Bowling Green State University - Key Yearbook (Bowling Green, OH)

Page 24 text:

About 90010 of the Upward Bound students come from a non-farm in- come level of 34,800 or a farm income level of S4,000 or less. These students are also considered academic risks. The program is 80070 federally funded. The rest of the aid comes directly from the University in the form of services. As explained above, students about to enter their junior year of high school are in the first phase of the program. They are academically supplemented with high school-type curriculum for a seven-week period during the sum- mer. These students return the follow- ing summer between their junior and senior year for a similar seven-week period. This completes the Upward Bound part of the program. The next phase of the project is known as the Bridge Program. Stu- dents in the Bridge are graduates of Upward Bound and also newly graduated from high school-ready for college. These students attend the University for ten weeks in the summer. They study biology, mathematics, English and speech. Upon successful com- pletion of this program, they enter as freshmen in the fall. When entering as freshmen, they assume the same status as a normal freshman. They enter into classes with those students who have grad- uated in the top third of their high school class. They must enter into competition with the entire freshman class. Is this right? Are these academically deprived students ready for this? Can they, after being sheltered in their own group, compete in the main- stream?- Franklyn jackson feels they should not. He knows from experience what the struggle is all about. It took him six years to complete a four year college course. He now holds a masters degree and is working on his Ph.D. jackson is the director of the newly- created Student Development Pro- gram. He works primarily with these disadvantaged students, supplement- ing their education with counseling and tutoring. The biggest problem, according to jackson, is not getting these kids into school, but keeping them there. They need guidance in adjustment to all areas of college life . . . not just the academic segment. The Student Develop ment Center tries to meet these problems and solve them. Tutors are available in all academic areas. There is also special counseling available to students with social or emotional problems triggered by poverty or their minority status. A program like Upward Bound can only be as successful as the people who participate in it. If only a frac- tion ofthe students do make it through school, then the success becomes personal for them, but not for the project as a whole. The figures show that the project has not been a complete success. There are many questions yet to be answered and many problems yet to be solved. Only a fraction of the students who begin in the program actually finish all four years of college. The Student Development Program is a proposed solution. Whether or not it is successful does not so much depend on general improvements of the program on a broad scale, but rather success in meeting the individual challenge presented by each of the students it is trying to help. Most important, the drive mustcome from within each individual student, with outside help as a supplement rather than a substitute.

Page 23 text:

.rv is the time of change . . . seventies are here and now, re than ever, education is needed. must start to bring forth new in regards to higher learning. ard Bound is that new life. A th in learning . . . a rebirth in overing . . . a rebirth in ideas. ard Bound is one of the special ects here at Bowling Green State versity. It is designed to help ents with two specific problems. e have enough money but lack educational background needed admittance into college. Others from poverty areas and are un- to pay for an education on the ge level. In both cases they are ents who are interested ingetting od education in college so they return to their own communities improve them 'from within. may wonder how this is done. egins with a single student and her. In fact, I'll tell my own rience of how it happened to back when I was a sophomore gh school, I had many difficulties y homelife. These difficulties ed me to do rather poorly in ol. One of my counselors in ol told me that he would like to me go to college. Well, at the I had no idea Iwould ever go. d no money, no brains and no e to go to college. He told me all I had to do was attend a ting and if I like what I heard, uld take part. So I went. I heard t Upward Bound and what its s and purposes were. I also ed how it helped blacks and r socially deprived students get college. ally seemed to me like this was big chance to make something yself. So I signed up. Not yone who signed up got to go, use they took certain things like ly income, number of persons mily and other confidential data consideration. r all the facts were analyzed, I the one who was chosen. were to go to the campus of S.U. to study subjects that we t have in our junior and senior at high school. I studied algebra English and one other elective. courses were set up on a high ol level, but the classes were ler so each student could get a more individual instruction. , in the fall I started my junior f.-reigns Upward Bound gave underprivileged students year, and Upward Bound really made a change in my grades. I was better prepared for the work I had to do as a junior. I went back again in the summer of 1969 to prepare for my senior year. When fall came, I entered my last year of high school, confident and ready to go on after I graduated. A rebirth is happening to me. I feel as though I have been born again and now have the chance to do some of the things I've wanted to do. Richard Mitchell Bridge Student The above is the experience, in his own words, of one participant in the Upward Bound program. He is now a member of the Bridge, a pro- gram for newly graduated high school seniors getting ready to enter as freshmen in the fall. Upward Bound is a program de- signed to help underprivileged youths at the poverty level. They are chosen according to standards set up by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, dealing with the income level of the family. chance to see what college life is really like. ,sl ,. gf' i WV, 51 Si'

Page 25 text:

1-1- 4 ru--1 C4 X4 1 Ayr. H MJQUL Ad . y7fndQ .Aww ! - - . 'S' ,X .flf , ' W. P' and 4-. 'fn.,..n ' jig! 'Aw 2 R it ,x '51 mn . -- .. f X ' X5 J W ..,., , R7 -I , , R15 N ig - ' - -Lad! A . if av Upward Bound students ended lhe summer with a banquet