Ira Schuman, New York co-manager and vice chairman of Savills, an international real estate services firm based in the United Kingdom, presented Professor Madeleine Atkins, president of Cambridge University’s Lucy Cavendish College, and Frank Wu, president of Queens College, City University of New York, with $25,000 in initial funding to support Cambridge University, allowing one graduate from Queens College to attend Lucy Cavendish College to pursue a master’s degree in Cambridge’s 12-month master’s program.
Both Queens College and Lucy Cavendish College are committed to serving exceptional students from underrepresented, low-income, and often marginalized communities. The Masters Study Abroad Initiative aims to provide a Queens College graduate with opportunities that will help unlock their potential as they pursue a graduate degree, supporting their ambitions for careers with leading firms, not-for-profit organizations or as entrepreneurs in the United States.
When Lucy Cavendish College decided to double down on the school’s search for qualified students from America, Atkins and her team first met with several members of the New York business community, including a meeting with Savills’ Schuman and, because Queens College’s mission is so perfectly aligned with that of Lucy Cavendish College’s, a meeting was set with Wu.
“I especially wish to thank Ira Schuman, for so generously providing the funding for the graduate who will be pursuing their master’s at Lucy Cavendish College on the Cambridge campus,” Atkins said. “These are students who because of their backgrounds and not in spite of them, possess the special sensitivity, sensibility and passion to succeed at their goals. In addition to doing exceptionally well during their undergraduate course of study at Queens College and having overcome the hurdles of being from low-income households, these exceptional students also will have met the rigorous admissions standards of the University of Cambridge.”
“We are grateful to Savills for its investment in a program at Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge that will help support our alumni as they pursue graduate studies,” Wu added. “Our new and developing relationship stays true to Queens College’s values and mission to prepare our students to serve as innovative leaders in a diverse world that they make more equitable and inclusive. We dedicate ourselves to helping them thrive as global citizens by providing a learning community where multiple languages and cultures are part of the everyday social fabric. I’m delighted to know that our graduates will have the opportunity to enact Queens College ideals abroad through this new initiative.”
Lucy Cavendish College is the most diverse and fastest growing of the 31-constituent colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. The college’s mission is to attract and educate exceptional students from disadvantaged, often marginalized communities from within the United Kingdom, as well as from around the world.
“As a global leader in commercial real estate, we are excited to support this amazing international initiative with Cambridge University’s Lucy Cavendish College that will help to bring a remarkable Queens College graduate to study in the UK,” said Schuman. “Making the world a better place is a responsibility we all share.”
