Potential In Their Dreams

In high school, Jaxzia Perez ’22, a law student at American University in Washington, D.C., had the dream of being a lawyer, but the path to get there was unclear. An academic standout, Perez was in the honor society for science and math. She was on the board or president of a few clubs at Somerset Arts Conservatory in Pembroke Pines, Florida. And she graduated high school with an Associate of Arts degree in criminal justice.

“I was a leader in terms of what I was doing on my resume. I was doing a lot of things on my own, but I was lost in all of them,” she says. “I was doing the activities to do them.”

Perez was doing everything she could in pursuit of success, but she lacked support and guidance in defining what that meant. For her, and thousands of other students at more than 60 colleges and universities, it was the Posse Foundation that made the difference, helping her move forward on her personal, academic and professional journey.

What Is Posse?

Founded in 1989, the Posse Foundation is a nonprofit organization that recruits and supports a select and diverse group of students who possess extraordinary leadership potential. Posse then partners with some of the nation’s top colleges and universities to provide a four-year scholarship and leadership training.

For more than 35 years, Posse has refined a cohortbased model where each fall 10 scholars attend a college and remain together throughout their time on campus. That cohort receives support from a mentor at the college, administration, faculty, other Posse cohorts on campus, the Posse headquarters in their city, as well as their families. At Mount Holyoke, the College’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office works to identify and cultivate mentors who will work closely with each cohort, meeting weekly with them for the first two years.

The process to become a Posse scholar is rigorous, and after three rounds of interviews, the scholars meet once a week in their senior year of high school for pre-collegiate training and to help the cohort get to know each other better and build camaraderie.

“We’re looking for people who support each other, because ultimately we want our scholars to be a support system once they get to campus,” says Jeremy Rosenthal, director of Posse Foundation Miami.

Handing Down Lessons

Perez, a first-generation graduate student and member of Posse nine, learned about the Posse Foundation from a high school alum, a member of Mount Holyoke’s Posse eight, who encouraged her to apply.

One of the activities Perez’s mentor performed within the first month of Posse nine’s arrival was to simulate a mini-graduation.

“She said, ‘in four years, you’re going to do this all over again on this stage and accept your degree. I’m just putting it into existence now,’” Perez says. “And I still have mine somewhere.”

The community Posse builds is not isolated to the cohort that the scholar arrives with but is extended across the campus, creating a rich populace of individuals who are connected by the belief that building successful outcomes happens together.

Senior Posse cohorts create events to get to know new cohorts and strengthen the community of all Posse Scholars on campus. At an outing hosted by a senior Posse cohort, Perez met a senior scholar who would play an integral role in her life.

“My first year, Posse six took us bowling. I met Kimberly Foreiter ’19, and she is still my mentor today,” she says.

Foreiter, who currently works at Ropes & Gray LLP law firm in Boston, guided Perez in her desire to go to law school by outlining a path, which was similar to Foreiter’s own journey to Harvard Law School.

Foreiter advised Perez to enjoy her freshman and sophomore years, while maintaining her grades. Foreiter also suggested she attend the Donald J. Weidner Summer for Undergraduates Program at Florida State University, where she was able to get a glimpse of what attending law school would look like. Although the process was intensive, Perez loved it.

Foreiter further advised Perez to spend her junior year focusing on studying and scoring high on the LSAT and to apply to law schools in her senior year. And she was a shoulder to lean on when Perez hit a roadblock while taking the LSAT, the in-person law school entrance exam, which switched to online during the pandemic. It was Foreiter who instilled in Perez the confidence to push through.

“I remember when I first took the LSAT it crashed. I was in the parking lot of my internship, crying my eyes out on the phone with Kim, saying, ‘I don’t have it in me to take this test again,’” she says. “And she said, ‘it’s OK. I’ve been where you’ve been, except the only difference is I used to cry in the Taco Bell parking lot.’”

Perez took the LSAT two more times and on her third try, her score jumped 15 points. Foreiter was the first person she called.

Foreiter continued to guide Perez as she applied for law schools during her senior year at Mount Holyoke. After receiving her acceptance letter, Perez began to grapple with doubt. Once again Foreiter was there to encourage her.

“She said, ‘don’t worry, more is to come.’ She was right. I received multiple scholarships for law school,” Perez says.

Perez is currently a junior staffer at American University’s Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. She will graduate next May and still remains in close contact with Foreiter.

“She’s an absolutely amazing person,” Perez says. “I wouldn’t have been able to get through that process or be where I am in law school right now if she wasn’t who she was.”

Perez also credits the Posse Foundation for expanding her views on how to get through the rigors of college life.

“I think the value of education in my eyes after being a Posse scholar has tremendously grown. I have a lot of cousins, and my brother is getting to that college age. Every time we start talking about college, I talk about the need for a community and the need for support,” she says. “Not every state has Posse. I was lucky enough to live in a state and a county that had Posse. So, anytime I talk to somebody who’s kind of at that college age, my [advice] is, find a community.”

Built-In System of Support

Before being selected as part of Posse 11, computer science and Spanish double major Rianna Washington ’24 was a teaching fellow at Breakthrough Miami and was actively involved in her church and volunteering. But her biggest passion was playing volleyball. She was captain of her volleyball team during her junior and senior year at Miami Country Day School in Miami, Florida.

Washington learned about the Posse Foundation after speaking with a volleyball coach for the College at one of her competitions. She and her fellow cohort began their academic journey virtually at Mount Holyoke due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

Mark Shea, director of the Speaking, Arguing and Writing Program and English for Speakers of Other Languages, and Posse 11 Mentor, built a rapport with the cohort by meeting with them remotely each week.

“That first year the Posse scholars were probably, aside from my own family, the people I talked to the most,” he says.

Washington described Shea as the “perfect match” for her cohort.

“Mark was perfectly placed with the personalities we all have,” she says. “COVID changed all of us, and he gave us the resources and the independence to do what we wanted, but he was always there. He would invite us into his home to have dinner with his family. We all have grown very close, like a family.”

Posse at Mount Holyoke

“Over the past 15 years, Mount Holyoke has welcomed 150 Posse scholars to campus. They have benefited from outstanding faculty and incredible resources," Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation, says. "We are thrilled to work with President Danielle Holley and her talented team to ensure the program’s continued success.”

For Dean of Admission Leykia Nulan, working to bring the Posse cohorts to Mount Holyoke is a labor of love. As a Posse alum of Wheaton College’s third cohort, she has firsthand experience of how this program benefits partnering colleges and universities.

“It really goes back to the fact that the scholarship is a leadership scholarship. An attempt to search deeply for a subset of students who will be amazing leaders that are going to change the college whether they know it right now or not,” she says. “As an enrollment professional, it’s an incredible opportunity to bring leaders who are going to leave an imprint. I think that it’s a unique and interesting way of looking at how to make true change in a system that’s absolutely broken. Posse is a beautiful strategy to bring so many wonderfully qualified and amazing people to college campuses. So, Debbie Bial did a good thing.”

Washington first arrived on campus without her cohort and built connections with her volleyball teammates until an injury sustained in her sophomore year ended her career as a student athlete. She credits her Posse cohort for being there for her during the transition.

“I had to make the decision to quit the team and focus on my studies and physical therapy. And that took a huge part away from my identity. … No longer having that outlet of sports in my life was a really big deal for me,” she says. “That was the moment when I leaned on my posse. Being able to lean on them was the biggest gift that I could have ever asked for. At the moment where I felt so lost in where I was going, I had a group that was there to support me no matter what.”

After her injury, Washington began to pursue other passions, such as being a member of the computer science society and DJing for WMHC. She DJed the senior ball during her sophomore year and has a Saturday night show titled L8NITE R&B with co-host Bella Batista ’26 of Posse 12. She also took on the role of WMHC music director.

“I’ve thought about maybe pursuing a career in that [field] because I really enjoy it. I feel like it was the biggest door that opened up after the end of my volleyball career.”

Moving Past Conflict and Advocating for Change

During the pre-collegiate training, cohorts are told they will experience moments of conflict. Posse 12 was no different. But Karis Knoll ’25, a psychology and education studies and critical social thought double major and a member of Posse 12, credited their mentor Roshonda DeGraffenreid FP’10, senior associate director of external relations at the Career Development Center, for guiding the cohort through disagreements.

“Roshonda sees all of us for who we are. There’s been interventions with people where she has got us in a room, sits us down and hears all sides. And at the end of those conversations, we’re not besties, but we can be in the same room again,” they say. “Posse teaches us that it’s inevitable to have a storming period in a group, but it frees you. This is how you form community.”

Along with resolving conflict, part of forming a community involves creating a culture of celebration. DeGraffenreid cultivated that culture by celebrating cohort members’ birthdays — a tradition she still continues past her two-year commitment.

“My birthday was almost during finals, and we all got together. … Celebrating each other is central to what we’re doing. And that was a commitment we made to her and to each other.”

Knoll is a member of the The Victory Eights a cappella group. Whenever they perform, a member of Posse is there to support.

“We would post [events] in our WhatsApp group, and there was never a doubt, someone’s going to be there,” they say. “Some of us who have never been involved with music before did Glee Club and Bell Choir, and I was like a mom with my camera in the back row.”

“For more than 35 years, Posse has refined a cohort-based model where each fall 10 scholars attend a college and remain together throughout their time on campus, receiving support from a mentor at the college, other Posse cohorts and the Posse headquarters in their city.”

“I thought I wanted to go to a college with high levels of conflict and controversy,” says Knoll. “But I deserve to spend four years where I can feel safe. Where my fight or flight is not constantly triggered as a queer person. Where I’m not afraid of my safety. Diversity, equity and inclusion was important to me when choosing a college. Mount Holyoke is a pretty prevalent predominately white institution, but I could see that there were initiatives on campus beyond Posse to change and value diversity. I’m forever grateful I chose Mount Holyoke.”

