G.S.P. Doesn't Disappoint (But Funding Reducations Do)

By Brian Campbell
Louisville Eastern High School

The night before I left home to attend the Governor’s Scholars Program at Bellarmine University, I remember sitting at a cookout with a group of family friends, and someone asked me if I was going to be homesick. Five weeks away from your parents and away from home is longer than you think it is.
My response was just to shrug my shoulders nonchalantly. Sure, I wasn’t thrilled to leave the place I’d called home for 17 years, but at the same time I was looking forward to the upcoming experience. Over the years GSP had earned a reputation for excellence and for its unique approach to training Kentucky’s future leaders. It didn’t disappoint.
The GSP is an exciting gathering that takes place every summer, and in 2008 it brought together over 1,000 diverse students from across the Commonwealth, dividing them among three host campuses, Bellarmine in Louisville, Centre College in Danville, and Morehead State University.
The program truly has been unlike anything that I’ve been able to experience. Within the first days of the program, I had met a large portion of the community of 360 scholars that called the Bellarmine campus home. Every scholar came on a level playing field, and even though we were similar in how we got here, every one was different in his or her own way.
Together we participated in a wide range of classes, seminars and extracurricular activities that challenged us in new ways. We worked on projects in our different Focus Areas of study. We discussed controversial topics in seminars, learning more about who we are and where we really stand. Each one had to go through the same process I did, but I felt at home getting to know this diverse group.
With 360 students on my campus, all the activities were enriched by the diversity. Everyone brought something different to the table.
That’s why it was sad to sit in small classrooms for seminars and see so many empty chairs belonging to so many missing students. It wasn’t because they’d missed class or overslept. Scholars were missing this year because funding for Governor’s Scholars Program was cut by state officials who are desperate to get the budget under control.
Sure, it would be nice to say that those of us who are here survived the budget cuts and got to experience the program, but one of the most vital things to the success of this program is the diversity of people in it. Every scholar here contributes to the whole experience. So the budget cuts didn’t just hurt the missing students; they hurt the rest of us too, because we couldn’t benefit from their unique ideas, culture and points of view.
Among the main aims of the GSP is keeping Kentucky’s brightest and gifted young people in the state. Colleges and Universities statewide offer very generous scholarships to students who became scholars and meet the academic requirements. The combination of the GSP and these scholarships is in hopes of securing a promising future for the state by keeping the best of Kentucky in Kentucky.
The budget cuts to the GSP have stripped away opportunities, not just cash flow. This year alone over 100 students that should’ve spent five weeks of their summer securing their future and our state’s never got the chance to. In a time of economic setbacks, the last thing that should be cut is something that could very well prevent the same setbacks from occurring in the future. The Governor’s Scholars Program should be last in line for the chopping block, both for the student’s sake, and for our state’s.