Three colleges and staff from the American Talent Initiative (ATI) staff presented at the 2018 CFES Brilliant Pathways National Conference in Burlington, Vermont at a workshop titled “Ensuring Success of First Generation College Students.”

The panel, moderated by Benjamin Fresquez of ATI, included Nicole Curvin of Middlebury College, Danita Salone of the University of Richmond and George White of Lehigh University. It featured a presentation on ATI’s origin, philosophy and program. Fresquez outlined how ATI plans to help 50,000 lower-income students access and graduate from ATI participant colleges.

More than 325 students, teachers and leaders in industry and government attended the CFES national conference Nov. 2-3. Many of the 100,000-plus students CFES has helped become college and career ready since 1991 have attended top-tier colleges and universities. A partnership between CFES and ATI has contributed to thousands of students from underserved areas attending such institutions and is expected to significantly increase those numbers in coming years.

Representatives at the conference from ATI member schools outlined their unique efforts to contribute to a goal of impacting 50,000 students and the power of a collaboration of more than 100 leading public and private colleges and universities. A rich question and answer session followed the presentation with additional input from Manny Tejeda from the University of Vermont and moderator Leroy Nesbitt, Jr., program director with CFES Brilliant Pathways.

ATI is an alliance of more than 100 top four-year institutions committed to attracting, enrolling, and graduating talented, low- and moderate-income students at colleges and universities with the strongest graduation rates by 2025. ATI is led by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, and Ithaka S+R. CFES Brilliant Pathways is a participating CBO.

CFES will replicate the presentation in a webinar in the winter of 2019.