Transcending Boundaries
According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, black women earn about 87% of white women’s salary and about 62% of white men’s salary. Black families whose head of household earned a college degree have only 2/3 of the wealth of white families headed by a high school dropout.*
The gap widens. Inequity in access to education and wealth widens. In the tech industry, we continue to see inequities in the representation of people of color – the report card has not improved.
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The boundaries seem formidable.
A 2020 Report by Beam Jobs reports that 67% of tech companies are made up of less than 5% of Black employees.
Women are woefully underrepresented in tech, but the situation is worse for women of color.
Recent reports from the EEOC indicate that 83% of tech executives are white.
Black, Latina, and Native American women make up just 4% of the computing workforce.
(Reboot Representation)
Transcending Boundaries
When Linda served as Vice President of the School of IT at Ivy Tech Community College, she decided to create a scholarship for diverse students in Indianapolis to pursue an education in tech. At first, it was just Linda and her husband invested in this effort, but they soon learned others wanted to contribute. What started as a personal commitment from Linda and her husband soon evolved into a community effort.
Linda and her husband believe that tech is the answer to the poverty and underemployment endured by our most vulnerable populations. The name of the scholarship is Transcending Boundaries – enabling education to transcend the challenges of poverty, marginalization, and the constructs of racism – the boundaries.
Let's make an impact together.
The Scholarship was originally created to enable the black, brown and Latina/Latino residents in Indianapolis to pursue a tech education in the school of IT at Ivy Tech Community College. However, in 2023, the Calvins narrowed the focus of the scholarship to Black, Latina and Native American (BLNA) women, but expanded the scholarship to the entire state of Indiana. Through the enablement of education, the Calvins hope the scholarship will contribute to the creation of a diverse talent pipeline for the Indiana tech ecosystem.
The artwork for the scholarship was contributed by local artist Shaunt’e Lewis and Kelley School of Business student and artist Rakshita Modugu.
