|
When Mike and Lori Milken first visited the A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem in the mid-1980s, they found dedicated educators performing a nearly impossible task: inspiring a group of low-income, largely first-generation Americans to excel despite their circumstances in a tough inner-city neighborhood - kids like Gilberto Hernandez, who began working full-time during junior high school to help support his family but still had the determination to continue excelling in school.
Lori Milken pins Doris Lee.
|
Jaime Mendez and Vianney Lopez at an Annual Retreat.
|
Mike congratulates Veronika Heckova.
|
As Mike continued to visit the school regularly, teaching classes and tutoring young students, he realized that many of those bright teenagers had the potential to achieve great things, including graduating from an elite university. But often they didn't have the financial ability to pay for college or the guidance to successfully navigate the obstacles they would face once they arrived on campus.
In 1989, Mike and Lori officially launched the Milken Scholars program, honoring 16 New York high-school seniors, providing them with four-year scholarships and other assistance. Each student had demonstrated academic performance, community service and leadership in the face of serious obstacles. Hernandez, who later graduated from Boston University, now works at one of the world's leading financial technology firms. His classmate, Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard, was determined to become an attorney, and she now serves as vice president and senior counsel for Nickelodeon.
The Milken Scholars program eventually expanded to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and today encompasses a network of more than 220 professionals and current university students. Many of the Milken Scholars are first-generation Americans and the first in their family to attend college.
Importantly, Mike and Lori created a support network for the students, offering counseling on topics ranging from academic and career issues to long-term financial planning and community-service opportunities. The network helped a student such as 1995 Milken Scholar Perwaiz Meraj, the son of working-class immigrants from India, secure an internship at Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Cardiovascular Institute in New York under the direction of renowned researcher John Ambrose, M.D. Seven years later, Perwaiz himself is a cardiologist at Mount Sinai and has published numerous articles in leading medical journals.
Like Perwaiz, who graduated from Columbia, Milken Scholars attend many of the nation's most prestigious universities:
- 49 have attended Harvard
- 31 to Stanford
- 25 to Yale
- 19 to Berkeley
- 14 to Columbia
- 11 to Penn
- 10 to M.I.T.
- 6 each to Brown and Princeton
- And many more to other highly selective colleges throughout the United States.
Milken Scholars often leverage their collegiate experience into dynamic careers on the cusp of society's major trends. For example, Ukrainian-born David Soloviechik, a 1998 Milken Scholar, is researching the potential of artificial intelligence while completing his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology. Since graduating from Harvard University with a degree in neurobiology, 1996 Milken Scholar Roanak Desai has returned to his native India to work as a vice president for Gecis, an international business firm.
One of the program's most valuable experiences is attending the Annual Retreat, where current Scholars and alumni professionals meet as a community to share their knowledge, learn about new opportunities and listen to business and public-policy leaders offer exciting perspectives about the changing world. Each year, new high school graduates join this growing "family" of achievers.
Go to the Milken Scholars site | 
