Agency Awards Scholarships in Professional Development Initiative With City College of New YorkGroupM North America has named the first three honorees in the GroupM Diversity Scholarship program it established with City College of New York late last year as part of an ongoing effort to promote diversity and inclusion within the media and advertising industry.

The scholarship fund is providing tuition to three CCNY students majoring in advertising and PR who plan to pursue careers in the media and advertising: Rahel Araya, Cory Rainford and Salwa Sayed. Among other criteria, recipients must be full-time students in CCNY's ad/PR program entering their junior or senior year and must maintain an overall GPA of at least 3.0.

GroupMNorth America's HR Director Tim Cecere (left) and CEO Rob Norman (center) join Salwa Sayed (second left), Rahel Araya and Cory Rainford, the first GroupM Scholars.

"It's a privilege to support CCNY," said GroupM North American CEO Rob Norman in announcing the recipients. "We may be a global company but we are also part of a local community. The students we have met are passionate and committed, and we hope this program will help them develop great careers in our industry."

Under the scholarship initiative, GroupM is providing 10 $1,000 annual scholarships to be awarded in the spring and applied to tuition payments the following fall, covering as much as 40% of a single semester's tuition. This year's remaining scholarship money will be given to fall 2011 candidates applying for spring 2012 scholarships.

The second element of this diversity initiative, known as the GroupM Student Enrichment Fund, benefits a number of ad/PR majors beyond the scholarship program. Students chosen by CCNY's ad/PR faculty based on their GPA and the level of their intent to pursue a career in advertising will participate in professional development opportunities in their junior or senior years. Earlier this year, two students were hosted and mentored by Norman at the 4A's Transformation Conference in Austin, Texas, as part of this initiative.

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