Fulfilling his Columbia Dream

When it came time to apply to colleges, Jaxon Williams-Bellamy CC’21 set his eyes on only one: Columbia. An Ivy League school in New York City with its signature Core Curriculum, it had everything he wanted. But in applying to just one school, he was taking a risk.

On the day Williams-Bellamy received the decision email from Undergraduate Admissions, he delayed opening it, waiting for his mother and two brothers to come home. They sat together on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder, and watched as he unsheathed his cell phone and clicked the message. Confetti exploded on screen as one word emerged: “CONGRATULATIONS!”

“We broke down and cried,” recalls his mother, Charlette Williams, who raised her family in Los Angeles, Calif. “I’m a single mom, and despite the hard times we faced, Jaxon never wavered. He took three buses to high school and was laser-focused on studying. If anyone deserved to get into Columbia, it was him.”

At the time, how the family would pay for the College was an open question. Williams works in real estate and has experienced the industry’s ups and downs. During one especially bleak time, the family was evicted from their home, lost all their belongings and were homeless for a short time before renting a hotel room, she says. Mercifully, she says, soon after he was accepted at Columbia, Williams-Bellamy heard from Financial Aid: Columbia was offering a full scholarship.

“I remember thinking, ‘I have to make Columbia happen for Jaxon,’” Williams says. “But I can’t imagine how I would have done it without that scholarship.”

For Williams-Bellamy, who received the Joseph E. Glass, Jr. Scholarship Fund, the support affirmed the College’s belief in his future; the need-blind admissions policy meant he was there on merit.

“Financial aid shows first-generation students and those from low-income families that they can reach for the top,” he says. “When I was in elementary school, I never dreamed I’d attend an Ivy League school.”

From the time Williams-Bellamy arrived at Columbia in fall 2017, the College more than fulfilled his dreams, he says. He double-majored in economics and political science, and focused on the legal and regulatory rules that govern trade between the United States and the European Union. And he immersed himself in the Core.

“By studying classic books,” he says, “I came to understand our world and what works, what doesn’t and how to change that. It is that inherent sense of civic responsibility that I love about the Core. There’s nothing like it at any other college.”

After his freshman year, Williams-Bellamy spent the summer at the Columbia Global Center in Paris and fell in love with French culture. With help from Financial Aid, he returned to Paris the summer after his sophomore year, and again for the spring semester of junior year. In essence, he became a global citizen.

“I never imagined I’d learn the language, but now I call my host family and we chat for hours in French,” he says. “I added a concentration in French and Francophone studies, and wrote a thesis examining the origins of European unification as idealized by the French romanticist writer Victor Hugo. Studying abroad was a transformative experience for me.”

Financial Aid was especially helpful in supporting his studies abroad. The funding for one trip hadn’t been finalized when it came time for him to depart for Paris, he recalls. But the office staff essentially said “Go ahead; we’ll get it figured out.”

The Joseph E. Glass, Jr. Scholarship Fund was established by Christopher K. Tahbaz CC'86, LAW'90 and other donors in memory of Joseph E. Glass, Jr. CC'86, SIPA'90 to provide financial aid to Columbia College students attending Reid Hall in Paris. Williams-Bellamy dreams that one day he'll also establish a scholarship for students from low-income families to study in Paris. “I hope that I can donate and help keep Columbia accessible for all of the world’s most promising students,” says Williams-Bellamy, who will matriculate at the Law School in the fall.

“Jaxon told me that someday he’s going to donate millions to the College,” Williams says. “And I said, ‘Do it. The College has just been wonderful to you in every way.’”

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