Front-porch pathfinders - Lumina Foundation FOCUSâ„¢ Fall 2006

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F o c u sFall 2006

L U M I N A F O U N D A T I O N

Front-porch pathfindersPre-college access counselors meet students where they live – and lead them higher

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On the cover: At the rural home of Leroy Green (left) near Chattanooga, Tenn., University of Georgia senior Cara Ables

(center) acts as a gentle advocate for Green’s granddaughter, Amanda Green (right). Amanda has long dreamed of studying

nursing at Vanderbilt University, but Green has reservations – financial and personal – about his granddaughter

attending college “over there” in Nashville.

Atwo-pronged national college access campaignset to launch this fall will encourage low-incomestudents to take the necessary steps to college

and connect them with helpful information and resources.Public service announcements (PSAs) will be distrib-

uted this fall to more than 200 media markets nation-wide. The PSAs will be part of a multimedia campaignusing television, radio, print, billboard, bus and shop-ping mall signage, and the Internet.

For the target audience of eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders, the PSAs are intended to be a “wake-up call” toconvey an urgency that college requires years of prepa-ration and planning.

“Good grades and big dreams aren’t enough to getinto college,” according to the first TV spot. “There areactual steps you need to take. Finding someone to helpis the first and most important.” In this spot, studentssend paper airplanes aloft, each plane signifying the

sender’s college dreams – and a call for help.The media messages will refer viewers to a national

Web site (www.KnowHow2Go.org), where studentswill be linked to a database of local resources and sup-port organizations.

In some media markets, the PSAs can be customizedto highlight state or local Web sites that are operatedby higher education agencies or other entities. To cus-tomize and “co-brand” the campaign, these partnerorganizations will be asked to refer students to localcollege access programs, universities, schools, youthorganizations and community groups. These affiliateswill form a support network to respond to students whosee the media campaign.

The American Council on Education is coordinatingand mobilizing this network. The Ad Council is produc-ing and distributing the media campaign, which is beingunderwritten by Lumina Foundation for Education.

NAT I O N A L M E D I A C A M PA I G NW I L L U R G E T E E N S T O

‘KNOW HOW TO GO’ TO COLLEGE

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http://www.KnowHow2Go.org

L E T T E R S

First-generation studentsshare powerful stories

Raja Fattah met me in a deserted parkinglot on a Saturday morning at Kent StateUniversity. Rain threatened, and his eyes

looked red and tired under the bill of his base-ball cap. He had squeezed in our interviewbetween his classes and his 40-hours-weeklyjob at a grocery store in the poor section ofCleveland where he grew up.

Against theodds, Raja, theson of Palestinianimmigrants, wasabout to graduatefrom Kent State witha major in justice stud-ies and a transcript fullof A’s and B’s. A first-gen-eration college studenthimself, he was ready to tellothers what he had learned infour years. “I wouldn’t recom-mend working full time and tak-ing 15 hours of class,” he said. Hisgirlfriend had dumped himbecause he had no time for her. “And whenyou don’t have time for anything other thanschool or work, you get frustrated. You findshort cuts, or you stop going to class, just torest. You won’t learn anything that way.”

Now, with 15 other first-generation collegestudents of many different descriptions, Raja is

passing on what he has learned: How to getinto the high school courses that will get youinto college. How to connect with the adultswho will write the recommendations and helpyou fill out the financial aid forms. How to leaveyour friends behind and enter a new culture.

Counsel like this – especially when itcomes from peers – can get first-generation

college students from their early highschool years to their college com-

mencement. In a pair of books anda DVD, Raja and the other stu-

dents who worked with meserve it up straight, as First in

the Family: Advice AboutCollege from First-Generation

Students. LuminaFoundation provided sup-

port for research, writingand publication by Next

Generation Press.I sought out

students for thisproject who could speak of

very different backgrounds and experi-ences. Eric Polk, for example, went from thepoorest section of Nashville to highly selectiveWake Forest University in North Carolina.Aileen Rosario started community college inPaterson, N.J., where she lived with her family,Dominican immigrants. She transferred aftertwo years to Montclair State University, hopingto study law. Debra Graves, a sixth-gradedropout with several children, began commu-nity college in Denver at age 26.

Since the first step to a degree is gettingon the college track early, I started by organiz-ing students’ advice into a short book subtitledYour High School Years. The students toldpoignant stories of gaining admission to college without the safety net of parentsand teachers behind them. Often, the inter-vention of one interested adult made all thedifference.

In the second First in the Family book, sub-titled Your College Years, the same studentsdescribe their hurdles once in college. Only 41percent of low-income students entering afour-year college graduate within five years,according to the U.S. Department ofEducation, compared to 66 percent of high-

income students. Money, inadequate prepara-tion, discouragement, family pressures – thestudents I worked with persisted despite theobstacles that stop so many.

Raja’s college journey is ending now. Andas I said goodbye to him on that stormy Juneafternoon, I could see the determination mixwith his pride like rain on a sweaty brow.

“I had never heard of scholarly journals,coming out of high school,” he told me. “Now Ifind articles on things I never even knewexisted: death penalty issues, discriminationlaws, all types of things. It really expands yourhorizons.” With his diploma in hand, he ishoping for a job at the FBI. Someday, we’ll behearing from him again.

Kathleen Cushman,Author and educatorNew York, N.Y.

Editor’s note: Cushman’s books – First in the Family:Advice About College from First-Generation Students –were written under the auspices of a grant to What KidsCan Do, Inc., and can be purchased from Next GenerationPress, [email protected]. Volume 1, Your HighSchool Years (2005), is $8.95; Volume 2, Your College Years(2006) is $9.95. Quantity discounts and an accompanyingDVD are available.

1 L U M I N A F O U N D A T I O N F O C U S / F A L L 2 0 0 6

L E T T E R S

A global example

Thank you so much for the Focus magazine(Winter 2006). What inspiring stories! Inmy school, few students can read and

understand English, but you cannot imaginehow much the stories in your magazine areopening the minds of our students here on theother side of the world. You enlightened us.

Many of our students come from very poorfamilies who cannot afford the school fees of$150 per year. Reading other peoples’ stories –in which standing up and trying are the mainkeys – is very illuminating. It encourages mystudents to stand up on their own and believein themselves – especially the forgotten girls.

Thank you very much. Or, as we say inKiswahili: Asante sana!

Sincerely,

Fulgence Mluwili, PrincipalHanga Vocational Training CenterSangea, Tanzania

Tell us what you thinkWe encourage readers to sharetheir views on this issue of themagazine, and we’ll share thoseletters, as space allows, in subse-quent issues.

Please send your letters (400words, maximum) to "LuminaFoundation Focus" Letters; c/oDavid Powell; P.O. Box 1806;Indianapolis, IN 46206-1806. Ore-mail (with "Lumina FoundationFocus letter" in the subject line) to:[email protected].

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

At Lumina Foundation for Education, we are commit-ted to increasing students’ access to and success ineducation beyond high school. Our mission is vital,

not only to the lives of millions of individual students, but tothe social and economic future of this nation.

Our mission also is increasingly urgent. As global economiccompetition intensifies, the need for an adaptive, well-trained American workforce – a college-educated workforce– becomes ever more critical. At the same time, huge demo-graphic changes are altering the face of our nation, puttingincreased pressure on our higher education system to servehigher proportions of students who traditionally face thehighest barriers to success. Clearly, we can’t delay our effortsto address this problem. The challenges are too great – andthe stakes too high – for us to wait.

