TSU endowment is a boost for study abroad
Texas Southern University has established a $301,000 endowment to assist students who want to study abroad — and it’s all in the name of a jet-setting alumna.
The Anna Pearl Barrett Memorial Endowed Scholarship is one of the college’s largest endowments, according to the university and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. It’s funded by $150,500 from the sorority and a matching amount from the TSU Foundation, an independent 501(c)(3) that supports the university’s fundraising
The scholarship is named after the late Anna Pearl Barrett — a TSU alumna who became a member of Delta Sigma Theta while an undergraduate at the historically black college.
Barrett was the first student from TSU to study in Spain as an exchange student — an experience she later used in her career as a Spanish teacher in the Houston Independent School District and as a bilingual education consultant. Barrett also graduated from the University of Madrid and Middlebury College. After retiring, she pursued her love of travel. That passion is what inspired the sorority to establish a gift in her name that would give students the opportunity to do the same.
“The impact of the Anna Pearl Barrett Endowment Scholarship allows our organization to extend efforts of providing financial aid to enrich the collegiate experience through cultural awareness and international travel,” said Jona Sargent, president of the Delta’s Houston alumnae chapter.
The chapter has a strong history of providing college scholarships to deserving students, Sargent said.
“We’ve enjoyed working with the chapter members to ensure the wishes of Ms. Anna Pearl Barrett were honored through international study experiences for our students,” Melinda Spaulding, TSU’s vice president of university advancement, said in a written statement.
TSU hosted a reception in honor of the scholarship endowment this month attended by Barrett’s family, Mayor Sylvester Turner, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and more than 200 Delta sorority sisters.
The university — one of the largest historically black colleges in the country — sent its first study abroad group to Tanzania in 2001 in a program led by Gregory Maddox, director of TSU’s international programs and dean of the graduate school. The university has since had more than 100 students each year go abroad for international educational experiences.
“We have worked tirelessly to integrate international experiences into the curriculums in our courses and to give our students the opportunity to see the world, to gain experiences, skills and competencies that come from living in a truly multi-cultural and cross-cultural world,” Maddox said in a statement.
Undergraduate students from historically black colleges and universities in the United States participate in study abroad programs at lower rates than students from other institutions, according to data from the Institute of International Education. But the numbers are increasing. The institute’s 2018 fact sheet reported that 6.1 percent of U.S. students who studied abroad in 2016-17 were black or African American, which was up from 3.8 percent in 2006-07.
This year, Texas Southern has approved 10 faculty-led study abroad programs to Spain, France, Tanzania, Ghana, Korea and the Caribbean.