The evening was a beautiful climax to a typical Spring day here in West County. The Hercules City Council opened their meeting as they have so many times in the past by welcoming the Hercules residents who are cohorts of the Ivy League Connection.
After the warm welcome from Mayor Joanne Ward, West Contra Costa Unified School Distirct School Board President Charles Ramsey explained to the gathered crowd--and those watching on TV from the comfort of their homes--about the history of the program and how the program positively affects so many of the young people from our community.
Following Mr. Ramsey, Hercules High Assistant Principal Terri Ishmael spoke on the application process and how these cohorts went from the "what's this all about" stage to the "what time does our first class start" stage. Ms. Ishmael introduced the cohorts and invited each of them to step to the microphone to talk about their own involvement in the ILC.
Concluding the presentation, and before the traditional group photo, former ILC cohort and Hercules resident (and the big sister of current Columbia Constitutional Law cohort Eric Wang) spoke about how her own participation as a two time ILCer affected her. Yueming Wang was a Hotelie at Cornell two years ago and last summer she attended the Presidential Powers course at Columbia University.
Yueming eloquently spoke of how she was a dyed in the wool Cal Bear fan until she saw what else was available to her. After attending Cornell and Columbia her views towards Cal were altered-altered to the point where she will be studying engineering at Cornell starting this Fall.
What was clear this evening, as it has been since the beginning, the ILC saw once again that the Hercules community stands firmly behind their young students and if the ILC will help their young members of the community, then the Hercules community stands behind the ILC.
