Mindset Matters Part 2: Dan Porterfield - Growth in Action: Markera Jones and the Transformative Power of Educational Opportunity

Mindset Matters Part 2: Dan Porterfield - Growth in Action: Markera Jones and the Transformative Power of Educational Opportunity

 

This Week on The Heart of Giving Podcast - in Part 2: We continue our conversation with Dan Porterfield and Robert Diggs, then hear directly from Markera Jones, whose remarkable journey from a segregated school environment to academic excellence at Franklin & Marshall College demonstrates how institutional commitment to talent can change lives.

 

Four powerful insights:

 

"Each educational environment needs to tend to what kind of student with what kind of values might end up there. Our research found that there was a triangle of values students would be attracted to - they wouldn't be a number but a person, they valued being in community, and they wanted academic seriousness." - Dan Porterfield

 

"I went on a visit with my Upward Bound counselor... When we went on the visit, I remember just feeling a sense of welcome on the campus. It seemed like spaces that were well funded and well resourced for me to really learn things in a way that I didn't get in high school." - Markera Jones

 

"F&M's financial aid package was the best one that I got. That grant, which came from donors who want to fund talent, really helped me to see these people believe in me, they value me, they want to invest in me in that kind of way." - Markera

 

"At F&M, I got to have my first research experience where not only did I work in a psychology lab, it felt very special because this is the stuff that I was seeing on TV. It felt like I was doing this really important work in research, giving back to creating knowledge." - Markera on how F&M prepared her for her career path

 

Check out part 1 published last week, where we began our conversation with Dan Porterfield and Robert Diggs about the transformative power of growth mindset in higher education. Dan shared how Franklin & Marshall redefined talent identification beyond traditional metrics to focus on curiosity, resilience, and saying yes to opportunity. 

 

Robert Diggs revealed how the "third spaces" outside the classroom shaped his development as a student and leader. They discussed how this approach to education not only benefits individual students but creates a vibrant ecosystem where everyone can thrive.

 

New episodes every Tuesday on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms. Support the show at give.org.

 

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