This issue of Lumina Foundation Focus magazine is all aboutpeople who refuse to wait.

In “Front-porch pathfinders,”noted education journalist JohnPulley takes a close look at theheroes of college access: the coun-selors, mentors and advocates whowork one-on-one with today’s youngpeople to help them become tomor-row’s college students – and futuregraduates.

You’ll read the story of CaraAbles, a college senior who is help-ing teens in rural Tennessee follow inher footsteps. You’ll learn aboutGinny Donohue, who works tirelessly

to help inner-city students in Syracuse, N.Y., formulate andrealize their college dreams. You’ll read about Brenda Chavezand Violetta Bluitt, counselors in a New Mexico program thathelps Latino students enter and succeed in higher education.

These and many other inspiring, real-life stories – supported by insights from noted researchers, educators andexperts across the nation – speak volumes. They underscorethe importance of mentoring and guidance, and of familiesand students starting early to prepare for college success.

Those messages of mentoring and early preparation –major tenets of a nationwide public information campaignthat will soon be launched (see item on the inside-frontcover) – have always been central to our work at Lumina,and to the efforts of our grantees. We’re proud in this issueof Focus to put the spotlight on some of those efforts.

As always, I welcome your feedback on this issue, and Ilook forward to your continued help in the important workof enhancing college access and success.

Martha D. LamkinPresident and CEOLumina Foundation for Education

I N S I D EP R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S AG E

Helping rural students step up: Page 3

A better life, a good example: Page 12

Once refugees, now scholars: Page 19

Success stories in the Southwest: Page 14

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Front-porch

pathfinders

Cara Ables aids aspiring

students at a rural

Tennessee high school.

By John Pulley


From rural hollows to inner-city streets, college-access advocates help students’ dreams bloom

visit with her AuntTerri, a nurse, lit aspark inside aTennessee schoolgirlnamed AmandaGreen. “That’s when Irealized what I wanted to be,”Amanda says, recalling that visit ofmore than a decade ago.

Around the same time, afleeting glimpse of theVanderbilt University cam-pus fanned that spark into a flame.

“We were in Nashville,we drove past it, and I loved how itlooked,” recalls Amanda, now a 16-year-old senior at Sale Creek High

a

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School about 30 miles north ofChattanooga. “I was just 5 years old,but I remember telling my grandmathat I wanted to go there. She lookedback at me and said, ‘I hope you getthere.’ ”

Her grandmother told her thatVanderbilt had “the best nursing col-lege you can get into around here,”Amanda says. “I wanted to go to thebest and be the best. If that’s the rightuniversity, that’s where I want to go.”

Almost a dozen years later, on awarm June morning in a rural cornerof Hamilton County in southeastTennessee, Amanda and two otherpeople gather on a home’s frontporch to chat before the air turnsthick.

Amanda’s grandfather, Leroy

Green, 75, settles into an aluminumframe patio chair. Resting on hisknee are the weathered hands he hasused to make his way in the world –hands that kept him employed, inthe prime of his working years, as aheavy-equipment mechanic on theconstruction site of the nearbySequoyah Nuclear Plant.

“My Papaw built our house withhis hands,” says Amanda, sitting onthe porch boards at his feet. She andher parents live with Papaw and hiswife. Amanda’s father, an Air Forceveteran, is now unemployed. Hermother works in a pencil factory andadmonishes her daughter: “Don’t endup like me.”

The third person on the porchthis morning is Cara Ables, a senior

The challenge of ourchanging economy:Déjà vu all over again

The alarm sounded during the ’90s:America’s educational system wasunder capacity and overwhelmed. Thenational economy was evolving in dra-

matic ways, the demand for skilled workerswas escalating, and millions of uneducatedpeople were pouring into cities to find jobs.America’s educational system, circa 1895, wasill-equipped to produce qualified workers inadequate numbers.

More than a century later, the pace ofchange has escalated again. And once again,the country’s educational system is misalignedwith the demands of that change.

A century ago, the national economy wasevolving from agrarian to industrial, and man-ufacturers were demanding workers with criti-cal skills – not the least of which was thecapacity to adapt from farm to factory. Thebest way to transform field hands into anurban, assembly-line workforce? High school. Itwould take 50 years, however, before a majorityof the country’s K-12 students would earn ahigh school diploma.

These days, we don’t have decades to get itright, experts say. Old-line manufacturing jobshave automated or moved offshore, the coun-try’s immigrant population is swelling, and the

dizzying pace of advancement has dramaticallyraised the bar for technological literacy. In thepast decade or so, we have abandoned foreverour old analog world and embraced a digitalexistence of ubiquitous cell phones, cheap com-puting power, wireless Internet, cloning, iPods,nanotechnology and genetically altered soy-beans. What would those 1890s farmers think?

The world is spinning faster, and, in the ver-nacular coined by best-selling author andcolumnist Thomas L. Friedman, it is getting flat-ter. Americans who once competed amongthemselves for good jobs and economicsupremacy are now vying against competitorsfrom China, India, Pakistan, the Ukraine andother distant points. Anyone with a high IQ,marketable skills and Internet access is a con-tender on the global economic playing field.

In an era of velocity – fast connections,next-day delivery, instant messaging – thefastest-growing segments of the Americanpopulation are the least-well served by aneducational system that plods along like theclackety relics of the Industrial Revolution.Immigrants and their first-generation children,people of color, the poor, sons and daughters ofparents who didn’t attend college, non-Englishspeakers, and people from other groups thatare less likely than average to get an adequateeducation represent an ever larger portion ofthe nation’s population. Failure to make educa-tion accessible and attainable for them couldresult in a new underclass that will be mired ina cycle of intractable cross-generational poverty.

Moreover, the nation will face predictable con-sequences: shortages of knowledge workers,slowed economic growth and loss of globalcompetitiveness.

A leading indicator of the problem is thestate of K-12 instruction and the gulf betweenit and postsecondary education. A high schooldiploma is no longer an indicator of meaning-ful educational attainment, college prepared-ness or suitability for a decent-paying job withgrowth potential. Yet even that modest level ofacademic accomplishment eludes many.Nationally, more than 30 percent of ninth-graders fail to earn a high school diploma, andonly one in five earns a four-year college degreewithin six years of high school graduation.

“The truth is, we are in a crisis now, but it isa crisis that is unfolding very slowly and veryquietly,” writes Friedman in The World Is Flat, atrenchant analysis of global economic trendsand, for many, a manifesto for change. “Thisquiet crisis involves the steady erosion ofAmerica’s scientific and engineering base,which has always been the source of Americaninnovation and our rising standard of living. ...For the first time in more than a century, theUnited States could well find itself fallingbehind other countries in the capacity for sci-entific discovery, innovation and economicdevelopment.”

The Trends in International Mathematics andScience study, which in 2003 tested 500,000students from 41 countries, found that 44 per-cent of eighth-graders in Singapore scored at

From his front-porch perch, family patri-arch Leroy Green makes a point.

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at the University of Georgia. She has come to helpAmanda aim higher. Cara is working at Sale CreekHigh School as a summer intern, a position developedthrough a pre-college access and preparation programcalled the Partnership for College Access and Success(PCAS). Cara’s job is to help the school’s upperclass-men and their families explore postsecondary aspira-tions. Cara is taking the students on college visits,helping them to refine their post-graduation educationplans, and meeting students’ families in their homes –and on their front porches.

