Andréj Klema Announced as a Recipient of the Prestigious Cooke College Scholarship Program
LANSDOWNE, VA – The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has named Andréj Klema of Ellicott City, MD, among 43 current Cooke Young Scholars who are continuing to receive the organization’s comprehensive educational advising and financial support as Cooke College Scholars this fall. Through the Cooke College Scholarship Program, the Foundation provides Scholars with up to $55,000 per year for up to four years to complete a bachelor’s degree. Cooke Scholars also have access to opportunities for internships, study abroad, and a thriving community of motivated peers.
Andréj Klema is currently a first-year student at Webb Institute, where he is working towards earning his dual bachelor of science degree in naval architecture and marine engineering. In addition to his studies, Andréj is his class president, and a member of the Anchor Club (Webb’s Christian Community), Offshore Sailing, and Soccer teams.
“Webb is everything I wanted from college and more so,” Andréj comments, “Webb’s size makes the community much more like a family than what I had in high school. In addition, I enjoy how we all know what we are studying. No one is undecided on what their major is. People at Webb are here for the right reasons. We know that the primary point of college is education. Everything else is necessary, but secondary. I strongly encourage any aspiring engineer who is looking for a close, tightly knit community in college to look into Webb, even if you are not dead set on marine engineering at this point. The advantages of a small, self-governed student body are something that you really have to be here to experience.”
For winter work term, Webb’s internship program that takes place during January and February every year, Andréj is planning on working at General Dynamics Electric Boat where he is hoping to learn the real-life skills that will help prepare him for a career as an Engineering Officer in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Coast Guard. Andréj believes that “this career fits me well and helps me live William Webb’s legacy of service back to the community.”
Andréj and the other Cooke Young Scholars, each entered the Cooke Young Scholars Program during their 8th grade year. Together, they have attended summer programs on college campuses and participated in enrichment programs in cities such as Athens, Greece, and Washington, DC.
Each Cooke Young Scholar and their family also work one-on-one with an educational adviser to create an individualized learning plan and maximize their high school experience. Members of this cohort have founded and led organizations, won regional and national academic competitions, published their works, been chosen as captains of teams, and conducted research at the collegiate level.
“It’s been an honor to support these Scholars in their journey to academic success–especially after such a year of unprecedented change and challenges,” said Executive Director Seppy Basili. “We are excited to see the achievements of such bright students unfold as they complete college and move into meaningful careers.”
The Cooke Young Scholars Program serves as a pathway to the Foundation’s prestigious College Scholarship; that application is also open to high school seniors each fall.
The names of the Cooke College Scholars from the Young Scholars Program can be found here, listed along with the states and high schools they represent.
About the Jack Cooke Foundation
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. Since 2000, the Foundation has awarded over $230 million in scholarships to more than 2,930 students from 8th grade through graduate school, along with comprehensive educational advising and other support services. The Foundation has also provided $119.5 million in grants to organizations that serve such students. www.jkcf.org
For more information, please contact:
Julia Nelson at 571-799-8067 or gro.fckj@aidem
Webb is Recognized as One of the 19 Colleges to Partner with Strive for College to Help Underrepresented Minorities Secure a First Job with the Nation’s Leading Employers
From PRNewswire
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Strive for College today announced a new collaboration with nineteen colleges and nine leading employers to create career opportunities for millions of low-income students as they enter an unprecedented labor market. The partnerships grant students access to a virtual mentoring platform that pairs students from low-income backgrounds with working adult mentors who can help them identify career opportunities and gain the sorts of workplace-ready skills that employers need.
“Strive for College allows our students to virtually explore careers and expand their professional networks, far ahead of graduation day,” said Sarah Scott, Associate Dean and Director of the Grissom Scholars Program at Centre College. “By connecting students with trained mentors and working adults at leading employers, we are expanding their career options.”
Participating universities include: Bates College, Case Western Reserve University, Centre College, Coastal Carolina University, Concordia University Texas, Framingham State University, Huston-Tillotson University, Indiana University Bloomington, Louisiana College, Monroe College, Old Dominion University, Sacramento State, Spokane Falls Community College, St. Olaf College, St. Edwards University, Stanford University, Texas State University, Walsh University, and Webb Institute.
