Couple creates $21 million endowment at Denison
Generations of Columbus students will attend Denison University tuitionfree thanks to a central Ohio couple creating a $21 million endowment.
Denison announced last month that alumni Teckie and Don Shackelford created the endowment to perpetually finance the Denison-columbus Alliance, a partnership between the university and the college access program I Know I Can to send up to 20 Columbus City Schools students each year to Denison on full-tuition scholarships. The alliance started in 2016 with the first students arriving at Denison a year later.
Teckie Shackelford is one of the founders of I Know I Can, which started in 1988. Shackelford, a former CCS teacher, said she was raised with the idea that a person could go anywhere they wanted to go if they got an education and worked hard.
“I understand what education can do and what it doesn’t sometimes do, so I wanted the best for these kids who are the best at this point in time,” she said.
Don Shackelford retired in 2015 as chairman of Diamond Hill Investments, a mutual fund company in Columbus. He is also the retired chair of Fifth Third Bank of Central Ohio and served as chair of State Savings Bank for nearly 30 years, according to the Denison website.
The Shackelfords have deep family ties to the university. Besides both being alums, Teckie Shackelford’s brother also attended and her father served on the board. Don Shackelford served as a university trustee for more than 35 years.
Since the start of the program, Denison has enrolled between 10-20 Columbus City Schools alumni each year, and the university strives to fill all 20 spots, said Greg Sneed, vice president of enrollment management at Denison.
With Columbus in the university’s “backyard,” Sneed said it’s important to Denison to bring in students from the region.
“As a university, as a nonprofit organization, we have a duty to serve our local constituency,” he said. “I think this is one among many ways that we sort of embody that duty to serve the students in our local region and throughout the state of Ohio.”
Teckie Shackelford said the students are high motivated and each are stars in their own right. One has all ready graduated from Denison and is attending graduate school at the University of Michigan. She has aspirations to be the next poet who reads at a presidential inaugurations, Shackelford said.
“We’ve just had one success after another and these are not kids who are doing nothing,” she said. “They get employed immediately because Denison has a great placement office, and they do well.”
Because I Know I Can is embedded in CCS, Sneed said counselors can identify and recruit high achieving, deserving, engaged students who might not otherwise attend a university like Denison.
And the program make the Denison student body more diverse, Teckie Shackelford said.
“When I was there, everybody was cookie cutter, we were all the same,” she said. “Now at Denison, it’s a very different place, but the culture is still the same, and that is to work hard and get ahead and be well educated. The culture hasn’t changed, but the population has and along with that have changed the lives of the kids who go there.”
Scott Landis-wilson, a CCS graduation leadership coach, said three of his former students are enrolled at Denison through the program, which also provides extra support to students in their senior of high school to ensure they succeed once they arrive on the Granville campus.
“It’s given them the opportunity to obtain a high quality education at essentially no cost to them. My students that are currently there through the program are not just succeeding, but they’re thriving,” he said.
With program funding now secure in perpetuity, Landis-wilson said, said more and more students will work toward earning one of the 20 spots.
“It’s just going to give more and more students opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t exist,” he said.
After five years, there are now about 80 CCS students enrolled through the program, Sneed said, and it creates a critical mass. The university hosts events for the students outside of the classroom, allowing them to create a support network they can rely on for their social and emotional needs as well as academic support.
And the program has the results to show its success, Teckie Shackelford said.
“For I Know I Can, Denison was a wonderful fit because the kids graduate,” she said. “Retention problems are a problem everywhere. We don’t have that at Denison because the kids are earnest and serious and well qualified.”
Sneed said the program has a retention rate, meaning the number of students who return for their sophomore year, of 96%, which is extremely high. He added that Denison’s retention rate for university as a whole is about 91%.
Of the CCS students who have been at Denison at least four years, Sneed said they have a 100% graduation rate, which they expect to hold onto this year.
By attending the university tuitionfree, Landis-wilson said it allows students to participate in other programs, such as Greek life and other student organizations.
“Even things like that that aren’t really part of the program, it allows them to take advantage of those opportunities as well and gain leadership skills by being involved in activities that otherwise may have been out of reach financially,” he said.
Landis-wilson said with the program’s future secured, he hopes longterm that students will realize they do have opportunities for which they can strive.
“So many times our kids, they just don’t see a future. By knowing that there is a program like this, you know, it gives them hope, and hope it’s so important in society today,” he said. mdevito@gannett.com 740-607-2175
Twitter: @Mariadevito13