As the sun rises, two young women and an old manwarm to the topic.

“I guess money is the main thing,” says Papaw. “Shewants to go to Vanderbilt. I don’t know right now. Itwould have to be looked into.”

Cara mentions that the University of Georgia is agood school, too, and that her own grandfather was ahuge fan of the Bulldogs football team. (But Caraknows the obstacles Amanda faces. Cara doesn’t

mention it, but her grandfather was adamant thatcollege wasn’t an option for his own daughter. As aresult, Cara’s mother, the first person in her family tograduate from high school, has held jobs cutting hair,working in an artificial-turf factory and staffing the deskat a real-estate development company.)

Papaw worries about boundaries. Pausing to shoo asmall, mixed-breed dog off the porch, he reveals hisfear that Amanda might leave home. “That would beanother thing, going over there and staying over there,”Green says. “We’ll have to decide later about Vanderbiltor Georgia.”

“She has a cousin at Bryan,” Green goes on, referringto Bryan College, a Christian institution in nearbyDayton, Tenn., that is best known for the Scopes“Monkey Trial” held there in 1925.

“The preacher up here is a Bryan graduate,” Greensays, hopefully.

Cara tries to redirect the conversation. “It’s hard toget a good job now without a college degree,” she says.

the most advanced level in math. In the U.S.,just 7 percent of students scored that well, thestudy showed.

The United States ranks 17th in the world inthe number of 18- to 24-year-olds who earnscience degrees, down from No. 3 three decadesago, Friedman reports, citing data collected bythe National Science Board (NSB). In China, 59percent of all bachelor’s degrees are awarded inscience and engineering. The equivalent figurein the United States is about 32 percent.

Often, the die is cast early in a student’s aca-demic career. The NSB found that engineers andscientists who enter the workforce withadvanced degrees had opted in middle school– some 14 years earlier – to take the coursesthat would enable them to tread such ademanding career path.

Yet many students lack the resources tomake wise choices and persist in their educa-tional pursuits. Many barriers impede academicattainment, including insufficient financialresources, poor academic preparation, culturalnorms and inadequate information about thecollege-going process. The lack of reliable infor-mation derails students at each phase of theprocess. Without knowledgeable parents,engaged guidance counselors or other effectivementors, students simply fail to take the stepsto become educated.

Overcoming obstacles – academic, attitudi-nal, financial, informational – that bar the doorsof college for poor, non-white children fromundereducated families is a stiff challenge. “You

almost have to doubleand triple your efforts forthis population to have achance,” says David W.Breneman, dean of theCurry School of Educationat the University ofVirginia.

The convergence ofseveral disturbing trends– rising tuition, Pellgrants’ eroding purchas-ing power, reduced statesupport of higher educa-tion, students’ increasingreliance on loans, andgrowing populations oflow-income, minority andother “at-risk” students –looks to Breneman “like atrain wreck.”

Still, there is precedentfor responding to suchchallenges. In the late1940s, the GI Bill paved theway for millions of veter-ans to attend college. Twodecades later, the federal student loan pro-gram began to open the doors of college foreven more Americans. And more recently,prompted by a creeping crisis of access inthe 1960s, educational leaders created thecommunity college system to provide edu-cational opportunity for millions of baby

boomers reaching college age. Today’s college students face

a different challenge of perhapseven greater proportion. Forunderserved students in particu-lar, access to and success inhigher education requiresunflagging vigilance to pre-col-lege preparation. To be mosteffective, preparation shouldbegin in middle school.Thousands of programsthroughout the country are try-ing to help these students pre-pare academically, financially,socially and logistically.

Models vary, but many takea holistic, comprehensiveapproach that seeks to involveentire communities in the edu-cation of children. From the tra-ditionally Hispanic border statesin the West to newly emergingcommunities of Mexican andSouth American immigrants inthe South, from the inner-cityhousing projects in the North to

enclaves of poor whites in Appalachia and else-where, these programs seek to alter the trajec-tory of lives and thereby change a nation.

“If we don’t do something out of the ordi-nary,” Breneman says, “we are going to consign avery significant percentage of this next genera-tion of young people to third-class citizenship.”

“The truth is, weare in a crisis now,

but it is a crisisthat is unfoldingvery slowly and

very quietly,” saysauthor Thomas L.

Freidman.

Continued on

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Just a few of theorganizations thatpromote pre-collegepreparation

For those interested in learning moreabout pre-college access programs –or seeking to assist such a program intheir communities – one of the best

organizations to know is the NationalCollege Access Network (NCAN). As itsname implies, NCAN is a network of organiza-tions that operate and support college accessprograms throughout the nation.

NCAN’s mission is to improve access to andsuccess in postsecondary education for disad-vantaged, under-represented and first-gener-ation students. It does this by supporting anetwork of state and local college access pro-grams that provide counseling, advice andfinancial assistance; sharing best practicesamong the network; providing leadership and

technical assistance; and helping establishnew college access programs.

The organization’s Web site – www.collegeaccess.org/NCAN/ – includes astate-by-state listing of member organiza-tions, including many of those listed below.

Another source of information about theseprograms is Lumina Foundation’s McCabeFund, a grant-making initiative aimed solelyat supporting pre-college access programs.Though the McCabe Fund is no longer accept-ing inquiries for 2006 grants, basic detailsabout the initiative – and a catalog of recentgrantees – are available on the Web at:www.luminafoundation.org/grants/mccabefund.html.

Below are a few specific pre-college accessprograms. (Though this list is by no meanscomprehensive, it does represent the types ofpre-college access programs now at workacross the country.)

•• TRIO programs: Originally three programs (hence its name), Congress established TRIO to help low-income Americans enter

college, graduate and move on to partici-pate more fully in America's economic and social life. The expanded cluster of programs,all funded under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, work to help students overcome class, social and cultural barriers to higher education. (www.trioprograms.org)

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School: Serving immigrant families of Chicago's near southwest side, this high school offers a Jesuit college-preparatory education through a dual-language curriculum and participation in corporate internships. (www.cristorey.net)

• Ohio College Access Network: The first statewide coordinating body for college access programs in the nation, OCAN was founded in 1999 by KnowledgeWorks Foundation, in collaboration with the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of Education. OCAN is focused on helping Ohio residents pursue postsecondary

As an intern at Sale Creek High School, Cara Ables (left) meets regularly with students such as Amanda Green (center) and Niki Hackney. Cara’s job, developed as part of a program called the Partnership for College Access and Success, is to help students atthe rural high school formulate and implement a concrete plan for college enrollment.

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http://www.collegeaccess.org/NCAN

http://www.luminafoundation.org/grants

http://www.trioprograms.org

http://www.cristorey.net

Papaw, undeterred, stays on topic. He concedes,though, that Amanda “hasn’t mentioned Bryan toomuch, but that’s one that’s close. I think it might bekind of hard to move away.”

“You wouldn’t like me going away?” Amanda asks.“I don’t know,” says her Papaw, a man who has never

strayed far from where he was born, at the foot ofBakewell Mountain and in the shadow of Flat TopMountain, about a mile away. “I’d have to see whereyou’d stay.”

“I’d be willing to start out at a community school,”Amanda offers, “but I’d eventually like to venture outinto a bigger college. I want to be able to know that Ican handle things on my own.”

“I want to experience other stuff,” she says later. “I wantto get out of this town and see what else is out there.”

