10-16-2008

Act Six Initiative Expands to Five Washington Colleges, Tripling Number of Scholarships

The Act Six Leadership and Scholarship Initiative will be awarding 45 full-tuition, full-need scholarships to emerging urban leaders in Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane this winter as the program adds three new partner colleges, a new city, and a new track to a four-year degree in its continued expansion across Washington.

Launched in 2002 by the Northwest Leadership Foundation (NLF) in Tacoma, Act Six seeks to develop urban leaders to be agents of change on campus and in their home communities. Since the program’s inception, six cadres of ethnically diverse and mostly first-generation, low-income Act Six scholars from urban Tacoma and Seattle have enrolled at Whitworth. Pacific Lutheran University joined the initiative last year and the first cadre of scholars enrolled at PLU this fall.

As it continues to expand across the state, Act Six has added Northwest University, Gonzaga University and Trinity Lutheran College as college partners and launched a Spokane office to recruit and select scholars from that community.

Students from the Tacoma-Seattle region can now apply to go directly to Whitworth, PLU, Northwest and Gonzaga. In addition, students from Tacoma can apply through the new Act Six Urban Service Track to Trinity Lutheran College.

Urban Service Track scholars will gain two years of street-level urban service experience with local non-profits in Tacoma while earning an associate's degree at Tacoma Community College before transferring to Trinity Lutheran College to earn their bachelor's degree in the same four-year time-frame.

The application deadline is November 1. Interested students can find more information and download an application at www.actsix.org.

Act Six develops leaders through a simple, but powerful, four-step strategy:

• Recruit and select diverse, multicultural cadres of 10 of Washington’s most promising emerging urban leaders.
• Train and prepare these groups of students in the year prior to college, equipping them to support each other, succeed academically, and grow as service-minded leaders and agents of transformation.
• Send and fund the teams together to select faith-based colleges in Washington on four year, full-tuition, full-need scholarships.
• Support and inspire by providing strong campus support and ongoing leadership development to nurture these young people as they find their vocation and grow into the next generation of community leaders.

By December, 20 of the 21 scholars in the first two cadres will have graduated. Overall, 91% of the 67 scholars originally selected for the program have graduated or are still enrolled–reflecting graduation and retention rates that far exceed national averages. Act Six scholars have been elected student-body presidents two of the past three years at Whitworth and have been involved in numerous other leadership roles on and off campus.

“The Act Six program has brought to Whitworth an extraordinary group of students who have enriched our campus through their leadership and service, even as we have taught and mentored them,” says Whitworth President Bill Robinson. “The program requires big investments, but it also delivers big rewards. So, it would be irresponsible and morally unacceptable if we didn’t explore ways to expand Act Six to other schools.”

“Our scholars are having a profound impact through their leadership on campus, and as they begin to graduate we look forward to their impact in the community,” says Tim Herron, founder and national director of Act Six. “This is what we envisioned when we launched Act Six and what we are now seeing replicated around the state and nation.”

Nationally, Act Six affiliates also have been established at Crichton College in Memphis, Tenn., George Fox University in Newberg, Ore.

The Washington State expansion of Act Six is fueled by a recent three-year, $300,000 grant NLF received from College Spark Washington, a Seattle-based foundation whose mission is to fund programs that help low-income students become college-ready and earn their degrees.

Learn more about Act Six online at www.actsix.org.

The Northwest Leadership Foundation is a faith-based non-profit headquartered in Tacoma, Wash. Since 1989, the foundation has worked to move individuals and organizations from good intentions to effective outcomes in its effort to encourage, strengthen and develop leadership for the spiritual and social renewal of the city.

Contacts:

Tim Herron, Act Six national director, (253) 272-0771 ext.109 or therron@northwestleadership.org.