The Future Promise Award

As representatives of a profession that is often at cross purposes with its intended goals, we recognize that uniquely able students are often entirely ignored by the usual system of recognition in educational settings – because they have irregular backgrounds, irregular interests, and/or curious academic histories until they ‘find themselves.’ To correct for this institutional limitation, we personally established a scholarship in 2001, which we have called The Future Promise Award. This award is meant to identify students with visionary qualities that include but are not restricted to standard academic performance indicators. In short, we wanted to create something that would recognize a combination of intelligence, creativity, and ethical curiosity and concern. In order to be eligible for selection, the student must demonstrate excellence (i.e. earn an “A” grade) in all of the following: at least one course with Ted Hamilton, at least one course with Paula Clarke, and at least one of our team-taught courses. Our courses are designed to promote and measure indicators of academic achievement as well as adult development. As such, an “A” in our courses reflects a broad range of achievements, many of which remain unacknowledged in conventional systems of recognition.

This award, which originally provided a $1500 stipend to be spent at the recipient’s discretion, has now been increased to $2500. The Future Promise Award is given annually when individuals meet the criteria that we have relied upon since first giving the award in 2001.

Past Recipients:

Future Promise 2015 recipients Orpheus Buster Brown and Jessie K. Perez (front row) with Nalatie Alpers, Ted Hamilton and Paula Clarke (back row).

2001:   Sara Keene
2002:   Christine Miller
2003:   Sean McCleary
2004:   Shane Casebeer (see article in The Union Democrat)
2005:   Nalatie Alpers (see article in My MotherLode)
2006:   Jessica Robertson (née Filley) (see article in My MotherLode)
2007:   Susan Kelleher
2008:   Patricia Horsthuis
2009:   Agnieszka Smelkowska
2010:   Ariella Megory
2015: Orpheus Buster Brown
2015: Jessie K. Perez
2016: Danielle Bernice Kenna
2016: Rebecca Janelle Forbes

Future Promise 2016 recipients Rebecca Forbes (left) and Danielle Kenna (right) with Paula Clarke, Nalatie Alpers and Ted Hamilton