What’s “out there” is a world quite different from theone Leroy Green grew up in. It’s a new world whoseinterconnected, digital-driven economy requires skilled,adaptable workers. It’s a world in which educationbeyond high school is a necessity for entry into themiddle class. (See related story, Page 4.)

“The knowledge and skills you need to succeed inpostsecondary education are those that you also needto have access to a job that pays reasonably well withgrowth potential,” says Michael Cohen, president ofAchieve Inc., a nonprofit organization created by thenation’s governors and business leaders to help statesraise academic standards and achievement.

Yet students from groups with low college-going

rates continue to encounter barriers that block them –especially if they are first-generation students, low-income students or students of color. Impedimentscome in many forms, from inadequate informationabout college to insufficient financial resources, fromcultural barriers to inadequate K-12 education, fromindecipherable financial aid forms to a simple lack ofplanning.

Students, families and communities seeking to clearthose hurdles must be more purposeful, organized,comprehensive and diligent in their preparation for col-lege, experts say. Hundreds of programs have sprung upto help, many in the past decade. (See the list below fora representative sample.)

Drawing attention to the barriers – and the helpthat’s available to overcome them – is the point of anew public service campaign that will soon hit the air-waves.(See inside front cover.) The effort, developed bythe Ad Council with funding from Lumina Foundationfor Education in partnership with the American Councilon Education, is called the National College AccessCampaign. It seeks to convince low-income, prospec-tive first-generation college students in grades eight to10 that, if they want to go to college, they can’t leave itto chance.

Research conducted by the campaign’s creators revealsthat more than 90 percent of low-income students aged 14-16 plan to earn a college degree. Those aspirations plummetby the time those students reach college-going age. Moreoften than not, their once-high expectations vanish.


F R O N T - P O R C H PAT H F I N D E R S

education by building and supporting local college access programs throughout the state. (www.ohiocan.org/OCAN/)

• Boys and Girls Harbor: Founded in Harlem in 1937, this program seeks to empower children and their families to become full, productive participants in society through education, cultural enrich-ment and social service. Through the devel-opment of a positive self-image and a keenawareness of cultural heritage, the programannually helps more than 4,000 individuals gain the skills and confidence necessary for long-term success in education, careers, family and community life. (www.boysandgirlsharbor.net)

• Advancement Via Individual Determination: AVID was created at Clairemont High School in 1980 in response to San Diego Unified School District's court-ordered integration of the city’s schools. The program

has evolved into a fifth- through 12th-grade system that prepares students in the academic middle for four-year col-lege eligibility. Beginning with one high school and 32 students, the AVID systemis now on the march toward nearly 4,400 schools in 2010. (www.avidonline.org)

• Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs: GEAR UP is a discretionary federal grant program designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. GEAR UP provides six-year grants to states and partnerships to provide services at high-poverty middle and high schools. GEAR UP grantees serve an entire cohort of students beginning no later than the seventh grade and follow the cohort through high school.(www.ed.gov/programs/gearup/index.html)

• Admission Possible: The mission of this program is to help make college admissionpossible for talented, motivated and eco-nomically disadvantaged students in Minnesota by providing ACT test prepara-tion services and admissions and financial aid counseling. (www.admissionpossible.org/home.html)

• College Begins in Kindergarten: Basedon the theory that early exposure to musicand other arts can help to develop the brain’s circuitry, students at Crafton Hills College and its Baroque Festival act as mentors and assistants to provide elemen-tary students opportunities for growth, experimentation and success. (www.craftonhills.edu/chc/CHCcommunity/kindergarten/kindergarten.htm)

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http://www.ohiocan.org/OCAN

http://www.boysandgirlsharbor.net

http://www.avidonline.org

http://www.ed.gov/programs/gearup/index.html

http://www.ed.gov/programs/gearup/index.html

http://www.admissionpossible.org/home.html

http://www.craftonhills.edu/chc/CHCcommunity/kindergarten/kindergarten.htm




The ad campaign, set to roll out this fall, hopes toovercome a lack of information that undermines theaspirations of disadvantaged teens who “live in a kind ofbubble,” say the campaign’s architects. “They know verylittle about how to pursue their dream of a collegeeducation. ... The students are not connected withresources that can help them. ... Instead, [they] say thatcollege will happen if they just get good grades anddon’t get into trouble at home or in school.”

Among other barriers, low-income, ethnic, first-gener-ation students that aspire to graduate from college oftenattend high schools that inadequately prepare studentsfor academic success and have too few resources to helpthem successfully navigate the college-admissionsprocess.

There are cultural impediments, as well. The conver-sation on Leroy Green’s porch speaks volumes about anambivalence toward higher education that often playsout in rural areas, where college campuses are some-times viewed with a measure of suspicion.

“There are perceptions of colleges being immoralplaces that don’t share the rural values that predominatein Chattanooga, the buckle of the Bible Belt,” says DanChallener, president of Chattanooga’s Public EducationFoundation (PEF). “Parents know that if they send theirkids off to college, they might not get them back.”

Then there is the issue of money. College costs arerising more quickly than the availability of funds to helpstudents with financial needs. For as long as AmandaGreen can remember, for example, she has wanted tostudy nursing at Vanderbilt, but she and her family

haven’t saved nearly enough to cover the private insti-tution’s annual tuition, fees, room and board, whichlast year totaled about $42,000.

Still, Amanda perseveres. “I’m a Christian, so Ibelieve that God will take care of me,” she says. “I putmy trust in Him.”

Working to rewrite the song of the South

Like many communities, rural Tennessee is undergo-ing rapid change. As recently as 30 years ago,foundries, factories and farms employed more thanhalf the workers in Chattanooga, which was known asthe Dynamo of Dixie.

With no historical imperative for postsecondaryeducation, Tennessee’s proportion of adults with four-year college degrees is 19.6 percent, ranking it 42ndamong the 50 states. Between 10 percent and 15 per-cent of graduates of Sale Creek High School are thefirst in their families to earn a high school diploma.

Lately, however, most of the well-paying blue-collarjobs have left the South. Today, less than 20 percent ofHamilton County’s workers are employed in the manu-facturing sector, and farmland is being overtaken byresidential development. Interstate 27, formerly a two-lane road, became a divided highway a decade ago, adevelopment that has helped transform rural HamiltonCounty into a burgeoning bedroom community ofChattanooga.

College students Jehoshuah Johnson (left) and Clarence Goines (center) speak to students at Red Bank High School in Chattanooga,Tenn. The classroom visit, part of the Partnership for College Access and Success program, gives teens real-world advice about collegefrom peers who have been there.

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Some longtime residents of the area do not seem tofully grasp the implications of these changes. WhenSale Creek’s guidance counselor, Jenny Smith, arrived atthe school four years ago, students joked that theyplanned to attend “Lazy Boy University,” referring tothe local furniture manufacturer. Layoffs at the companyhave all but ended admissions at “LBU,” but many par-ents still remain unsure about packing their sons anddaughters off to college.

“Their mamas and daddies are afraid that they will getlost, or that they’ll be hungry,” says Devota Barnes,principal at Sale Creek.

Chattanooga’s educators are working to overcome thebarriers that are holding people back. PEF is the leadlocal agency for the Partnership for College Access andSuccess (PCAS) initiative, an eight-city program fundedby Lumina Foundation for Education and administered bythe Academy for Educational Development. PCAS bringstogether a broad variety of organizations – the local schooldistrict, institutions of higher education, community-and faith-based organizations, businesses and government– to help prepare students to succeed in college.

