Video: Meet the Inaugural Rauner Scholars

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From left: Andrew Honghe Li ’15, Nia Foney ’15, and Christian Mgbonyebi ’13, who all attended public high schools in Chicago, are the first Rauner Scholars. (photo by Corinne Arndt Girouard)

“When I’m here, I feel like I’m surrounded by people who truly do care,” says Nia Foney ’15, who graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago with plans to become a doctor. The sense of caring she observed among students and faculty was a key factor in her choice to attend Dartmouth.

Foney is one of three Chicago-area students to receive a new scholarship established by Diana and Bruce Rauner ’78 to support Dartmouth students from their hometown of Chicago.

“For me the Rauner Scholarship means the possibility to fulfill my academic dreams,” says psychology major Christian Mgbonyebi ’13, a graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High School. “Dartmouth has become my second home.”

The three Rauner Scholars, including Foney, Mgbonyebi, and Andrew Honghe Li ’15, recently talked with Dartmouth Now about their decision to come to Dartmouth, how the experience is transforming them, and what the Rauner Scholarship means to them.

Hannah Silverstein, MALS '09