Reproductive justice is one of the many social justice issues that sparks Knoll’s passion and activism. While attending New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida, they participated in the Health Information Project in which high school juniors and seniors teach health education to their peers. Knoll also performed curriculum edits to ensure the lessons were queer inclusive and culturally sound.

At Mount Holyoke, Knoll continued their advocacy work by becoming an event organizer for Mount Holyoke’s chapter of Planned Parenthood Generation Action and now serves as co-chair. They are also an admission ambassador and MoZone peer educator.

Empowering Others

Arianna Pena ’25, a Posse 12 member with a major in film, media and theater and a minor in Latinx studies who also serves as belonging and equity liaison and admission(s) ambassador, makes sure she spreads the lessons she has learned through Posse by uplifting others.

“The community Posse builds is not isolated to the cohort that the scholar arrives with but is extended across the campus, creating a rich populace of individuals who are connected by the belief that building successful outcomes happens together.”

“One thing I’ve learned from Posse is to make sure that all different types of voices are elevated,” she says. “I can’t imagine a school like Mount Holyoke without Posse scholars. … We bring such a different, diverse perspective and we are really involved. I hope that I can continue bringing the Posse mission to other people.”

Peña has taken that philosophy abroad as she completed a semester at the University College of Dublin in Ireland.

“Posse teaches us that everyone has their own experience. I try to bring that with me to every new space that I go to and to also share my own experiences with people who don’t really know what it’s like in the U.S. I’ll meet Irish people and they ask me questions, and I share my experience because they don’t know what it’s like to be a Latina person at a predominantly white institution,” she says.

Sharing Posse Love

Posse love is a mantra that Peña describes as “a bond,” a knowing that someone will always be there. Last spring Posse 13 member and neuroscience and behavior major Manuela Ribas ’26, a native of Brazil who came to the U.S. at 15, had the opportunity to return to her homeland to see extended family, including her ill grandmother. Initially afraid to leave campus because of her workload, she was overwhelmed with emotion, and her cohort rallied around her to give her a pep talk and the confidence to go.

“It was genuine emotional and practical support. I had many people in the same classes as me, and they said, ‘I’ll send you notes. I’ll talk to the professors,’” she says. “The day before I was set to leave, my grandmother passed away. So, I went and when I came back, they were all waiting to console me.”

Ribas also represents Posse love in her job as co-counsel of the Academic Honor Board at Mount Holyoke. As a hall senator, she helps to bring campus concerns to the forefront.

Another way that Ribas and other Posse cohorts serve the community is by inviting community members to the PossePlus Retreat — an annual gathering that all Posse cohorts across the U.S. have. It is an opportunity for all 40 Posse scholars on campus to get together and bring other students, staff, faculty and administrators to join them. Each retreat is centered around a topic that informs discussions and exercises. The retreat also gives Posse scholars and those in attendance the opportunity to show appreciation for their community.

At the closing circle of last year’s retreat, Ribas was brought to tears after an exercise where individuals were asked to tap someone who made a positive impression on them.

“I didn’t expect to get lots of taps, but I did. The Posse spirit is a spirit of caring for one another regardless of your relationship. Posse really empowered me to believe that there is potential in my dreams. Posse saw so much potential in me to the point of giving me a full tuition scholarship to one of the most prestigious schools in the country,” she says. “So, knowing there’s people out there that believe in me and are willing to invest in my dreams, not only financially but emotionally as well, is so rewarding. It gives me confidence to go out there and show myself because I know that even if one person doesn’t see the spark in me, I have at least 40 other people that do from my Posse community.”

Paying It Forward

Arielle Derival ’17 was a member of Posse cohort four and was an Africana studies and Spanish double major. She credits being a Posse scholar and her time at Mount Holyoke for honing her leadership skills and style.

“Posse and Mount Holyoke helped me to become the woman I am today and take advantage of all opportunities that I’m given, to always speak up, ask questions and create a safe space for others to voice their opinions,” she says.

Derival currently works as the director for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) — a national program that encourages young people to stay in school, study hard and take the right courses to go to college. Students gain access to financial literacy workshops, attend college fairs and learn about alternative pathways such as trade programs.

As a director, Derival uses the lessons she learned from Posse to create an inclusive environment that embraces the uniqueness in everyone and makes sure the next generation of leaders is seen and heard.

“I think about myself, a Black, Haitian American woman. I want to see more Black, Haitian American women coming behind me. A lot of times high school students don’t even know about these scholarship opportunities. They don’t know to ask their guidance counselors for a nomination. They don’t know that they can self-nominate,” she says. “I’m looking for ways to continue to share how great Posse is, even with my current students here in the high school now because there are so many leaders coming behind us.”