Priorities & Needs: Georgia Tech Black Alumni Scholarship Endowment
When three young men, Ford Greene, Ralph Long Jr., and Lawrence Williams, stepped onto campus in the fall of 1961, Georgia Tech became one of the few southern universities to admit black students. During the past five decades, the Institute has become the nation's leading producer of black engineers—at the undergraduate, master's, and PhD levels.
Generations of black alumni have worked hard to leave a meaningful legacy at Georgia Tech. These efforts continue today with the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization (GTBAO), which seeks to continue the legacy of black achievement and to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of integration at Georgia Tech in 2011 by creating endowed scholarships to support the recruitment and retention of talented black students. Through private contributions, each Georgia Tech alumna and alumnus has the opportunity to invest in the future and to provide financial support, in perpetuity, for exceptional black students.
Endowed scholarships will….
- provide Tech's black alumni an extraordinary opportunity to give back to the university in a way that is tailored to the needs of talented black students;
- ensure that long-term financial resources are available to continue the legacy of black students graduating from Georgia Tech;
- enhance the positioning of Georgia Tech as a university of choice for qualified black students;
- allow black alumni to build and leverage new relationships around issues such as student recruitment, retention, and networking; and
- keep black alumni informed and connected, both to Georgia Tech and GTBAO.
Georgia Tech's black alumni have overcome many struggles to achieve educational and professional success. The financial challenges facing today's gifted black students—to attend and stay at Tech—are real. But with the leadership and vision of more than 6,000 black alumni, these challenges can be met.
Now is the time to come together to make a significant financial difference for future generations of black students. The Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization invites alumni to join in taking the historic legacy of achievement to a new level through the GTBAO Endowment Scholarship Initiative. The efforts of dedicated alumni will set a new standard for leadership, giving, and mentoring, and this extraordinary initiative will change lives.
For more information on making a gift to the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization Scholarship Initiative, please contact Sonya C. Rush, Miya A. Smith, or Dorcas G. Wilkinson.