“The idea was, rather than having isolated programs,we should all be working together,” says Susan Street,founder of Chattanooga’s College Access Center,which works to increase the number of residentsfrom Chattanooga and Hamilton County who attendand complete college. “We’ve operated in isolationfor too long.”

PCAS aims to increase family awareness of opportuni-ties for getting into and paying for college. To achievethose goals, the partnership is focusing on threeHamilton County schools that represent diverse urban,suburban and rural populations. Among the strategiesbeing employed are:

College night programs.Retreats for seniors and sophomores.College tours.Test-preparation activities.Training for faculty and administrators.

Chattanooga’s College Access Center also is thecounty’s representative for Tennessee’s annual CollegeGoal Sunday event, a program that encourages andhelps families to complete financial aid forms. The bot-tom line is helping students and parents know how toget into and pay for college.

PCAS chose Chattanooga as one of its eight sites, inpart, because of initiatives already under way there. Thecity participates in the Carnegie Foundation’s Schoolsfor a New Society school-reform initiative. In addition,Hamilton County’s elected officials have taken the con-troversial step of abolishing the high schools’ multitrackcurriculum in favor of an academically rigorous singletrack designed to challenge and prepare all students.

“When that was pushed here, there was a real donny-brook,” recalls PEF’s Challener. “The university and thebusiness leaders turned the tide.”

Employers and educators understand that high school

graduates, even those with high grade-point averages,often are unprepared to do college work. For instance,Amanda Green, who has a 3.4 GPA heading into her sen-ior year, scored well belowthe national average the first time she took the ACT.

“I’m really bad withtests,” she says. “I tend tofreak out.”

Of course, standard-ized tests can’t measurework ethic or grit. Still,in her low moments,Amanda questionswhether she will attainher dream.

“Sometimes I get kindof worried that I won’t beable to,” she says. “I feellike I’ll be here, going toa community college.That’s something I reallydon’t want. I can’t explainwhy. I guess I want toexplore more than here.”

The story is a familiarone to students whostruggle to overcomedemographic disadvan-tages. Consider JacobHuskey. A popular highschool athlete at RedBank High School just north of Chattanooga, Jacobtook what he thought were the classes he needed toprepare for college, earning academic honors. In hissenior year, he took Advanced Placement literature andcomposition. Following graduation, he planned toattend the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

His plans began to unravel at college orientation.Because he had not scored well on the ACT, he had totake a college placement test – without the aid of thepocket calculator he had relied on in high school mathclasses. The result was that Jacob had to take develop-mental classes in math as well as writing before hecould begin taking regular college classes. (More thanhalf the students who attend local colleges requireremedial math, Susan Street says.)

Discouraged, Jacob thought about ditching collegeand joining the military. A relative encouraged him toconsider enrolling in a new program called Camp Tigerat Chattanooga State Technical Community College.Developed as part of the PCAS program, Camp Tiger isan intensive 10-day summer college-prep program. Itexposes students to a range of topics that can help themnavigate the transition to college, including lessons oneffective listening, time management, writing and notetaking, college reading strategies and business etiquette.

“We’ve operated inisolation for

too long,” saysSusan Street ofChattanooga’sCollege Access

Center.


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Jacob completed Camp Tiger and enrolled last fall atChattanooga State, where he took the required devel-opmental classes, among other courses. He finished theyear with a 3.64 GPA and plans to transfer this fall toUT-Chattanooga.

Administrators have already moved to align the edu-cational standards of Hamilton County and Tennesseewith the ACT test that helps determine high schoolgraduates’ postsecondary options. That move acknowl-edges that graduates with high grade-point averagesoften perform poorly on standardized tests and areunprepared for a rigorous college-level curriculum. Tounderscore the seriousness of the overhaul, Sale Creek’sadministrators are requiring teachers to take the ACTthemselves.

The misalignment of high-school curriculum withcollege-entrance tests is pervasive, says Achieve Inc.’sMichael Cohen.

A study completed by the group two years ago deter-mined that, for high school graduates to be prepared tosucceed in college, they need four years of college-preparatory English and four years of math, includingAlgebra I and II, geometry and a fourth year of rigorousmath. A subsequent survey of the 50 states found thatonly two require Algebra II. In addition, the surveylooked at proficiency exams that students must pass toearn a high school diploma in some states. Close to 60percent of the “algebra” questions on those tests actually

measured “pre-algebra” skills, Cohen says. “One reasonour kids don’t learn a lot is we don’t expect or demanda lot,” he points out.

In rural areas and elsewhere, collaboration betweenhigh schools and local colleges is a big step in thedirection of bolstering K-12 education and closing theproficiency gap between high school and college, edu-cators say.

What’s making the difference in high schools? “Dual-enrollment programs and close connections with com-munity colleges and other higher education institutionsnearby,” says Rachel Tompkins, president of the RuralSchool and Community Trust, a national nonprofitorganization based in Arlington, Va. “Kids are able totake some college-credit courses while they are in highschool. They’re building relationships with nearby col-leges. When that happens, you see kids making thetransition to college an easier one.”

The Trust also helps schools to develop community-based learning that engages students. Among the pro-grams that work, she says, are oral history projects withlocal historical societies and science projects that haveclear, practical applications in the local community. Forexample, at Jackson Middle School in Louisiana’s EastFeliciana Parish, students are studying the spike inautomobile crashes involving a growing population ofdeer, which have been driven into the area by hurri-canes and land development.

Program for Latinoscreates diverse andpowerful partnerships

When she was a girl growing upnear the Rio Grande River in theSouth Valley area ofAlbuquerque, N.M., Karen

Sanchez-Griego told her family she dreamedof being a lawyer. Family members cheerfullydismissed the little girl with smiles and con-descending pats on the head.

“They were like, ‘mijita, that’s good,’ ”recalls Sanchez-Griego, using the Hispanicterm of endearment. “I wasn’t encouraged togo to college.” Later, she took the ACT, and likemany students at high schools with largenumbers of poor ethnic students whose par-ents didn’t attend college, she didn’t scorewell on the test. Confronted by a guidancecounselor who suggested that she downsize

her expectations, Sanchez-Griego recalls herdispirited reaction: “I diminished in the chair.”

Shaking off her disappointment, the stub-born girl persevered, persuading an adultfrom her church – a college graduate – tohelp her. With the assistance of this mentor,she enrolled, earned a bachelor’s degree, wenton to earn a master’s degree and became theprincipal of a public school in Albuquerque.Today she is executive director of ENLACE(Engaging Latino Communities for Education)in New Mexico. The program essentially seeksto re-create Sanchez-Griego’s experience on alarger scale.

“Somebody helped me,” Sanchez-Griego says.“If I can’t help somebody else, what’s the point?”

With 13 programs in seven states and afive-year record of success, ENLACE is one ofthe nation’s thousands of initiatives that seekto better prepare underprivileged students forcollege. ENLACE aims to strengthen academicachievement and aspirations and to raise col-lege awareness through the involvement offamilies and community institutions. ENLACE


Karen Sanchez-Griego, executive direc-tor of Engaging Latino Communities forEducation (ENLACE) in New Mexico, wasa first-generation college student her-self. “Somebody helped me,” sherecalled. “If I can’t help somebody else,what’s the point?”

