News Release

Carolina Covenant Scholars receive
technology support from Lenovo

CHAPEL HILL -- The computer giant Lenovo is helping to fund the technology needs of students participating in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Carolina Covenant, a groundbreaking initiative that enables students from low-income families to graduate debt-free.

Lenovo will fund 90 ThinkPad notebook computers given to Covenant Scholars as part of the Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI). The CCI aims to ensure that Carolina students, faculty and staff have easy access to high-quality, affordable technology and can use it effectively.

At the center of the initiative is the requirement that Carolina undergraduate students own laptop computers that meet university specifications. The CCI launched in fall 2000, and Carolina currently has more than 25,000 Lenovo ThinkPads campuswide. They are being put to a variety of uses: Lenovo’s products, for example, help chemistry students collect lab data in a way that allows them to spend more time doing data analysis and also provide students with the tools for collaborative writing.

Covenant Scholars qualify for grants that pay for their CCI laptops, and Lenovo’s gift will cover 90 of those grants.

"Lenovo’s gift is very important to the university and to Covenant Scholars," said Shirley Ort, Carolina’s director of scholarships and financial aid. "We’re committed to making sure that the laptop requirement doesn’t create a financial hardship for our students from low-income families. Thanks to Lenovo, that will be the case for these Covenant Scholars. They will have access to the same technology as their more affluent peers without having to worry about how to pay for it. We are grateful for Lenovo’s support of the Covenant."

The Lenovo gift further strengthens ties between the company and Carolina, said Bill Owens, Lenovo’s vice president of service and support and N.C. senior location executive.

"We’re glad that we can help bring technology resources to the students of Carolina, and we look forward to many more years of partnership with the university."

In 2003, Carolina became the first major U.S. public university to announce a program such as the Covenant. Covenant Scholars can graduate without debt by agreeing to work on campus between 10 and 12 hours weekly in a federal work-study job. The university meets their remaining needs through federal, state, university and other privately funded grants and scholarships. The university also provides scholars with other services, such as a mentoring program that matches first-year scholars with faculty and staff.

Beginning in fall 2005, students and their families had to be at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level – up from 150 percent. That raised the threshold to cover a family of four with an annual income of about $37,000 or a single parent who makes about $24,000. In the program’s first year, those income levels were at about $28,000 and $18,000, respectively.

This year, the university enrolled 350 students in its second class of Covenant Scholars, who represent nearly 10 percent of the total first-year class. The program’s first class posted an attrition rate of just 2.2 percent.

Lenovo, which develops, manufactures and markets technology products and services worldwide, operates a major research center in Raleigh, as well as in Yamato, Japan; and Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China.

Lenovo’s gift counts toward the Carolina First Campaign, a comprehensive, multi-year private fund-raising campaign with a goal of $2 billion to support Carolina’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university. Carolina First also aims to raise a $10 million endowment for the Covenant, generating income to fund the program’s scholarships and other related initiatives.

UNC Development Communications contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 962-0027 or scott_ragland@unc.edu  

Lenovo contact: Jeff Dudash, (919) 991-3445 or jdudash@us.lenovo.com