New Faces in Leadership
For the Campus. For the City. For the Future.

Act Six is an urban leadership and scholarship initiative of the Northwest Leadership Foundation in partnership with Whitworth University, Pacific Lutheran University, Northwest University, Gonzaga University, and Trinity Lutheran College that equips emerging urban leaders to engage the college campus and their communities at home.

The Need

The urban centers of Washington are places of wonderful cultural and economic diversity where people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences have regular opportunities to interact and communicate. They are also places yearning for new generations of committed, visionary leaders who will build bridges across differences and respond creatively to the pressing challenges in our communities.

Unfortunately, too few of the colleges working to prepare these emerging leaders provide similarly diverse campus environments and too many potential campus and urban leaders face significant obstacles on the journey to a college degree. People of color are still underrepresented in higher education and there remain significant disparities in college retention rates for students from different cultural and economic backgrounds. The Act Six Initiative was created in response to these concerns.

The Vision

Act Six believes that emerging urban leaders, with the right opportunity, support and inspiration, can combine their natural gifts and passion with a college education to create a new kind of bold, visionary leadership that will transform our campuses, our cities and our collective future.

Marks of Success

The first 67 Washington Act Six scholars are a remarkable group. Representing six continents of the world, they speak 13 native languages. More than 70% are the first in their family to go to college and nearly 73% come from low-income families. An astounding 94% of the scholars who started the program are graduated or still enrolled.

On campus, Act Six scholars are making a profound impact as they demonstrate their leadership in a variety of ways. Creating award winning programs in the residence halls, founding and leading clubs and even serving as student government president, scholars are making a difference. And by December 2008, 21 of the first 22 scholars originally selected  for Whitworth will have graduated within five years.  Those graduates are putting their passion and education to work back in Tacoma and in other urban communities around the country.

Learn More

• Compare Act Six Washington's two tracks and five partner colleges.
• Meet actual Act Six scholars and read about their success and impact on campus.
• Get to know the staff and organizational partners that make Act Six work.
• Download an Act Six fact sheet with a quick summary of the program and its success.