Participating employer partners include: Alight Solutions, American Express, Amgen, Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts, Clearsulting, Deloitte, Palo Alto Networks, UBS, and UPS.
“Our participation in Strive On will help the next generation of diverse innovators access meaningful pathways to a college education,” said Eduardo Cetlin, President of Amgen Foundation. “At the same time, we know that employees are eager to give back to underserved communities, and this virtual program allows them to do so in an impactful way, no matter where in the country they are working from.”
In the wake of the pandemic-induced recession, college graduates are facing a tight labor market. Nearly half of spring 2020 college graduates are still looking for work. And although overall unemployment numbers are down from March 2020, youth unemployment has remained at nearly double the national average. Employers like Amgen, Deloitte, and UBS are taking steps to attract early talent through partnerships with Strive, while encouraging employees to help diverse students expand their networks.
“Strive for College is giving students access to great jobs and the supportive network needed to achieve economic mobility,” said Michael J. Carter, CEO of Strive for College. “Through the power of technology, we are connecting the nation’s leading employers with diverse students at some of our country’s foremost universities.”
Strive for College helps students gain the skills–and connections–they need to succeed after they graduate. The platform, which includes one-to-one virtual mentoring, has reached over 1.2 million students total. In the midst of the pandemic, Strive has seen a massive increase in demand: in May 2020, 19 times more students picked a mentor than in May 2019 and user engagement has increased 600% since the pandemic started in March 2020.
About Strive for College
Strive for College has helped over 1.2 million students get to college, graduate, and achieve living wage jobs. Our all-virtual platform, UStrive, matches students with trained volunteer mentors and allows them to securely communicate, collaborate, access resources and share guidance as they navigate the path to and through higher education. 97% of Strive students go on to college and take on little or no debt for tuition as a result of scholarships or financial aid that their mentors help them secure. For more information, visit: https://striveforcollege.org/
Webb Institute Featured in The Princeton Review’s “Best 387 Colleges” Guide for 2022
Webb Institute is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduates according to The Princeton Review. The education services company profiles and recommends Webb Institute in the 2022 edition of its annual college guide, The Best 387 Colleges (Penguin Random House, August 31, 2021, $24.99).
Only about 14% of America’s 2,700 four-year colleges are profiled in the book, which is one of The Princeton Review’s most popular publications. The company chooses the colleges for the book based on data it annually collects from administrators at hundreds of colleges about their institutions’ academic offerings. The Princeton Review also considers data it gathers from its surveys of college students at the colleges who rate and report on various aspects of their campus and community experiences.
“We salute Webb Institute for its outstanding academics and we are genuinely pleased to recommend it to prospective applicants searching for their ‘best-fit’ college,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s Editor-in-Chief and lead author of The Best 387 Colleges.
In the profile on Webb, The Princeton Review editors praise the student body for “all one hundred students at Webb Institute are driven by two loves: engineering and ships.” Quotes from Webb students the company surveyed for the book include these comments: “invested professors seek to support students both academically and personally”, warm relations with alumni results in donations and job opportunities for Webb”, and “At Webb, you are one percent of the school, which means everyone goes through so much together and it follows that everyone is very independent and trustworthy.”
The Princeton Review does not rank the colleges in the book from 1 to 387. For this, the 30th-anniversary edition of the book, the company curated “Great Lists” of colleges in 26 categories. The lists name the colleges that have had a distinctive history of appearances on the ranking lists in past editions of the book over the years. Some of the “Great List” categories are: “Great Financial Aid,” “Great Career Services” and “Great-Run Colleges.” Each list names 16-29 colleges in alphabetical (not ranked) order.
Webb is on the following “Great Lists” in “The Best 387 Colleges”: Best Northeastern, Best Value Colleges, Great Professor Accessibility, and Students Study the Most.
In a “Survey Says” sidebar in the book’s profile on Webb, The Princeton Review lists topics that Webb students were in most agreement about in their answers to The Princeton Review’s survey questions. The list includes: “students are happy,” “classroom facilities are great,” and internships are widely available.”
