Wittenberg University’s and its TRIO Upward Bound Program celebrated the Second Annual Upward Bound Visit Day on March 31 in the alumni room of the Benham-Pence Student Center. The visited hosted over 15 eighth grade students and their families from around Clark County.
Jewel Woods, the Academic and Career Education Coordinator for the program told us that Upward Bound “is the lifeline for those students who typical don’t have the means to make their college dream a reality.” He went further to tell The Torch that he himself went through the program when he was younger and the program was “the sort of glue that connected my academic life to my career and life plans I didn’t have.”
According to the TRIO Upward Bound Wittenberg website the organization is, “a pre-college preparatory program that is designed to motivate and provide academic skills for students from first-generation college and low-income families who are interested in pursuing an educational program beyond high school.”
At the visited day, students were immersed with a variety of different presentations about financial aid, admissions, and a selection of career fields they can choose to go into after college. Other presentations were given to the students in the form of workshops. Wittenberg’s associate professor of Philosophy, Julius Bailey, presented a workshop on hip-hop that was very well received, and Carmiele Wilkerson, associate professor of English, talked to the students about how to map their futures and gain a head start on their very-own vision boards.
Their day would also partake in them going on a tour of the campus and participating in a panel discussion where they were able to ask current Wittenberg students any questions they might have about college. The last thing the students and their parents would do before they left campus was fill-out an application for the program itself.
For more information about Wittenberg University’s TRIO Upward Bound program, visit http://www5.wittenberg.edu/academics/upward_bound.html.