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CO M M U N I T Y CO L L E G E S

also works to improve the alignment of K-12schools and institutions of higher education.The program essentially tries to break downdivisions and barriers so that it can create afamilia of educators working toward a com-mon goal.

The impetus for the program is found intop-line statistics: Latino students are thefastest-growing population in schools today.Nationally, only about 10 percent of Latinohigh school graduates attend college. Latinoand other low-income students are signifi-cantly less likely than their peers from mid-dle- and high-income families to complete acollege-prep curriculum in high school,according to ENLACE.

As a result, Latino students and studentsfrom other ethnic backgrounds are less pre-pared than white students to do college work.Among Hispanic high school graduates whogo to college, 58 percent require remedialcourses in literacy or math, according to datacompiled by the New Mexico HigherEducation Department. The remediation rate

is 66 percent for American Indians, 55 percentfor blacks (a small percentage of New Mexico’spopulation), and 36 percent for whites.

Funded by a $4.6 million startup grantfrom the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, NewMexico’s three ENLACE programs – inAlbuquerque, Santa Fe and the northern partof the state – bring together diverse partici-pants. In Albuquerque, those partners includethe University of New Mexico and its lawschool, the local school district and its admin-istrators, elected members of the schoolboard, teachers, guidance counselors, parentsand students in various stages of the educa-tional pipeline – including law school stu-dents, undergraduates, high school studentsand middle school kids.

A critical aspect of ENLACE’s efforts is thecollaboration between local universities andschool districts. “Given the changes in demo-graphics, if we don’t do a better job of closingthe gap between Latino and Anglo [highschool] graduation rates, the entire universitysystem in New Mexico will go into an enroll-

ment death spiral,” says Dr. Reed Dasenbrock,provost of the University of New Mexico. “Ourability to reach into the school system andaffect the culture is crucial.”

ENLACE also complements states’ initia-tives. New Mexico is among a number ofstates that provide a financial incentive forstudents to stay in school and prepare for col-lege. The New Mexico Lottery SuccessScholarship promises to pay tuition for recentgraduates of state high schools (and earnersof general equivalency degrees) who enrollfull-time in college immediately after gradua-tion. To be eligible, a student must be a NewMexico resident, complete at least 12 credithours during the first semester of college witha 2.5 GPA, and enroll full time for each semes-ter thereafter. Students who remain eligiblecan receive the scholarship for up to four con-secutive semesters at a two-year institutionand up to eight consecutive semesters at afour-year institution. By law, students are eli-gible for scholarships regardless of theirimmigration status.

Jacob Huskey’s road to college had a few unexpected bumps, but a 10-day summer college-prep program called Camp Tiger gave himthe tools he needed to succeed. With his developmental classes complete, he’ll soon attend the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

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“They’re using GPS (global positioning system tech-nology) to help the highway department know whereto put signs,” Tompkins says.

Such programs help break through the persistent, neg-ative stereotypes about the rural poor – stereotypes that,if not confronted, have a way of becoming internalized.

“There is a culture of low expectations that has to bechallenged,” says Leslie Lilly, president and CEO of theFoundation for Appalachian Ohio, based inNelsonville. “When the name Appalachia comes out,people think about shoeless hillbillies … or they thinkabout this remote, rural place where people live in thehollers.”

“Right (near) here in Athens, we have this world-class university (Ohio University), but people growingup in the shadows of the university don’t think it’s forthem,” Lilly says. “They think it’s for somebody else.They feel they aren’t worthy of it and can’t afford it.”

A difficult past, but a hopeful future

To celebrate her 27th birthday this summer, AngelaSepulveda attended a Pat Benatar concert. The rocker’shit songs include Hit Me With Your Best Shot, an anthemof perseverance in the face of hard knocks. Sepulvedacan relate.

She became pregnant in the 10th grade and droppedout of West Mesa High School in Albuquerque, a deci-sion she didn’t regret one bit at the time. With theexception of English, she disliked her classes, especiallymath. And she had even less affinity for the “rude”white women who taught them.

“Class was just not interesting,” Sepulveda recalls.“Nowadays they have a lot of hands-on stuff. When Iwent to school, it was just blah-blah-blah.”

She gave birth to a daughter, Erika. Sepulveda saysshe left Erika’s father to escape his drinking and physi-cal abuse. She met another man, and he fathered a second daughter, LeAnn. He went to prison for tryingto stab Sepulveda.

She dreams of earning an associate’s degree in busi-ness and getting a good job that will afford her girls abetter life. “I picture working in a big, huge, majorcompany or a law office or something,” she says, butshe has a long way to go. The first step is to earn hergeneral equivalency degree (GED). So far, she haspassed all but one part of the test. Her old nemesis,math, continues to trip her up.

Sepulveda is matter-of-fact about her troubles, buther demeanor changes when the conversation turns toher children’s future.

“Now you’re going to make me cry,” she says. “I wantthem to graduate school. I want them to have a goodjob. I don’t want them going down the same path I did.”

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With younger daughter LeAnn Young in her arms, Angela Sepulveda talks with ENLACE counselor Brenda Chavez about how to stay ontrack to earn her GED. Sepulveda hopes to go on to college, in part to show her two daughters the path to a better life.

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In Albuquerque and other Latino strongholds, parentslike Angela Sepulveda are getting involved in theirchildren’s schools through a Lumina-funded programcalled Engaging Latino Communities for Education(ENLACE). (See related story, Page 10.)

ENLACE is a multiyear initiative working in sevenstates to strengthen the educational pipeline andincrease opportunities for Latinos to enter and completecollege. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided startupfunds for the program, which creates partnershipsamong universities, community colleges, K-12 schools,community-based organizations, students and parents.

Eager to promote parental involvement as a keymeans of improving children’s preparation for college,ENLACE has worked with educational leaders to estab-lish 25 on-site family centers in Albuquerque schools.ENLACE envisions the centers as safe places whereparents and other community partners can support,empower and encourage Latino students and families.

Students come to the centers to get help with theirhomework, to prepare for the ACT and SAT, and to bearound supportive adults. The parents learn about col-lege entrance exams, financial aid forms and otherintricacies of the college access maze.

“Our networking comes from talking to the nurse,the teacher, the principal, the counselors – talking tothe janitor and the maintenance man. It’s a total com-munity,” says Brenda Chavez, who works in theENLACE centers. She has a daughter and a niece inthe program, and she has been a mentor to Sepulveda.“It’s [about] working together. It’s the environment ofleaning on each other.”

“We already know that kids want to learn,” Chavezsays. “The obstacles that come in between all that makeit hard for kids.”

Collaboration is keyAnd it’s not only the youngsters who confront

obstacles. For instance, before the family centers couldbe effective, many Latino parents had to overcometheir fear of public schools. Then, after the parents haddiscovered their voice, some school administratorsdeemed the parents overly assertive. A few years intothe experiment, however, both sides say the difficultperiod of accommodation was worth the struggle.

“This is a collaboration among communities,” saysJudy Touloumis, principal of Carlos Rey ElementarySchool. That type of collaboration is key to a successfulprogram, experts say.

A recent Lumina-funded project surveyed a number ofENLACE-type programs to learn what makes them effec-tive (see box above). This study shows that the mostimportant step is to transform parents from individual, pas-sive bystanders into a network of active community leaders.

