Current Students

The Pace Community is a family. 

That couldn’t have been clearer last week at the annual President’s Scholarship and Benefactor Dinner. It’s a night when students and alumni, friends and contributors, scholarship recipients and scholarship donors come together to celebrate everything we do here, the opportunities we create. 

It’s called the president’s dinner, and this was my first one as president. It was pretty moving.

The keynote speech came from a trustee, Robert Robotti, and his wife, Suzanne, who’s on our Publishing Advisory Board. A few years ago, Bob and Su established the Robert E. and Suzanne B. Robotti Scholarship to support Lubin students with financial need. Now they’ve launched an incentive program for more student support, matching dollar for dollar every contribution toward new scholarships, up to $250,000. Bob spoke of growing up in an immigrant home, his parents and grandparents and a great-grandparent all under one roof, and how his life changed when he came to Pace to study business. He got a little bit choked up talking about it—and he impressed all of us with his powerful connection to Pace. Su spoke, too, and she charged the group with making sure all of the matching money they’ve pledged gets spent. 

There were dozens of student scholarship recipients in attendance, too, talking with alumni and donors. I got a chance to meet many of them, and I gave shout outs to a few of them who are doing so much. They’re a really impressive group.  

I met Nicole Lopez, who’s studying nursing in the College of Health Professions, so she can serve the community she grew up in here in New York and her family’s community in the Dominican Republic. And Eiman Ahmed, a Seidenberg student who has done extensive research on topics as diverse as sex trafficking, the MTA subway system, and she started a group called Pace Women in Tech to help support women pursuing STEM careers. And Nicholas Louisma, a first-generation student in Lubin, who’s an eager student and expert multitasker. He’s involved in four or five student groups, plus he’s working to start a student-run business called Pace Keepers, a campus cleaning service, and also doing a double major!  

And finally we all heard from Izabella Morris, an energetic Lubin student in Pleasantville who’s the general manager of Pace Perk, the student-run, on-campus cafe. She talked about what we all know is true: Pace gives hardworking students the chance to gain real-world experience that changes lives. 

Bob Robotti made clear it changed his. Mark Besca, the chairman of our board of trustees, did, too. Now, like all the other alumni and donors there last week, they’re paying it forward, helping create opportunities for the next generation of Pace students.