We are excited to share three Hostos students have selected by The Kaplan Educational Foundation for admission to the Kaplan Leadership Program.
 
In an announcement released March 29, Hostos students Rosina Asiamah, Boinzemwende Jarmila Roxane Ouango, and Oumou Traore were named among the 13 newly accepted 2021 Kaplan Leadership Scholars.
 
Born and raised in a remote area of Ghana, Asiamah grew up seeing how a lack of investment in developing the Rosina Asiamahinfrastructure in her village led to an increased mortality rate for vulnerable populations. She currently works full-time as a live-in home health aide and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa. Looking ahead, she plans to pursue a career in the medical field after completing her associate degree and wants to eventually return home to open clinics in West Africa to increase local access to quality medical care.
 
Boinzemwende Jarmila Roxane OuangoHailing from Burkina Faso, West Africa, Ouango developed a love for engineering in high school and aspires to become a lead researcher in developing sustainable computer hardware devices with improved energy efficiency. Moreover, she believes in the power of mentorship and aims to establish after school programs to help middle school students from diverse backgrounds see themselves as potential future engineers. She is presently a member of the Hostos Leadership academy, an ambassador to CUNY Black Male Initiative (BMI), and math peer leader at the College.
 
Traore, who hails from Mali, West Africa, developed an interest in civil engineering after watching her country Oumou Traorestruggle with complex issues stemming from a lack of sustainable infrastructure. She aims to become an environmental civil engineer with an interest in developing green energy strategies for developing African nations. She is also determined to gain a deeper understanding of complex environmental problems and find innovative alternatives to improve energy to better utilize engineering to find effective solutions. Traore is a member of CUNY's Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), CUNY Research Scholar Program (CRSP), a Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Scholarship 2021 semifinalist, and has been accepted to Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory 2021 Summer Internship Program. Both she and Ouango are also Hostos Engineering Academic (HEAT) scholars, and all three students are members of the Student Leadership Academy (SLA) at Hostos.
 
The Kaplan Leadership Program was established in 2006 to help high-potential, low-income and underrepresented community college students finish their associate degree and go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. Kaplan Leadership Scholars have been accepted to some of the nation’s most competitive schools, including Yale, Brown, and Cornell, among others, and eighty-seven percent of Kaplan Scholars earn bachelor’s degrees. The program provides stipends for living expenses, tutoring, academic advisement, leadership and career training, and more.
 
We are immensely proud of Hostos’ 2021 Kaplan Scholars and wish them the best in their future endeavors.