Here’s what worksAccording to Amy Aparicio Clark, director of the Postsecondary Access forLatino Middle Grades Students (PALMS) Project, five traits characterizesuccessful pre-college programs:1. Visiting parents and students in their homes.2. Offering parent-child learning activities.3. Having a professional home-school liaison to connect parents with

teachers and administrators.4. Developing the skills parents need to be involved in their children’s

schools.5. Encouraging parents’ ownership of programs designed to help their

children succeed in college.

“Our biggest word is collaboration,” says ViolettaBluitt, who began mentoring and tutoring students atWashington Middle School through ENLACE’s LosCompañeros program while she was an undergraduatestudent at the University of New Mexico (UNM). After graduating from UNM in 2004, she became anENLACE educational-site coordinator.

The Los Compañeros program brings undergraduateand graduate students into high schools and middleschools to promote academic and personal successthrough culturally relevant mentoring. During a recentvisit to Washington Middle School’s family center inAlbuquerque, students clustered according to immigrantstatus (with American-born kids of Mexican parentscongregating in one group, the Mexican immigrants inanother, and so on). High school and college studentshelped the middle-schoolers with their schoolwork,acculturation and social development.

The children are well aware of the immigrationdebate that raged in Congress this spring, including aproposal to make felons of people who are in the coun-try illegally.

“Kids with illegal relatives at home tend to shrinkfrom public engagement at schools for fear of drawingattention to the family,” says Alex Chough, associatedirector of policy, research and evaluation services atthe National Council for Community and EducationPartnerships. Threatening to make felons of illegalimmigrants “will drive parents deeper underground andmake them less involved in school,” he says.

“A lot of the students have just gotten here fromMexico,” says Bluitt. “I had students who were havingproblems at home. A lot of them were living withgrandparents they called ‘mom and dad.’ Some of theparents were in jail or in another state. ... A lot of themare here illegally. They come here for a better life.”

As a Latina herself, Bluitt says she understands culturalissues, such as machismo and the tyranny of low expec-tations, which can undermine college aspirations. “Theyfeel like they’re going to be made fun of,” she says of

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Francisco Hernandez (center), a student at WashingtonMiddle School in Albuquerque, talks with a visiting collegestudent during a mentoring session. The sessions, part ofENLACE’s Los Compañeros program, help children fromimmigrant families make the transition into the college-going culture.

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students on the periphery. “As a Mexicana (anAmerican-born child of Mexican parents), I alwaysunderestimated myself. ... No one told me I could takeAP classes or honors classes.”

Bluitt, who is married and raising two children of herown, sees her role with Los Compañeros as being a cru-cial catalyst for change. “As long as you help that onestudent, that student will help another,” she says.

“Parents need to be very involved if they want theirchildren to succeed,” Bluitt adds. The biggest hurdle thatunderserved children must overcome is “not believing inthemselves. They take every little thing as a sign that ‘Ican’t go to college.’ Sometimes they just need somebodyto say ‘Good job! I knew you could do this.’ ”

Jacqueline Montoya, a 10th-grader who wants to bean engineer, began hanging out at an ENLACE familycenter that is frequented by her adult aunt, BrendaChavez. ENLACE is “an opportunity to keep me out oftrouble,” says Jacqueline, who sees danger at every turn.Her friend, a former cheerleader and straight-A student,dropped out of school last year when she became preg-nant. Jacqueline’s father, who has struggled with drugs,is absent. Then there are the gangs, which have flour-ished in Albuquerque for generations. “Gangs are a bigproblem,” says Jacqueline’s mother, Sharon Montoya,who works in a public school. “I hear kids say: ‘I candrop out and sell drugs.’ ”

Chough, of the National Council for Communityand Education Partnerships, points to studies that show“students set academic ambitions no later than seventhgrade, but for a seventh-grade Latino student, there arebarriers everywhere.”

“Our model for higher education just isn’t working forlower-income students,” says Chough. Many of thosebarriers are perceptual, he adds, noting that Latino fami-lies consistently overestimate the cost of college, a mis-calculation that can have dire consequences.

“If you don’t think you can afford college, why takechemistry and physics?” asks David Murray, president ofMurray & Associates and the National Center forCollege Costs, which helps families prepare for college,in part by helping them to understand college costs.

Murray and his staff offer workshops for students atmiddle schools and high schools that serve high per-centages of low-income, potentially first-generationcollege students. When families have the tools todemystify the processes of college admissions andfinancial aid, students are more likely to take rigoroushigh school classes, earn more honors diplomas, scorehigher on the SAT, and change their college enrollmentplans, Murray says. Programs like these are vital, hesays, because too little public money is available to offersuch programs in schools where they’re needed most.

“When it comes to investing in education, for the last20 years, nationally, we’ve lost sight of that investment.It’s all coming home to roost now,” Murray warns. “Ifwe don’t get a handle on that and get the investmentback into education, we’re going to suffer serious economic and social consequences.”


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Chase Frazer, a 22-year-old senior at the State University of New York-Albany, talks about college dreams with Emmanuel Flowers, afifth-grader at Martin Luther King School in Syracuse, N.Y. The discussion was part of the Early Awareness Program of On Point forCollege, a Syracuse-based pre-college awareness and access organization.

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A transformative programbegins with one person

Teenagers Chase Frazer and Tamica Barnett had noreason to believe that a savior would appear to them atthe Fayette Street Boys and Girls Club in Syracuse,N.Y. They figured the first time they met VirginiaDonohue would be the last.

“When Ginny showed up (in 1999), there had been alot of people coming into the inner city trying to startprograms, and we figured that she was just another per-son coming in trying to get government money,” saidChase, 22. “Ginny kept coming back every singleweek. People started to notice that she cared aboutwhat was happeningwith kids in the community.”

Donohue is thefounder and drivingforce behind On Pointfor College, a non-profit organizationthat helps inner-citystudents get into col-lege. She and the pro-gram’s two full-timecounselors work onthe theory that littlethings can make a bigdifference. They helpstudents with financialaid forms, transcripts,immunizations, men-toring, test taking,campus visits, pre-college orientationsand other aspects ofpaving the way to college. The program has paid feesto release transcripts needed by students seeking totransfer from community colleges to four-year institu-tions. One time Donohue even wrote out a personalcheck for $35 to cover the cost of a student’s languageproficiency test – a last-minute rescue that preventedthe student from forfeiting $35,000 in scholarships.

About the same time that Chase met Donohue, helost his best friend – a young man gunned down on thestreets of Syracuse. Chase had befriended the teen aftermoving east a few years earlier with his family toescape street violence in Los Angeles. Chase’s father isin prison, serving a life sentence.

“On Point was a great help in getting me really excitedabout college,” says Chase, a senior at the StateUniversity of New York-Albany. His goal is to earn adoctorate and become a college professor. “I don’t thinkGinny knows how much of a change she’s actually made.”

Before meeting Donohue, Tamica Barnett had spenther entire life in a crime- and drug-ridden Syracuse

neighborhood. She had moved out of her parents’house and taken up residence with her grandparents,near the Boys and Girls Club.

“I had a few friends who got caught up hanging outon the block, friends who got pregnant – the norm,”Tamica recalls. “If it wasn’t for On Point, I honestlydon’t think I would have gone to college. I really didn’thave the parental support. … “I didn’t know the firstthing about filling out financial aid papers.”

With help from On Point, Tamica found her way outof the streets and into St. Bonaventure University, aprivate Catholic university three hours away. She grad-uated recently and now aspires to earn an MBA degree.