The Princeton Review’s school profiles and 26 “Great Lists” inThe Best 387 Colleges are posted at www.princetonreview.com/best385 where they can be searched for free with site registration.
The Best 387 Colleges is one of 150 Princeton Review books in a line published by Penguin Random House. It has been featured on NBC “TODAY” more than a dozen times and referenced by reporters in publications from Inside Higher Education to The Wall Street Journal.
The Princeton Review (www.PrincetonReview.com) is an education services company known for its tutoring, test-prep courses, books, and other student resources. Headquartered in New York, NY, it is not affiliated with Princeton University.
About The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review®, is a leading tutoring, test prep, and college admission services company. Every year, it helps millions of college- and graduate school-bound students achieve their education and career goals through online and in-person courses delivered by a network of more than 4,000 teachers and tutors, online resources, and its more than 150 print and digital books published by Penguin Random House. The company’s Tutor.com brand is one of the largest online tutoring services in the U.S. It comprises a community of thousands of tutors who have delivered nearly 21 million one-to-one tutoring sessions. The Princeton Review is headquartered in New York, NY. The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University. For more information, visit PrincetonReview.com and the company’s Media Center. Follow the company on Twitter (@ThePrincetonRev) and Instagram (@theprincetonreview).
How Many Webbies Does it Take…
by T.J. Brackin ’16
The past year has brought more surprises than any of us could imagine. For many of us, work transitioned to something done from the comfort of our living rooms, rather than in our offices. But for some of us, call us the lucky few if you’d like, our work can’t always be done from home.
This is particularly true when that work includes visiting a ship. In February of this year, a team from Bruce S. Rosenblatt & Associates, LLC (BSR) performed a Deadweight Survey and Inclining Experiment of the hospital ship USNS Mercy. The Mercy is one of two hospital ships owned by the U.S. Government. Many of you probably saw news stories about the Mercy’s trip to Los Angeles to serve as a hospital during the early days of the pandemic. Considering the audience of this article, I suspect that many of you know what I mean when I say “Deadweight Survey and Inclining,” but I’ll give a brief overview just to be safe. The term “deadweight survey” describes the process of inspecting every space aboard a ship, and cataloging the contents – the weight and location of each item – of that space. This, as you might imagine, is rather time-consuming. Then there’s the inclining, which involves moving a series of very heavy weights back and forth across the ship to measure the ship’s stability. Combined, we call these two events a Stability Test.
For any ship, a stability test requires a lot of effort. But for a ship the size of the Mercy, “a lot” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The Mercy can carry more than 2,200 people at full capacity, and at 894 feet, is one of the largest ships the U.S. government owns. So, as you might imagine, BSR needed a little help to pull off such a massive undertaking. Fortunately for us, the timing of the stability test coincided with the Winter Work Term at Webb. Of course, BSR and Webb are certainly not strangers. At the moment, BSR has eight recent graduates on its staff: Andy Thompson ’15, T.J. Brackin ’16, Blake Loncharich ’18, L.J. Bock ’20, Mary McGuinness ’20, Rocky Regan ’20, Harrison Tack ’20, and Mike DeNapoli ’20. For the Mercy task, BSR’s staff was bolstered by three current Webb Students: Cross Weeks ’21, who will be joining the company post-graduation; Gabe Allen ’23; and Eric Heilshorn ’23, bringing us to a grand total of 11. Together, this unprecedented concentration of Webb talent tackled the Mercy Stability Test.
At this point, I’m hoping I’ve convinced you just how much effort went into this endeavor, but just in case you don’t believe me, I have some numbers to help make my case (in true engineer fashion). The first number is time spent. All in, the BSR team spent a combined 176 working days aboard the Mercy, which works out to more than two weeks per person. In that time, the team surveyed 842 different spaces aboard the ship. We documented everything from toilet paper to CPR dummies to spare electric motors. If it was aboard the ship we surveyed it, and in some cases, we even surveyed things that weren’t on the ship. When all was said and done, the BSR Team had surveyed 2,020,480 lbs. of weight aboard the Mercy. For comparison, that’s approximately the weight of five Boeing 747 airliners. Suffice to say that all of us were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel each evening!
