Passing the Torch

Ruth Goldman is chair of the New Leader Scholarship Advisory Board and professor emerita of psychology at San Francisco State University. Her retirement from teaching inspired creation of the New Leader Scholarship. Bill Goldman, a psychiatrist, has directed major public mental health service systems throughout his career, including those of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the County of San Francisco. He was a longtime clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco.Chris Black is a former journalist who worked as a political reporter for the Boston Globe for twenty years and as a White House and congressional correspondent for CNN.

What Ruth and Bill Goldman have created struck a very personal cord with me. As the child of immigrants who worked full time jobs during the day and an additional part time job cleaning an office building at night, it was thanks to the generosity of people like Ruth and Bill that I was able to afford the cost of college and law school. Like Angel, I often accompanied my parents when they went to their night job as office cleaners because they had no one to leave me with. A combination of scholarship support, modest family savings and a good amount of loan debt got me through Florida State University and Georgetown Law School. Each time I received any kind of scholarship support I called my parents and asked if that meant they could cut back on their overtime, or if my mother could finally stop working on Saturdays. As the book notes, the scholarship support Ruth and Bill are providing goes far beyond the direct impact on the student. Its ripple effect touches every member of the family, making the entire unit more resilient. Ruth and Bill's expectations for these scholars is also worth highlighting. By instilling a sense of duty to give back in these scholars, they are ensuring that this endowment stretches far beyond what the dollars themselves acquire. They are extending the impact into communities across our country where the horizon for young people often does not stretch beyond their block. Deploying scholars into their neighborhoods with a clear mandate to inspire others like them to imagine a limitless horizon, they are doubling down on the power of their philanthropy and putting us all on a path to a more just society.

• IntroductionChapter One In Search of Social Justice Chapter Two Finding New LeadersChapter Three Giving Students a First and Second ChanceChapter Four Mentors: A Cornerstone of the New Leader ScholarshipChapter Five Lessons Learned and DisappointmentsChapter Six The Scholars and their ImpactChapter Seven You cannot see what you do not know Chapter Eight Things Worth Doing AcknowledgementsAbout the Authors and CollaboratorAppendices:A: New Leader Scholar Fact SheetB: Graduate Schools AttendedC: Interview Assessment FormD:Mentor checklistE: NLS Annual Program 2017F: NLS Retreat Agenda 2017G: Named Scholarships H: New Leader Scholar Biographies