Photo: Webb Chappell
President Kerry Healey
In my inaugural address, I announced a new initiative—the Babson Global Scholars Program—to provide need-based, full scholarships to a diverse and talented group of international students who would not otherwise be able to afford the College.
Last year, the Global Scholars Program attracted 832 applicants for 10 coveted positions. This fall, we welcomed the second cohort of Global Scholars to campus. Hailing from Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Kenya, Kosovo, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Rwanda, and Turkey, they join a community excited and eager to make them feel at home—a long way from home!
These highly motivated and superbly talented students are ready to focus on using Entrepreneurial Thought and Action to bring economic and social benefit to their home countries and the world. Many speak three or more languages and are eagerly embracing living and learning in a new culture. Not only has their Babson experience created new opportunities for them personally, but some already are taking action at home. In Liberia, one student is working to build a new school system. In Belarus, another is helping with entrepreneurship education.
As a student attending Trinity College in Dublin on a scholarship in the early 1980s, I experienced how living and learning in a different culture shapes and broadens one’s worldview. For me, that experience was the cornerstone of what became a lifelong passion: expanding access to education to create a prosperous and sustainable global community. In my work to provide scholarships to Afghan lawyers to study at American law schools, I have seen the power of education open students’ eyes to the importance of human rights, rule of law, women’s rights, academic freedom, and the power of entrepreneurship to lift nations out of poverty. I believe that, over time, the Global Scholars are certain to become among Babson’s most influential ambassadors and will help us fulfill our goal of placing the power of entrepreneurship in as many hands as possible.
The enthusiasm for our Global Scholars extends throughout Babson’s international network of alumni and friends. To date, they have generously contributed more than $6 million in support of these young entrepreneurial leaders. We are grateful for this support and hope the program will be endowed so it can become a permanent priority of our College.
I encourage you to read about Eshwa Azadzoi ’18, a Global Scholar from Afghanistan, and other scholars whom we have featured on our Global Scholars Program page. I feel certain you will agree that the Global Scholars are an excellent investment. They remind us why it is so important that Babson continues to provide the best in entrepreneurship education, the world’s most powerful force for economic and social value creation.
Kerry Healey