March 05, 2007
Ozanam Scholars Will Address Poverty and
Social Injustice around the World
Rigorous! Inspiring! Incredibly Rewarding!
That’s the predicted experience for 30 students who will be
invited to enroll in the brand-new Ozanam Scholars Program at
St. John’s University in September 2007. Designed to give students
the opportunity to contribute to solving the real-world problems of
poverty and social injustice, the Ozanam Scholars Program is
seeking high school seniors who are interested in making a
difference in the world.
“The Ozanam scholars,” says St. John’s Executive Vice President
and COO James P. Pellow, Ed.D, “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--to implement best practices and, through field research,
to discover new best practices for eradicating poverty.”
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. The 30-student
cohort will form a Learning Community, and no matter the major,
will participate in unique, individualized programs of study and
service.
Named for Frederic Ozanam, a 19th Century French scholar,
reformer and disciple of St. Vincent de Paul who espoused the
“Vincentian preference” for humble charity rather than “the
emptiness of materialism,” 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. At the same time, they will be expected to produce new
research- and solution-based materials to advance the work and
contributions of others.
“Frederic had a special talent for developing creative solutions
to complicated problems,” Pellow explains, “working around the
barriers of his day, and enabling people to become self-dependent.”
As a disciple of Vincent, he 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, Frederic and his friends founded what later became 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
“Our Ozanam Scholars come 200 years after Frederic,” Pellow
notes, “and 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 on how to participate in the groundbreaking
Ozanam Scholars Program, contact Ozanam Scholars Admission
Committee, St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY
11439 or call 1 (888) 9STJOHNS.