{"id":217510,"date":"2024-08-23T07:01:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T11:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=217510"},"modified":"2024-09-17T17:35:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T21:35:39","slug":"honey-fitchs-legacy-uconn-scholars-advance-so-others-can-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/08\/honey-fitchs-legacy-uconn-scholars-advance-so-others-can-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Honey’ Fitch’s Legacy: UConn Scholars ‘Advance So Others Can Follow’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jalen Allen \u201925 (CLAS) and Noah Sneed \u201925 (CAHNR)\u00a0have big plans for their lives post-graduation. Allen wants to travel before entering the public relations industry. Sneed will apply to medical school in hopes of one day creating a vaccine to protect against HIV. These young men were already well on their way toward promising futures when fellowship support from the\u00a0Harrison Fitch Leadership Fund<\/a>\u00a0gave them an extra boost.<\/p>\n

Harrison Brooks Fitch, Jr. \u201964 (CLAS) established the fund in 2022 after looking at data illustrating wide achievement gaps for students from underserved communities. The fund supports UConn\u2019s Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute<\/a> and the\u00a0Institute for Student Success<\/a>, and provides fellowships for students who demonstrate leadership qualities and the potential for future success.<\/p>\n

\"Harrison
Harrison Brooks Fitch Jr. ’64 and UConn Director of Athletics David Benedict (UConn Athletics Photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always thought it was my responsibility to do what I can to share what I have been given,\u201d says Fitch. \u201cI\u2019ve been given some outstanding life experiences and opportunities that have been extraordinary. So, I feel it\u2019s imperative that we have a responsibility to share with the next generation. That\u2019s the driving force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building on a legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Fund honors Fitch\u2019s father,\u00a0Harrison \u201cHoney\u201d Fitch, who\u00a0was UConn\u2019s first Black basketball player and persevered in the face of racist abuse from opposing fans<\/a>. Fitch sees his father as an inspirational role model to those coming up behind him, including Allen and Sneed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was determined I was going to go way beyond that to expose them to some experiences and people that provide aspiration and inspirational modeling for them,\u201d explains Fitch. \u201cPeople who look like them and who have gone through similar challenges to what they had overcome and let them see that they can achieve greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Networking with confidence<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Fund\u2019s support and curriculum are tailored to each individual fellow to supplement and enhance the skills they already possess. For Allen, that meant networking opportunities with journalists and the opportunity to present at UConn\u2019s\u00a0Black Excellence Summit<\/a>. Sneed, who also participated in the Summit, wanted to improve his confidence and public speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have definitely seen my confidence grow,\u201d says Sneed. \u201cMr. Fitch gave me some advice. First you have to be confident in yourself because you can show other people that you\u2019re confident. That really helped me because I would go up there and worry what people were thinking about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Sneed and Allen encourage other students to apply for the Fellowship.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be scared of being rejected,\u201d says Allen. \u201cSometimes things work out for a reason, so never be scared of being rejected and doors will open for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sneed\u2019s advice sums up the Fellowship\u2019s impact and Honey Fitch\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwitch your mentality from \u2018I shouldn\u2019t be here\u2019 to being a trailblazer. Advance so other people can follow, rather than looking at it like it\u2019s scary so you shouldn\u2019t try to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Donations to the Harrison Fitch Leadership Fund can be made here.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Harrison Fitch Leadership Fund continues the trailblazing legacy of UConn’s first Black basketball player<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":217511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2298,1712,2224,2472,2312,99,2235,2306,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-217510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-animal-science","category-athletics","category-cahnr","category-gifts-donors","category-hri","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-29 19:10:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217510"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217786,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217510\/revisions\/217786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/217511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217510"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=217510"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=217510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}