In the nearly ten years that Sean E. Vereen, GED’00, GRD’05, has led Philadelphia-based Steppingstone Scholars as president, the organization has expanded its mission from providing academic enrichment and school placement to creating multiple routes to success in college and the workforce. The aim of the educational social mobility organization remains the same—to overcome systemic barriers and change outcomes for low-income and racially minoritized Philadelphia students.
“If we’re going to move people out of poverty in the city, we’ve got to tie the education piece and the career piece together,” says Dr. Vereen, who previously spent a decade at Penn in diversity and minority affairs roles, including associate dean for opportunity and access.
Over his tenure at Steppingstone, he reports, the nonprofit has grown to serve 2,500 students, up from about two hundred, and has quadrupled its budget. In addition, Steppingstone has added two new initiatives for college and workforce preparation: Steppingstone Pathways, which places staff at Philadelphia public, charter, and magnet schools; and Steppingstone Ventures, an innovation hub. As part of Ventures, a five-year collaboration called Inveniam launched between Steppingstone and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science this fall. The STEM equity and innovation program will offer Penn-developed online modules to supplement high school classroom instruction for an Advanced Placement computer science course. Inveniam aims to enroll three thousand Philadelphia students in the course and later to provide similar support for advanced math and physics courses.
“There is a financial cost to not serving the kids in this city. We’re not just doing this because it’s morally right—which it is—but also because it’s going to make a better city and better opportunities for all of us.”
Central to Vereen’s vision is a commitment to providing advising and academic preparation to help Black and Brown students access and navigate high-performing high schools and colleges. Despite institutional commitments to inclusion for underrepresented groups, he notes, student access and experiences continue to vary in relation to demographic factors. Vereen’s dissertation in Penn GSE’s Higher Education Ed.D. program focused on how leaders of college resource centers for minoritized students navigated racial and class biases on campus. He continues to examine issues of inclusion at Penn GSE, where he teaches the course “Access and Choice in Higher Education.”
As calls for social justice resound across the nation, Vereen’s response is to reach higher, by expanding the number of students Steppingstone serves and boosting internship and scholarship opportunities. He also places trust in the importance of persistence. “Everything in education takes a long time,” says Vereen. “Making change is about focusing and being nimble enough to respond to what’s happening in the world by bringing our ideas into different spaces.”
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