. This expansion underscores the
university’s commitment to improving access to a Case Western Reserve University education for our hometown, and in many cases, neighborhood students. The program received positive coverage in the local press and was well-received by local civic and community leaders. In fact, earlier this month, former Cleveland City Council President and NAACP Cleveland Chapter President George Forbes kindly invited President Kaler and I to a gathering at his home, where Forbes shared his gratitude for the Cleveland Scholars program and introduced President Kaler to prominent leaders in the Black community. Guests at the event included Cleveland Mayor Justin M. Bibb, Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne, Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell, Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin, Cleveland City Council Member Kevin Conwell, and CMSD CEO Warren Morgan, among others. We appreciate George Forbes and his wife, Mary, for their hospitality and for helping us to deepen our connections within the local community.
I’m also excited to share that our community relations team is growing! On Sept. 1, Angela Cain joined our team as the executive director of pre-collegiate programs. This is a newly created role that draws on Angela’s vast experience in talent and education pipeline programs for K-12 students. Angela will oversee all of our pre-collegiate programs, including the National Youth Sports Program, the Provost Scholars, School-Based Outreach, TRiO Talent Search and TRiO Upward Bound. She also will develop metrics to track the impact that our pre-collegiate programs have on local K-12 students, work closely with CMSD on data sharing to fine tune our programming, and collaborate with K-12 programming across the university. I’m thrilled to have Angela as part of our team and I look forward to growing our pre-collegiate programs under her leadership.
Also related to our pre-collegiate programming is our new partnership with the CREW Foundation, which aims to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive film, television and digital media production industry right here in Cleveland. This past summer, CREW Foundation hosted a summer camp at Sears think[box] to introduce local teens to careers in media production. The CREW Foundation will return next summer for another camp at Sears think[box]. You can read more about the CREW Foundation in this newsletter.
We’ll have more good news to share in the months ahead. As always, I appreciate the support, partnership and engagement from our local community.
Julian Rogers
Assistant Vice President, Local Government and Community Relations