For the first few years of teaching the CHC curriculum, there was a lot to learn.  Our goal was to provide middle class students with a set of knowledge and thinking skills that had been proven to provide our society with superior performers, in a way that had been worked well  for much of the two hundred years of our nation’s history by the students graduating from such schools as Harvard and Yale, et al.  We had a conviction that family income was less a determinate of ultimate academic and societal success than a strong curriculum that taught academically talented students how to think, and exposed them to other thinkers who formed, with their thoughts, much of the success in the society we have today.

We found that the planned efforts in critical thinking, creative writing and effective oral communications were working well, and the students loved the look at history as a basis for forming many of their thoughts.  But, as CHC students excelled in the eyes of IUP’s faculty and began to compete for the most prestigious of scholarships such as the Rhodes, Marshall and Fulbright, we were not winning much even after the students put a serious amount of time and effort into preparation for competition.  Moreover, students who did not compete for these awards often felt that too much time was spent preparing some students at the expense of paying less attention to others who were felt to be equally deserving of extra attention.

Some time was spent, quietly, finding out why our students were not winning, by talking to those on committees who made the selections.  The answer came back that IUP’s student at the CHC had a fine view of history and how to communicate, but had insufficient broad experience in the complexities of the world today to deal with the topics of interest to the committees in their selection process .  In short, the CHC students were too insular.

In order to broaden the experience base of CHC students, the CHC Achievement Fund was created and funded privately for the portion not routinely funded by IUP.  For study abroad, students can often use their IUP tuition to pay for related academic costs, such as tuition, room and board so private funding must cover air fare and other expenses not covered by IUP and its agreements with international universities. 

To deal with the needs of students who did not wish to study abroad and yet broaden their horizons, the CHC Achievement Funds were expanded, once again with private donations, to cover some of the costs of a student accepting an internship, often in the summer, with a corporation, non-profit or government entity, when the reality of a middle class family funding such an experience was financially unrealistic, no matter the perceived benefit.

This use of “Achievement Funds” proved to be one answer to the problem faced.  Since they were initiated, the number of prestigious scholarships has jumped to a number per student that is nearly astounding.

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