The Center for Access & Success

Our responsibility is to remove barriers so that every student has full access to the opportunities, mentorship and community that are at the core of a Bucknell education — regardless of their identity, income or background.” 

— Chris Brown, Andrew Hartman ’71 & Joseph Fama ’71 Executive Director of the Center for Access & Success

Beyond admission: Admission is just the beginning. At Bucknell, we believe education has the power to transform lives, and the Center for Access & Success makes sure it does. The center supports students in Bucknell’s access scholarship programs with mentorship, community and opportunities that match their goals. The result: high potential becomes lasting achievement. 

The defining challenge: First-generation and lower-income students arrive with every bit of the talent of their classmates. What they don’t always arrive with is a map. A guide to the unwritten rules of college. Funding for the internship, the research trip, the semester abroad. A community that makes this place feel like theirs from the first week. 

The Solution: The Center for Access & Success offers cohort-based support through the Gamgort Family Gateway Scholars, Bauer Scholars, Posse Scholars, Langone-Walling Scholarship and Bucknell Community College Scholars programs. It also serves every first generation and Pell-eligible undergraduate, building a strong, proud identity through the Mentor Institute, which pairs students with mentors; and Pre-Enrollment Summer Success, which gives students a running start on college academics.

Leadership Spotlight and Strategic Model

Led by Chris Brown, the Andrew Hartman ’71 & Joseph Fama ’71 Executive Director, the center connects cohort advising, faculty-staff mentorship and high-impact experiential learning into one experience — one that starts before the first class and builds over four years toward graduation and a career.

Initiatives worth the investment

• Pillar 1: Cohort-based Access Scholarships: Additional support for scholarships and operations for signature cohorts: Posse Scholars, Bauer Scholars, Gateway Scholars, Langone-Walling Scholars and Bucknell Community College Scholars. Scholars arrive together and succeed together. 
• Pillar 2: The Mentor Institute: Makes high-touch mentoring a standard, not a favor. Training, professional development and recognition for the faculty and staff who invest their time in scholars, so every student has an advocate across all four years. 
• Pillar 3: Experiential Access Grants: Funds Access Grants ($2,500+ average) for study abroad, research, and internships. Because the experiences that define a Bucknell education shouldn’t depend on a family’s bank account. 
• Pillar 4: Pre-enrollment Summer Success & GenFirst! Initiatives: A credit-bearing residential summer bridge in gateway subjects like pre-calculus. Plus GenFirst! community programming, the Tri-Alpha Honors Society and Proud to Be First celebrations. A running start, and a reason to be proud of it.

Your support, a lifetime of achievement

Recognition Opportunities

• Center Naming Gift: $10 million
  • Funds and names the Center for Access & Success
• Full Tuition Cohort Endowment: $25 million
  • Funds and names a full-tuition scholarship for a cohort of 20 scholars in perpetuity
• Bucknell Community College Scholars Program (BCCSP): $10 million
  • Funds and names the BCCSP, supporting approximately 20 high-achieving transfer scholars annually
• Posse Program: $6.5 million
  • Funds and names annual scholarships and operational programming for the Posse cohort
• Mentorship Institute: $3.5 million
  • Funds a named program for structured faculty/staff mentorship for students across all four years
• Access Interns: $2.5 million
  • Endows peer access intern leadership positions
• Access Grants: $200,000
  • Supports experiential learning grants
• Center Programming Fund: Current use or endowed funds
  • Supports student conference and study abroad travel, community programming and events

A PARTNERSHIP THAT OPENS EVERY DOOR. Your investment removes the financial, cultural and logistical barriers that stand between talented scholars and everything Bucknell offers. Full-tuition cohorts. Global learning. Peer leadership. Each one turns opportunity into achievement, so every scholar graduates with confidence, purpose and pride.

THEY BELONG HERE. NOW THEY LEAD FROM HERE.

Support the Center for Access & Success and you help make Bucknell a place where every admitted student finds their people, grows and leads. Your partnership secures permanent staffing, expands global and career opportunities and helps first-generation and underrepresented scholars turn potential into lifelong distinction.

This is not charity; it’s conviction that a student’s potential, not their circumstances, determines their path here.

Strengthen the foundation. Be the force behind the first generation. Be the reason talent, not circumstance, decides how far a student can go.

Be the ’ray.