The Maecenas Fund > Current Newsletter

To all our friends:

In October, we received an email from Allan Cameron, one of the teachers at Carl Hayden who was instrumental in advising the now-famous Robotics team that competed so successfully in 2004. With Allan’s permission, I’d like to share with you two statements that mean an enormous amount to those of us working on the Maecenas Fund. Here is what Allan said:

“You guys are making a tremendous difference, not only to the kids you are assisting, but to the scores of kids at school who are working hard to go to college even though there are now more obstacles. . . .

Our culture is changing. You guys are making a tremendous difference, not only with the kids you are directly supporting, but with teachers and students who now have higher aspirations. . . .”

These observations speak volumes to what the objective and belief of the Maecenas Fund is: We believe that we can help foster attitudinal change in the environment of schools that send too few of their graduates on to higher education.

There are three main determinants of our program:

The first, and generally most obvious one, is funding. Without generous financial help from our fellow citizens that see our nation’s need as we do, we can do little.
We believe in both the students and the people around them trying to help them with their lives. And, we make it clear that we both believe in them and that we expect more from them than what has happened historically.

We’ve seen the key change to be one from a despairing “I/they can’t . . . .” to an optimistic and bright “I/they can . . . .” This is reflected in Allan’s comments to us.

One of the ways we approach this is through on the ground, direct and personal involvement with the students, teachers, guidance counselors and administrators of schools we sponsor. Among other things, this enables us to know more about the students when we receive their applications so we can evaluate them better. Moreover, as we demonstrate our commitment, it also gives us the ability to be heard at higher levels within the school district.
We maintain a relationship with our Scholars through their college years. This way, we can provide advice or counsel when requested, and, sometimes, even when not requested. It gives us the ability to call for help beyond our reach for our Scholars when needed and to deal with matters before they escalate to a level beyond our capabilities.

This commitment to continue our involvement beyond merely writing checks has a very specific intent: we are working to minimize the attrition rates from college that our Scholars experience.

This last point is one of the real keys to our modus vivendi. Based on our conversations with administration officials at Arizona State, the history of success (meaning college graduation) of students from Carl Hayden (and schools with similar socio-economic factors) is pretty depressing. It historically has looked like this for a cohort of 20 students:

Ten, or 50%, of the Freshman entrants drop out during their Freshman year or before their Sophomore year begins;

Another five, or 50% of the remainder drop out during their Sophomore year or before their Junior year begins;

So, now there are only five, or 25% of the original group, beginning their Junior year

At the end of four years, only one, or 5% of the original group, graduates.

We were told that these statistics have been the same historically, regardless of high school class rank of the students.

In order for our primary objective to be approached, we not only have to get more students into higher education from Carl Hayden, we also have to make sure that they don’t become victims of the usual attrition pattern.

We are excited with our progress to date. After less than two years of involvement at Carl Hayden, we did not expect to begin seeing the results that Allan shared with us. Indeed, we also need to be aware that we are not the only people working for change there. Nonetheless, we believe we are having an effect much earlier than we had hoped.

Best regards,
Peter Gaskins
President