By Jennifer Kiilerich
It was almost midnight when Marisa Flores, MEd'17, collected the final scholar from the Nashville airport. Flight delays and thunderstorms did not dampen her enthusiasm; she had spent months preparing for the rising high school seniors who were finally settling into Vanderbilt University's campus for a three-week stay.
The 44 students were part of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation's Young Scholars Program, which supports educational opportunities for academically accelerated learners with financial need. The five-year program rounds out Scholars' time with a Senior Summit each July, and for the past two years, Vanderbilt's Programs for Talented Youth at Peabody College has hosted the summer enrichment experience.
As PTY's manager of special projects, Flores was at the helm of the 2026 summit. Her approach centers on encouraging agency for the people inside the communities she builds. Before planning a single course, her team asked students what (and how) they wanted to learn. Then, Flores ensured every student got one of their top two class choices.
"Their voice is part of our infrastructure," she explained.
That keen understanding of what makes communities thrive is a skill Flores began developing more than 10 years ago-at Vanderbilt, with a master's in Community Development and Action from Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development.
From leading camps to building an ecosystem
Flores planned to become an educator. But her first job as a student teacher and then helping lead a summer camp narrowed her focus. "I had some of the same students at camp who were in my classroom," she said. "I got to see a totally different side of them, as leaders, confident, and able to take risks in different ways."
She loved the way kids could flourish at camp, free from grades and normal routines. She also loved the rhythm, which included intense weeks of camp followed by reflection, process-building and iterative work.
By age 22, Flores was directing a multi-site day camp in her native Texas, learning in the moment how to manage 75 staff members and 180 kids. "There is a lot of work and attention that goes into camps that is not obvious from the outside," Flores reflected.
"I started with the individual level at youth development, went to a classroom level, and then I really wanted the next step. I wanted to study communities and how to make them work," she shared. That desire led her to Peabody College.
More than a degree: Community Development and Action
Flores and her Peabody cohort created their own CDA-inspired community, ritualistically celebrating birthdays, organizing a retreat to Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, and enjoying long conversations about how to foster belonging. They wanted to prevent the competitiveness that can arise in top-tier graduate programs.
While the interdisciplinary program was preparing Flores to lead youth, her peers were pursuing roles in urban design, food access and prison reform. The common thread was a dream to develop systems that would uplift the people within them.
"We emphasize systems thinking, and we emphasize building and sustaining relationships as a mechanism for driving social change," said CDA faculty member Sarah Suiter, professor of the practice of human and organizational development. "We ask: What is the world that we hope to live in, what's standing in the way of that, and how might we make it different? We really intend for the CDA program to be a transformative experience for students."
"We ask: What is the world that we hope to live in, what's standing in the way of that, and how might we make it different?"
Flores tackles those questions by building programming around the things kids actually want to learn, gathering real-time feedback from youth during camp sessions, and collecting staff input anonymously on a regular basis.
Daisy Amador, a Cooke Young Scholar from Los Angeles, remembered one evening during Senior Summit when Flores sat down with her group to ask what could improve. "Initially, there was hesitancy to criticize, but Marisa gave us the space for honest feedback," Amador said. And then Flores acted, granting the scholars their requested extra time for homework.
Damien Castellanos, who traveled from New York for the Summit, came to feel at ease during a trivia night that Flores's team had organized. "There was so much laughter, collaboration and a little bit of competitiveness between all the groups, which made us build a stronger bond," he said.
"We really think about how communities are built," Flores said of the CDA program. "Who are they built by and for, and how do we build them more sustainably and incorporate the voices of people who are part of that community?"
As a student, Flores was shaped by Sarah Suiter's course on program evaluation, where she worked to create evaluation tools for the nonprofit Act Like a GRRRL. After the course was over, Flores continued to work with the organization to implement those tools and complete her CDA practicum.
"Marisa has an ability to form relationships and be committed to people and their purposes," Suiter said.
Suiter also recalled the way Flores was a uniter in her cohort: "She got people together around a positive cause and could build communities that made people happier and healthier."
At Vanderbilt's Programs for Talented Youth, where Flores first worked in 2019 and returned in 2023 after leading camps around the country, she applies those same skills. "The people are the knowers," is part of her ethos. It fits well with PTY, which prioritizes respect and designs learning experiences tailored to kids who crave academic rigor.
"Marisa's Peabody master's degree gave her a depth of understanding about the research behind building strong communities," said PTY executive director Sarah DeLisle Fecht, MEd'10. "It also gave her hands-on experience at organizations in the community. That background made her the perfect leader to oversee Senior Summit at PTY. We wanted to design a personalized residential program with a lasting positive impact, and I knew Marisa would create something special."
Sharing community with Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholars
Flores understood that even the academically advanced learners from the Cooke Foundation would arrive with typical teenage questions like, "Will I fit in," and "Will the classes be too hard?" To allay those worries, she filled the Summit with activities that were, she said, "led by students' own interests, desires, hopes and dreams."
Alongside attending rigorous classes taught by Vanderbilt faculty and Ph.D. candidates, the young learners explored local restaurants, sang in karaoke nights, and cheered on the Nashville Soccer Club at a match.
"Attending Senior Summit at Vanderbilt felt like being home," said Daisy Amador.
Damien Castellano appreciated the academic freedom to choose a research topic important to him. He explored problems with trash in New York City and proposed solutions that could improve his own community back home. "That was really meaningful to me," he said.
Flores also nurtured growth for counselors and staff through robust training and feedback. "I want them to understand that we can care about each other deeply. We can have a lot of fun and work really hard, perform at a very high level, and also have hard conversations when we need to. I want to offer a path for success," she said.
The Cooke Young Scholars finished their multi-week academic immersion with the Foundation's Senior Summit Symposium. Their confidence was evident as they presented research that spanned building assistive technology, advocacy, neuroscience and epidemiology.
Daniel R. Porterfield, incoming CEO of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, attended the symposium. "Summer learning programs like this are an integral part of our Young Scholars' experience, and it was inspiring to see these rising high school seniors from around the country challenging themselves and learning from Vanderbilt faculty," he said. "These students will enter their senior year more prepared to apply for and select a college that aligns with their goals and passions."
The Cooke Young Scholars agreed, indicating that not only did they enjoy the challenge, but their voices were heard. In a post-session survey, 96 percent said their course motivated them to learn, and 90 percent felt that the leadership team cared about them "as a scholar, resident and person." And perhaps most telling of PTY's effect, 89 percent noted that going forward, they are more likely to focus on learning rather than just getting good grades.
That type of impact is at the heart of what PTY strives to do, with year-round programming for academically motivated K-12 students, and it is what Flores brings to life through her passion and community building acumen.
Heading home with new friends, meaningful experiences
Before the Cooke Young Scholars returned to the airport for flights back to cities around the nation, Flores's team had one last surprise: a dance party. As students kicked back with strobe lights, cowboy hats and music, it was clear the community that Flores had planned for was realized.
The silliness was the perfect juxtaposition to weeks of academic focus, and reflective of Flores's approach: "You can be incredibly professional and incredibly playful. And you can love people well and stand really firm on values," she said. "At the end of the day, what I want is for students to feel engaged and curious. We ask them to take risks and lean into the experience, and there is no way to fail at that."
Castellanos certainly felt successful and part of something special as he reflected on the experience: "I will never forget this group and will miss everyone I met there," he said.
Programs for Talented Youth was founded by Camilla Benbow, Patricia and H. Rodes Hart Dean of Peabody College, and recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. An initiative of Vanderbilt Peabody College, PTY offers academic programs and courses for motivated and curious K-12 students from around the country and world. Its director, Sarah DeLisle Fecht, also earned her master's degree at Peabody College. Even amidst the biggest PTY summer in program history, with over 2,000 scholars from around the world and more than 300 seasonal staff members, PTY excels at making individual connections matter. Learn more about PTY and the Peabody Difference.
