Education News

This week, our Chairman, Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., and our Executive Director Kara Klein had the opportunity to meet with Gerstner Scholars at John Carroll High School in Fort Pierce, Florida. The Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Distinguished Scholars Program was established in 2005. Since that time the foundation has invested over $4.7 million dollars to support scholarships at the three high schools within the Diocese of Palm Beach. The scholarship supports outstanding students with financial need. Principal Corey Heroux expressed her gratitude by sharing “It was such a gift for our Gerstner scholars to meet Mr. Gerstner and to hear from him so many beautiful pearls of wisdom about how to pursue success and to live a meaningful life marked by service to others.”

A new study commissioned by the Heckscher Foundation and conducted by Sage Education documents significant gains in college persistence as a result of a student emergency grants program and contains insights to help others implement similar programs. The State University of New York (SUNY) Student Emergency Fund program, established by the Heckscher Foundation and Gerstner Philanthropies, aimed to increase the likelihood that underserved students would succeed and persist in college by providing one-time financial aid in response to emergency, such as medical crises, natural disasters, domestic violence, theft or loss of employment. The program tracked these outcomes and demonstrated that Student Emergency Fund recipients showed substantially higher achievement rates than the general campus populations. Since 2018, of the nearly 2,000 students across the six campuses who received the grants — which by design could not be used to pay tuition — 94% were still enrolled in college, or had successfully graduated or completed their program of study, in the semester immediately following receipt of their award. Nationally, and at the SUNY campuses overall, the rate is 76%.

Gerstner Philanthropies has awarded the Diocese of Palm Beach a grant of $1.68 million over the next seven years to continue the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Distinguished Scholars Program at the three diocesan high schools: Cardinal Newman High School (West Palm Beach), John Carroll High School (Fort Pierce) and St. John Paul II Academy (Boca Raton). Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito expressed his appreciation for the gift by saying, “The Diocese of Palm Beach is grateful to Mr. Lou Gerstner and the Gerstner Family Foundation for their continued support of academic excellence in our three Catholic high schools. These scholarships assist families with outstanding students, who have financial need, to be able to attend our Catholic high schools. I know that these families appreciate this wonderful opportunity offered to their children.”

Lou Gerstner, retired chairman and CEO of IBM and founder of the Gerstner Family Foundation, recently published an Op-Ed in USA Today on the issue of reopening schools safely and effectively in the Fall. "Our national consciousness about racial inequity has been lifted to welcomed new heights in the past few months. The issue now is what exactly is going to be done to reduce inequity. Tearing down statues won’t contribute anything. Individuals committing millions of dollars to community action groups will help, as will increased commitment by business leaders to open up career ladders for people of color. However, despite all the good that might come from these welcomed changes, we are about to deliver a blow to the Black and Latino communities that will set back racial equity enormously. That blow is the failure to fully open K-12 schools, in particular those in large urban centers, in September."

The Diocese of Palm Beach Office of Catholic Schools is the proud recipient of a grant from the Gerstner Family Foundation that supports scholarships for high school students who exhibit high academic achievement, service and leadership. This past school year, 54 students were honored as Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Distinguished Scholars at Cardinal Newman High School, John Carroll High School and Saint John Paul II Academy. The scholarships were awarded through an application process, which required the recipients to write a letter to Mr. Gerstner sharing with him their experiences from the past year. To highlight the resilience and positive attitudes of these students, the Office of Catholic Schools will be starting a special initiative on July 1, 2020 titled, “Have Faith, Our Future is in Good Hands!” For the next three weeks, the Office of Catholic Schools will highlight profiles from various Gerstner Distinguished Scholars from Cardinal Newman High School, John Carroll High School and Saint John Paul II Academy.