BU Welcomes Inaugural Class of Davis United World College Scholars
BU’s inaugural group of Davis Scholars–international students from select high schools–will gather periodically throughout the year to share experiences and insights.
BU Welcomes Inaugural Class of Davis United World College Scholars
Program provides financial aid for international students
Boston University welcomed 37 international freshmen this fall as its first Davis United World College Scholars. Based at Vermont’s Middlebury College, Davis UWC is the largest source of financial aid for international undergraduates in the United States, awarding scholarships to graduates of 18 designated high schools across the globe. BU President Melissa Gilliam arranged BU’s admission to Davis’s participating network of 100-plus American colleges and universities.
The scholarships cover students’ full, demonstrated need for the cost of attending BU: tuition, housing, and fees. (Financial needs vary by student, but most require aid to cover the full attendance cost.) This year’s inaugural cohort represents 22 nations enrolled in seven BU schools and colleges. The goal is to grow the program to 80 enrolled scholars by the end of the second year.
Each scholar has a faculty or staff mentor assigned to them for their undergraduate years, and each mentor in turn advises a small group of Davis Scholars, bringing them together once a month in addition to individual meetings. Mentors will connect students with academics and experiential learning aligned with their interests. All scholars will gather several times throughout the year for special events, including faculty dinners and a Boston cultural outing. Overseeing the implementation of the program throughout the year are Laura Johnson, senior assistant provost for undergraduate affairs, and Anne Corriveau, director of international admissions.
Before coming to BU, Gilliam’s roles at the University of Chicago included chief of family planning and contraceptive research. “I saw firsthand the incredible talent, maturity, and global awareness Davis Scholars brought to that campus,” she wrote in her Davis UWC admission request. “Similar to your program’s five pillars, global engagement is a key element of BU’s DNA and a necessary component to our University’s and our students’ ability to have a positive impact across the world. BU has a long and rich history of being a global university and for enrolling international students.”
Davis Scholarships are “an extraordinary complement to Boston University’s commitment to making a world-class education accessible to talented students from around the globe,” says Kelly Walter, BU associate vice president for enrollment and dean of admissions.
BU Today spoke with two of BU’s inaugural Davis Scholars—both enrolled at the Questrom School of Business—who shared their stories and hopes for their time at the University.
Yasmine Ask Geverk (Questrom’30)
“Yasmine, you’re really outspoken,” a friend once told Gerverk, who doesn’t argue the point. At her school in the Norwegian city of Moss, whenever a teacher asked a question and waited for someone’s hand to go up, “normally, it was me. I’ll take one for the class,” Geverk says. That outspokenness so impressed peers that they admitted her to the youth municipal council, an advisory group to the city government on youth perspectives, at the record-young age of 13. She ultimately served on Norway’s arm of the European Youth Parliament.
Her personal story—daughter of a Kurdish Iranian engineer and a Norwegian teacher, growing up in an immigrant neighborhood of Moss, going abroad to attend an internationally diverse UWC high school in the Netherlands—reinforced her desire to attend BU with its international student body and to participate in the Davis UWC program.
“I’ve kind of lived between cultures,” Geverk says, “a Norwegian culture and the Kurdish, Middle Eastern culture.” She roomed at her Dutch high school with students from Ukraine, China, the Netherlands, Oman, Georgia, and Bhutan. “One of the main reasons I applied to Davis United World Colleges is because I knew I would meet people from all over the world. That’s also why I wanted to pursue studying at a school that was really priding itself on being international.”
Post-graduation, Geverk plans to pursue a career in business. While she might get involved with student government at BU, she’s also interested in such activities as Innovate@BU and Questrom’s Entrepreneurship Club.
“Most likely, not having the Davis Scholarship would mean that I would have to go back home for university, or to another Scandinavian country” where higher education is less expensive than in the US, she explains. “That wasn’t something that I wanted. I wanted to go out and explore more. So without Davis, I would not be able to do that. And I feel like I wouldn’t get this level of an education without Davis.”
Geverk is determined to take advantage of all that Boston University has to offer—both in the classroom and beyond. “You lose 100 percent of the shots you don’t take,” she says.
Silja (Questrom’30)
Silja (she’s asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons) co-led a “Human Library”—a periodic gathering during the school year in which students shared stories, some personal (identity, family conflicts, religious or cultural upbringing), others global—at her Finnish high school. “We wanted to create an environment,” she says, “where students practiced listening not necessarily with the intent of agreeing, but with the intent of understanding.” The library’s student leaders worked with speakers before each session to help them develop and share their stories.
“On the day of the event, we decorated our school library with warm lights, pillows, and candles to give the space an intimate feel,” she says. “It made me realize how easy it is to judge another individual based on our own upbringing and the values that were shaped by our surroundings. I often found myself wondering that, if I had grown up where the person I disagree with did, surrounded by the same experiences, fears and values they had, how differently might I see the world?”
I often found myself wondering that, if I had grown up where the person I disagree with did, surrounded by the same experiences, fears and values they had, how differently might I see the world?
Silja is exploring how she could start a similar initiative at BU, including the use of social media to share stories to reach busy students at this vast institution. She’s also looking for existing student groups touching on her passions, which include business and international relations. “I’m still very new to BU, so I’m trying to leave room to discover things I might not have expected to be interested in.”
A double major in business and international relations, she was looking at US and European colleges before BU and the Davis scholarship beckoned: “BU ultimately offered most of what I was looking for: a large and diverse student body, a vibrant urban campus, and the opportunity to pursue my interests in both business and international relations. I think the Davis program is a wonderful way to continue the UWC experience beyond high school by bringing students to universities across the US. I love that the Davis network allows that community to extend beyond UWC itself, which makes the program especially meaningful to me.
“Coming to university in a new country can be intimidating, so there is something really comforting about knowing that there is already a wider UWC community here.”
A synergy with BU’s international campus
“What distinguishes the Davis Program is that it is about much more than financial support,” says Walter. “It invests in students who have already demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to cross-cultural understanding, leadership, service, and academic excellence through the United World Colleges movement.”