Thursday, June 30, 2011

Kellogg Foundation Pursues College Access Agenda

Kellogg Foundation Pursues College Access Agenda: When the W.K. Kellogg Foundation first approached a group of tribal college presidents in 1994 with a $23 million grant for a handful of their institutions, the tribal college leaders didn’t exactly trip over themselves to get the money.

“They basically [said], ‘That’s not how we want to do it,’” recalls Valorie Johnson, a longtime Kellogg program officer who approached the tribal college leaders with the grant offer.

“‘If there’s $10,’” she says the tribal college leaders told her at the time, “‘we want it to be split among all of us.’”

When then-Kellogg Foundation CEO Russ Mawby asked Johnson if the tribal college leaders were excited about the grant, she told him they were but that “there were a couple of things they wanted to change.”

“I thought [Mawby] was going to be upset, but he was quite the opposite,” Johnson says.