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June 7: Colonnade at the Zoo June 4: National Volunteer Council Meeting Jun 18: New York Regional Alumni Event |
Colonnade Society members and guest of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences are invited to embark on a zoo scavenger hunt featuring encounters with wildlife and Maryland faculty partnering with the Smithsonian Institution to help protect endangered species. |
 Helping Students Reach for the StarsScholarship Rewards Hard Work, Initiative
The first recipient of the Ryan L. Dearborn Scholarship, Myeshia Workeman, understands and appreciates her benefactor’s thinking. Being accepted into the Hillman Entrepreneurs Program means she demonstrated not only a do-for-self attitude, but also the willingness to contribute to others’ success. “I’ve always had an interest in how to manage money. It’s about being able to help people in the short and long term,” says the finance major. After attending a small rural college in Ohio, Workeman came home to Hyattsville and transferred to Prince George’s Community College. While there, she applied for the Hillman program, which targets students transferring to Maryland who exhibit an enthusiasm for starting a business or leading a company. Beyond tuition assistance and help with textbooks, the program offers intense mentoring, leadership courses and networking opportunities.
Dearborn didn’t receive scholarships or have time for community activities. Inspired by early entrepreneurial leanings—he sold Bahamian vacation packages to fellow high school students for their senior class trip—the government and politics alumnus became a landlord to help pay his tuition. “Business is fun,” he says. “It can be really hard, sometimes painful, but ultimately it’s fun.” His optimistic outlook was tested as a homeowner. “I was able to do it with a friend of mine,” Dearborn says. “He was a part-time student and worked full-time. I worked part-time and was full-time in school.” Yet within a year, he’d bought the friend’s interest in the house. “I could write a book on my experiences because they were really tough, but valuable,” he says. “It was horrifying … being a young person and a landlord.” A year after graduation he got married and the couple moved into the house; then they rented it out while attending graduate school. They eventually sold it, and Dearborn begun working for a residential development company. He is now a director of Wood Partners, a national multifamily development firm he helped found more than a decade ago. He hopes his scholarship fund inspires fellow alums. “Especially at a state school, you’re at the whim of the state budgeting process,” he says. “The alumni need to weigh in and [provide] things the school needs to remain steady so that there are finances available to attract the best students and help those students succeed.” Workeman looks forward to meeting and learning from Dearborn and Hillman, saying that their stories are inspirational. “You can be focused on having a business or an idea, but at the end of the day, giving back to someone else brings fulfillment to yourself.” Learn how you can make your mark on Maryland by supporting scholarships.  | ||||||||
