Our strategic plan

Adopted April 2021

 

In April 2021, the Board of Directors of the ACE Mentor Program of Greater Boston adopted a strategic plan with four major goals:

1. Fundraising: Increase fundraising for scholarships by 10% annually, while also diversifying fundraising for program operations.

2. Sustainable growth: Increase the number of students served by 10% annually. Increase mentor recruitment proportionally.

3. Alumni engagement: Re-engage alumni as mentors and on ACE committees and the Board. Offer opportunities to ACE alumni to advance their careers. 

4. Board and program diversity: Increase the racial diversity of our board and mentor pool. Increase the gender diversity of our board. Build partnerships with other organizations serving BIPOC people around shared goals.

 

 

Graphic illustrating four goals of ACE's strategic plan: 1) diversify fundraising, 2) sustainable growth of 10% per year in students served and mentors, 3) create an alumni program, 4) diversify our board and mentor pool.

 

 

 

 

“Congratulations to our 2021 Seniors. We are proud of you, and we look forward to seeing what you do next!

Mike Harris

Scholarship Chair | Mentor

We awarded $168,000 in scholarships this year to 27 seniors for their college and university studies.

 

 

Our students plan to pursue degrees in architecture, construction management, engineering, and related fields.

ACE students report that they are better prepared to take on challenging majors thanks to the program.

“The most valuable lesson I have learned from ACE is to communicate. When a project is huge–full of different industry groups–communication allows for understanding and clarity of a project in terms of what is being done and what needs to be done.”

Nick Pham

Scholarship Recipient | ARUP

Congratulations to the Class of 2020

Read about the Class of 2020 scholarships.

 

Our ACE students have been worked hard with their mentors to prepare a design of a residential home. The students designed within a real site plan, real zoning constraints, a budget, green building requirements, and more to simulate the process of designing and building in real life.

The students met weekly online with their mentors. This year, instead of one big Student Showcase, we offered five virtual Student Showcases, one for each team.

Click here to RSVP

 

 

2021 Scholarship Presentation

ACE Mentor of Greater Boston offers scholarships for our ACE seniors who are applying to college, university, or trade school.

You can review the College Scholarship Presentation below or click here to download the PDF.

If you are visually impaired and would prefer to get the presentation in Microsoft Word format, click here.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://acegreaterboston.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ACE-Mentor-Scholarship-presentation-for-students-2021-1.pdf” title=”2021 Scholarship Presentation”]

 

ACE Pres. Emeritus Mike Tecci with scholarship recipient Ralph Paul

Quick facts

Deadline to apply: Friday, Feb. 12th at 11:59 PM.

You can apply beginning on January 10.

To be eligible, you must be a high school senior.

You must be participating in the ACE Mentor Program (Boston chapter) this year or have completed one year of the program in the past.

On the application submission section, DO NOT click section 2 until you are ready to submit.

Even if you expect to defer next fall, apply now!

The deadline has passed. The scholarship awards will be announced soon. Stay tuned!

Selected slides from the presentation are below. To download the entire presentation, click here .

Online learning adaptions


Due to COVID and public health guidance, ACE of Greater Boston is running our signature after-school program online this year, with students attending one hour per week:

Monday 5:00-6:00 (NU) – started Oct 19
Tuesday 4:00-5:00 (WIT) – started Oct 20
Tuesday 5:00-6:00 (RCC) – started Oct 20
Wednesday 4:00-5:00 (BSA) – started Oct 21
Wednesday 5:00-6:00 (SMMA) – started Oct 21

We are also sponsoring a series of optional career panels on some Thursdays in collaboration with the National Organization of Minority Architects.

ACE spent the summer adapting our hands-on, project-based learning model for online delivery. A great deal of care and planning went into how to sustain our strong mentoring relationships in a virtual setting. We have put hours of work into creating and mailing activity kits to students to ensure that every student has what they need to participate. We are excited to see students digging in and participating actively in our shared project of designing a home.

“Here, one of our students displays the structure she designed during an early session, when the focus was on how to build from a plan.”

Join us for ACE presents NOMA: Real Time with Designers

Register here

Join us on Thursday, November 12 at 5 PM to hear from real designers about their career path into the architecture and design industry and gain insight into your future pathway. Be ready for a fun and engaging conversation about what you can do next!

What is NOMA? National Organization of Minority Architects Mission: BosNOMA holds a critical responsibility in Boston’s larger building and design community in helping to foster the advancement of equitable practice and minority leadership. Our primary focus is on architects, designers and those that share a vital role in the growth of professionalism, engagement with the community and development of the built environment. Our mission is three-fold: Achieve diversity and socioeconomic awareness, establish strategic partnerships and most importantly, invest in the next generation.

97

Students

82%

Students of Color

70

Mentors

  $152,000

Scholarships

Scroll down to see the students’ final presentations

During the 2019-2020 school year, each team of students worked with their mentors to design a library within an assigned program and budget. ACE Mentor Program of Greater Boston had five partner sites this year that hosted student teams–Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, Boston Society for Architects, Northeastern University, SMMA Architects, and Wentworth Institute of Techology–and each team independently made a design. All five are captured below.