Beyoncé Announces Scholarships At Four Schools, Including Parsons
April 25, 2017, 1:20 p.m.
The program is called the Formation Scholars.
<a href="http://laist.com/2017/02/12/video_beyonce_dazzles.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Beyoncé at the Grammys</a> in February 2017
To mark the one year anniversary of her groundbreaking album, Lemonade, Beyoncé just announced the establishment of Formation Scholars awards, which will be given out to "bold, creative, conscious and confident" women over the 2017-2018 academic year. The effort is "to encourage and support young women who are unafraid to think outside the box."
Four scholarships will be awarded, one per college, to female incoming, current or graduated students pursuing studies in creative arts, music, literature or African-American studies. The schools selected for participation are Berklee College of Music, Howard University, Parsons School of Design and Spelman Colllege. All details and application deadlines are available directly from the colleges.
A Parsons student told the New School Free Press, "I just found out about this and think it’s a really great opportunity for women, especially women of color in the creative and professional fields to be able to afford going to and pursuing their careers. There definitely needs to be more scholarships for women of color in the creative fields so they can get their work out there."
Lemonade was honored with a Peabody Award last week, with the awards committee acknowledging that it "draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create a rich tapestry of poetic innovation. The audacity of its reach and fierceness of its vision challenges our cultural imagination, while crafting a stunning and sublime masterpiece about the lives of women of color and the bonds of friendship seldom seen or heard in American popular culture."
Beyoncé is currently expecting twins, and recently posted Instagram videos of herself and daughter Blue Ivy on Easter:
