University expands scope of race relations prize

Students from Denver, Detroit and Pittsburgh will now be eligible for the prize, which is granted by the Princeton Prize Committee to students who have demonstrated commitment to improving race relations within their schools and communities.

“We want to reach out to every school, community group, church and faith-based institution in these regions,” Henry Von Kohorn ’66, chair and founder of the Princeton Prize Committee, said in an interview.

The three new cities will join Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, Princeton, Rochester, N.Y., San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Connecticut and Northern New Jersey.

Von Kohorn noted that this most recent expansion will not be the last for the constantly evolving program.

“We ultimately want the prize to be available to any high school student in the country,” he said, but he added that further expansion will take some work.

“[Expansion] is really dependent on the alumni volunteer base on the ground,” Von Kohorn said, explaining that until a region has enough alumni support to staff a committee, the region’s students remain ineligible for the prize.

Alumni volunteers sit on regional committees and select exceptional student projects from each area’s application pool. Some students are awarded certificates of accomplishment, a first-place cash prize of $1,000 is available for each region.

Though the Princeton Prize Committee has not yet reached its goal of serving the entire nation, alumni support has been extraordinary, and many alumni not involved in any other University programs support this endeavor, Von Kohorn said.

The Princeton Prize in Race Relations was launched in 2003 by a group of alumni volunteers in the Washington, D.C., and Boston metropolitan areas. In the five years since the prize’s inception, more than 250 students have been honored for conducting volunteer projects that promote positive race relations. In 2007-08, 97 students were recognized by the prize committee, 29 of whom were granted cash awards.

Last year’s winners included Boston native Nicholas Barrows, who developed a course on diversity issues at his high school, and Seattle native Kayla Williams, honored for her promotion of social justice.

“It was a life changing experience to meet all of these exceptional, dedicated teenagers who are so enthusiastic about changing the face of race relations in their communities, our country,” Marguerite Vera ’79, executive director of the program, said in a statement Friday.

Past projects honored by the committee include student-initiated discussion groups, documentaries on multicultural issues, language classes and leadership programs for students from immigrant and minority backgrounds.

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On May 3-4, prizewinners attended the first annual Princeton Prize Symposium on Race, organized by the Princeton Prize Committee. Held on the University campus, the event included workshops with Princeton-area high school students and University faculty.