Then there’s the inclining. We had to coordinate with the ship and shipyard to have huge steel weights brought aboard, have tugs available to maneuver the ship away from the pier, cranes to move the weights during the test, and a small boat in the water alongside to take draft readings. Data collection stations had to be set up. And we had to have mother nature give us a calm weather day. Somehow, after months of planning, the test was successfully completed.
But, in true Webb fashion, we made sure we weren’t too tired to have one or two socially-distanced social gatherings while we were there as well. Despite having a team that spanned almost a 10-year range in graduating classes, there’s something about the Webb family that binds us and made the experience feel like we’d all known each other for years. I’m sure I speak for the entire team when I say that it was an experience we won’t soon forget!
This article is also available on Webb News.
The Brocket Arms Pub Gets a Facelift
by Gailmarie Sujecki (Hon.)
How the Pub Came to Be
Through the academic year of 1971-72, Charlie Finegan (then Plant Superintendent) and his crew were busy building a new student pub in the basement of Stevenson Taylor Hall. With the completion of the new J. J. Henry Auditorium in the spring of 1971, the lecture hall located in the area that had formerly been a bowling alley was no longer necessary. As soon as it had become apparent that this area would be available, Admiral Brockett, responding to requests he had received from several students, had plans drawn up for the installation of an English-style student pub in the space.
Originally the pub was planned as a Parents’ Fund project. A watercolor rendering was prepared and displayed during Parents’ Day and Alumni Homecoming. It was at the Alumni Homecoming that Mr. Leslie Durant ’39 saw the rendering. He and his wife suggested that they would like to help with making the pub a reality. Not having heard anything, Admiral Brockett called Mr. Durant who in turn told him, “We’ve got them started at the joinery in England, send them some dimensions.” Brockett was delighted, however, when Leslie Durant looked at the plans and offered on the spot to pay the full cost, which meant that construction would start immediately. Mr. Durant agreed to the donation with one condition – that the name would remain the same: The Brocket Arms Pub. Admiral Brockett, a man with a sense of humor agreed.
Les Durant modeled our Pub after the Brocket Arms Pub in the UK. The British firm supplied all the lumber already cut to size and ready to assemble. The entire pre-fab pub arrived in the fall of 1971, all in a single forty-foot box weighing several tons. The box was unloaded and work began. By the end of the spring 1972 semester, the pub was nearly finished, though it was not ready for operation until the following fall.
Mr. Durant had furniture sent from Peru, and the old Webb pool table was rebuilt. When it was decided that the furniture was not appropriate for the English pub setting, Mr. Durant sent a check for new furniture. The old furniture found its way into the upper classrooms. Also sent were various befitting antique decorations. But something was still missing in the eyes of the students. Ah yes, a sound system! Mr. Durant once again came through with a substantial donation earmarked for The Brocket Arms Pub sound system.
Modern Day Improvements
During the winter of 2021, Kirk Lehman P’22 spearheaded a renovation of the pub, recognizing how special this space is for the Webb family, especially for current students. In addition to his generous cash gift, Mr. Lehman gifted new oak flooring, moldings, and his time and energy spent staining the moldings, arranging for the purchase and installation of a new pool table. To help underwrite the cost of the renovations, Webb trustees, alumni, and past parents joined Mr. Lehman by making generous contributions to complete the project. We want to give special thanks to Richard Celotto ’73, Nolan Conway ’15, Hampton Dixon ’11, Katherine Dixon P’11, Jay Edgar ’87, John Hootman ’01, Andrew Ko ’16, Jon LaBerge ’76, John Malone ’71, Mark Martecchini ’79, Keith Michel ’73, Gene Miller ’96, and Wombi Rose ’09 for their generosity!
Reference Material: The Centennial History of Webb Institute; Fall 1973 Binnacle, and Professor Emeritus, Rick Neilson ’70.
Article as seen in Webb News 2021.