ABOUT US

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Julie Schell

Development Associate

Julie Schell joined the Point Foundation as a Scholar in 2003. Inspired by the founders’ vision for the future, Julie took on the development of the Mentoring Program as her community service project. She then led the program, overseeing its growth from seven mentors in 2003 to more than 145 at present. At the 2007 Annual Point Foundation Leadership Conference, Julie was honored with an award for Outstanding Service to the Point Foundation Mentoring Program for her dedication to this project.

Julie comes to her current position with wide-ranging expertise in American higher education. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition to a prestigious Point Scholarship, Julie has received numerous honors and awards for her scholarly work, including the Anna Neumann Award and the Sturtevant Fellowship. Most recently Julie’s dissertation research was awarded the Spencer Foundation Research Training Grant and the President’s Award for Student Research in Diversity at Teachers College. In 2006, Julie’s work reached a level of national recognition when she received a Scholar-Activist award from the Queer Studies section of the American Educational Research Association. Julie won this award for offering a “ground breaking approach” to challenging heterosexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression in a theoretical paper she wrote on transgendered professors. She has given invited lectures on LGBT topics in higher education at Columbia University, Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Julliard School.

Julie's leadership as a scholar of higher education is accompanied by over ten years of experience working directly with college students. She has held positions at America’s top universities, including Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. As the Judicial Clerkship Coordinator at Stanford Law School, Julie managed a high priority program serving over 300 students. There she spearheaded a major research project on student GPAs and clerkship placement that that would leave a legacy long after her departure. Her deep commitment to students led to her nomination by the Stanford Law Class of 2002 as one of the most outstanding staff members of the year. At Stanford, Julie also demonstrated a strong record of community service. The most notable being her volunteer work as a mentor for Stanford and Harvard’s Quest Scholars Program, a national non-profit that “serves bright, motivated, low-income youth who aspire to higher education.”

Julie’s success at Stanford led Columbia Law School to recruit her to direct their judicial clerkship program, a position she held from 2002-2004. When selected as a Point Scholar in 2003, Julie was awed that she had finally found a place where her passion for higher education and her commitment to the LGBT community could finally meet. She left the legal field and now dedicates much of her energy to the Point Foundation. Julie has participated in nearly every aspect of Point’s program development, but her signature within the organization is her design and leadership of the Mentoring Program alongside our staff, founders and trustees. Julie’s achievements have been featured in various national publications including CNN.com, the Advocate, Velvet Park Magazine, Inside Higher Ed.com as well as LOGO, RNN News, and the NY Today Show.

Julie has a BS with Distinction in Health Sciences and an MS in Counseling and Educational Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. She will graduate with her doctorate in 2009. She resides in New York City with her wife and her African Basenji, Rusty.
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