Vanderbilt’s 25th Posse Preparing to Lead

This fall, the 25th Posse from New York City will matriculate at Vanderbilt University—Posse’s first institutional partner, which adopted the untested program in 1989. The newest class of Vanderbilt Scholars will join a rich tradition of leadership on campus and success in the classroom.

“We know we have 25 years of success and honor behind us,” says Scholar Kenya Wright, who is student government president at Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College Preparatory School. “It’s a foundation for us, a rock for us to lean on. Twenty-five years shows that Posse really works.”

The 11 Scholars of this newly formed Posse have already distinguished themselves in high school as student body presidents, peer leaders, honor roll students, sports team captains, dancers, debaters, activists and club founders.

As they acclimate to being far from home, navigate their academic paths, and work to become campus leaders at Vanderbilt, they plan to rely on their Posse support system to meet the high expectations that come with being a Posse Scholar.

“We have a standard to uphold as Scholars,” says Niles Ellis, captain of the basketball team at Brooklyn Technical High School. “If we hold ourselves to it, we’ll all be really successful. They’re the kind of expectations that make you a stronger person.”

With diverse academic interests that include public health, biology, business, economics and political science, the members of Vanderbilt Posse 25 are eager to begin their college careers.

“To be part of Posse tells me that there is a whole community that believes in who I am and what I can do,” says Scholar Carluto Toussaint, a peer group leader at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens.