Yale

Patricia Melton was primarily a sprinter on the track team in the early 1980s. She remains Yale’s record holder in the 400m hurdles (57.86), and was twice the Most Outstanding Performer at the Heptagonal Championships. A seven-time individual Ivy League champion, she captured All-American status in 1982 and was an Olympic trials 800m finalist in 1988. 

Melton serves as the Executive Director of New Haven Promise, a place-based scholarship created by the City of New Haven, Yale University and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. 

An award-winning educator, Melton‘s career includes initiatives that have impacted tens of thousands of students. She has been instrumental in creating nine K 12 schools, been known for her reform work in Massachusetts, Indiana and Ohio, excelled at creating and implementing innovative start up ventures and served as Chief Academic Officer for Indiana‘s third-largest district. Before returning to New Haven in 2012, Melton oversaw the scale up of three Indianapolis-based early college high schools and aided in the strategic plan for a much broader expansion of that initiative. She also developed a summer residential program -- X-Mester -- using a unique fellowship program allowing college students from elite universities to work with at-risk high school juniors. Yale women’s basketball player Zenab Keita was one of the four Yale students to participate in the program. 

In 1995, Melton was awarded the NCAA‘s New England Independent Schools Sounders Memorial Award -- which was given to George H.W. Bush in 1971. Melton was awarded the NCAA‘s prestigious Silver Anniversary Award in 2007.