March 19, 2007
Bold New Initiative Gives Students
Opportunities to Explore Poverty, Social Injustices Around the
World
St. John’s University will debut a bold new initiative known as
the Ozanam Scholars Program in September 2007, designed to give
students the opportunity to contribute to solving real-world
problems of poverty and social injustice.
“The Ozanam scholars will be our ‘honors students of service’
during their four years at St. John’s, working directly with the
poor—in New York City, and at national and international locations
in Europe, Latin America and Africa – to implement best practices
and, through field research, to discover new best practices for
eradicating poverty,” said St. John’s Executive Vice President and
COO James P. Pellow, Ed.D.
Thirty students will be invited to enroll in the first-year
program that seeks high school seniors who are interested in making
a difference in the world.
The program is named for reformist Frederic Ozanam, a 19th
Century French scholar and disciple of St. Vincent de Paul, who
espoused the “Vincentian preference” for humble charity rather than
“the emptiness of materialism” and embraced service without
judgment or condemnation that could lead to systemic change.
Challenged by classmates at the Sorbonne to act rather than talk
about serving the poor, he and his friends founded the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul in 1835. Today, his action-based,
international lay group has more than 750,000 members on every
continent working to eliminate poverty and distress.
“Only students with strong academic credentials and a keen
desire to serve the underprivileged and disadvantaged will be
invited to become Ozanam Scholars. Those accepted will receive a
$10,000 scholarship for each of their four years and will be
closely supervised and supported by a dozen faculty mentors,” said
Pellow. “The 30-student cohort will form a Learning Community, and
no matter the major, will participate in unique, individualized
programs of study and service.”
The Ozanam Scholars program will require students to spend a
semester or even a full year at a clinical site. There they will
apply their academic and research skills to improve the living
conditions of others, focusing their efforts to help create,
implement and assess plans to alleviate existing problems.
“Frederic Ozanam had a special talent for developing
creative solutions to complicated problems,” added Pellow. “Our
Ozanam scholars will be devoted to direct service, problem solving,
measuring success and sharing those methods with others. In that
way, they will become involved, ‘21st Century Global
Citizens!’”
For more information about the Ozanam Scholars program, please
contact Beth Evans at (718) 990-6999. For media inquiries,
contact Dominic Scianna at (718) 990-6185, or e-mail inquiries to
sciannad@stjohns.edu.