It can be dangerous for Syracuse teens to ventureinto unfamiliar neighborhoods – three kids in the pro-

gram were murderedlast year – so On Pointcomes to them, makingregularly scheduled vis-its to 15 or so Boys andGirls Clubs and otherplaces where studentsgather, such as theSouthwest CommunityCenter.

During a recentvisit there, Donohueand counselors KaralineCarr and Sam Rowserfielded questions andoffered advice to severalwould-be students,including a 26-year-oldsingle mother, a 1999high school dropoutwho wanted to attend anursing program.

About a third of thekids that On Point sends to college have a GED in lieuof a high school diploma, says Donohue. Many ofthose GEDs were earned in jail or prison. More thanhalf of the African-American students who drop out ofschool can expect to be incarcerated, she says.

On Point connects with kids in part because the pro-gram is connected to the streets. Rowser understandsthat life. He’s from “the Bricks,” the term locals use forthe brick buildings that constitute Syracuse’s housingproject, and he’s had his share of troubles. (See Page 19for another tale from “the Bricks.”) When Rowser wasyounger, involvement with drugs bought him a two-year prison term, an experience that gives him credibil-ity with some inner-city youngsters.

“When a kid comes to me and says, ‘I have a felony.’ Isay, ‘Me, too.’ When a kid says, ‘I’ve been on crack,’ I say,‘What’s next?’ I made some bad decisions and had to paythe consequences,” Rowser says. “I do what I do because Iunderstand that kids make mistakes. ... It’s hard for thekids to see beyond what is immediately in front of them.”

Virginia Donohue, founder of On Point for College, has been known foryears on the rough streets of Syracuse as “the college lady.”

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From refugee camp to urban peril to college campus

Two boys meet at a refugee camp onAfrica’s west coast and become bestfriends. They discover much in com-mon. They love to play soccer. They

dream of a better life, though visions of col-lege aren’t part of that dream.

Messan Agbossoumonde and DodjiKoudakpo were not yet 10 in 1993, when theyand their families fled a war in Togo andcrossed that country’s eastern border to takerefuge in the republic of Benin. The camp was adangerous place. Messan’s father died there.The focus was on staying alive.

In 2000, the boys immigrated to the UnitedStates. Messan arrived in Syracuse, N.Y., and,after a two-year stay in Texas, Dodji moved toSyracuse as well.

Syracuse, they learned, has problems, too.Crime, drugs, gangs and prostitution challengethe city, particularly in the poorest neighbor-hoods, including the housing projects known as

“the Bricks.” Seduced by the streets, kids dropout of school at an alarming rate. Half of thecity’s public-school students don’t make it to12th grade. Less than 30 percent of African-American males get that far. The odds didn’tbode well for a couple of African immigrants.

The boys got lucky, though. They met GinnyDonohue, founder of On Point for College.

The program is a classic grassroots, church-basement program that started by accident. Inthe late 1980s, Donohue’s daughter asked herto help a high school friend gain admission tocollege, and she did. Then two students in aprogram for chronically homeless studentsasked her for similar help.

For years Donohue operated her fledglingenterprise out of a black Toyota Camry “that bot-tomed out because of so many college catalogs inthe car,” she recalls. She put 250,000 miles on thatvehicle, which became well-known in Syracuse as“the college lady’s car.” Donohue likes to tell of thetime that a 6-foot-7 kid stepped in front of herCamry and blocked her path out of the projects.She assumed a car jacking was in progress, butthe young man only wanted to ask her if shecould help him get into Morrisville State College.

“The word had spread,” she says. In 1999, 10 years after helping her daugh-

ter’s friend, Donohue quit her job as a corpo-rate vice president, founded On Point, andbecame a full-time advocate for inner-city kidswho want to attend college. The program turnsaway no one. Many of the kids it has helpedhave enrolled in college in spite of significantbarriers. Donohue expects to pass a milestonethis year: 1,000 college placements.

By the time Dodji and Messan happenedalong, the program was in full swing. A manfrom Catholic Charities introduced Messan toDonohue in 2001. She helped the boys with col-lege visits, applications, clothes and rent money.At the time, Dodji and Messan were working 20to 30 hours a week in retail jobs to pay the renton their apartment. (Occupancy limitations pre-cluded them from living with their families.)

“Ginny was there,” says Dodji, a rising seniorat Syracuse University, where he is majoring ininformation technology. “She’s like a secondmom for us.”

Messan recently graduated from St. LawrenceUniversity, where he majored in French and soci-ology. He’s thinking about studying law atSyracuse. “A lot of teenagers and people my agereally need help, but people don’t know how totake advantage of it,” he says. “Ginny has ananswer for every question.”

Dodji Koudakpo (left) and MessanAgbossoumonde, who were refugees in the war-torn West African country of Togo,have found new hope in New York.

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On Point shepherds kids through the gauntlet of college admissions by breaking the process into man-ageable steps. Rowser says he is careful never to giveprospective college students more than they can han-dle. Usually that means no more than three tasks at atime. “I try to not let them see the whole process,” hesays. “You piecemeal it to them so that they don’tbecome overwhelmed.”

Several times a week, the program arranges to takestudents on visits to college campuses. Donohue hasrecruited some 90 volunteers to drive the vans, includ-ing Tom Young, a former mayor of Syracuse. On Point,which also ferries students to and from their campuses,logged 377 college trips last year alone.

“A big reason local kids fail is transportation,” saysDonohue, who has seen students drop out of collegefor lack of a ride back to campus after coming homefor Thanksgiving. “If it’s a choice between food and abus ticket, food will always win.”

On Point acknowledges that poor, first-generationcollege students also need support after they enroll.The program provides students with clothing, bedding,backpacks and school supplies. It also tries to identify acampus “angel,” usually an admissions officer or a vicepresident, who will help students when problems arise.

To expand its reach, On Point enlists its “graduates”to recruit other kids into the program and to give cam-pus tours when the program’s vans visit their colleges.Eager to reach youngsters earlier in the educationalpipeline, On Point’s Early Awareness Program brings itsambassadors into community centers and elementaryschools. Chase and Tamica recently spoke to a group offifth-graders at Martin Luther King School, one of adozen Syracuse schools that have asked On Point students to visit.

Chase and Tamica talked to the kids about the impor-tance of staying in school and challenging themselvesacademically, and of associating with the right kinds of people. “College is essential,” Tamica told them.

She and Chase asked the youngsters what they want tobe when they grow up. Hands flew into the air. Most of thekids said they want to be singers or professional athletes.

“They think they can be in the NBA or be a rapper,but that’s not real life,” Chase says later. “We have tochange their perspective of what success is.”

John Pulley, a longtime staff writer for “The Chronicle of Higher Education,” is now a freelance journalist who specializes in education issues.

Students from Capital High School in Santa Fe, N.M., are getting a leg up on college thanks to a rigorous college-preparatory programcalled AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). Participants include (clockwise, from left): Jeanette Rodriguez, teacherChannell Wilson-Segura, Luis Rosales, Carmen Gallegos, Erika Reyes and Yalithza Lopez. Reyes, who completed the program, is nowstudying nursing at Santa Fe Community College.

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Writing: John Pulley • Editing: David S. Powell • Editorial assistance: Gloria Ackerson and Dianna BoycePhotography: Shawn Spence Photography; photo on Page 5 © Irene Owsley • Design: Huffine Design

Production assistance: Freedonia Studios • Printing: Jackson Press

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