| Susie P. Gonzalez | 210-999-8406 | susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu |
Trinity University Receives $1.8 Million Upward Bound Grant |
| Aug. 5, 2003 – The United States Department of Education has awarded a $1.8 million grant to the Upward Bound program at Trinity University, whose funding proposal was ranked as being among the top 10 percent. The national grant will support the Trinity program for the next five years. In September, Trinity’s Upward Bound program will begin its 24th year under the direction of Joyce McQueen. “We have learned over the years that students who could be considered at risk for not attending college are four times more likely to graduate from college after going through Upward Bound,” Ms. McQueen says. For the 2003 program year, every student completing the program has been accepted to a college or university. Trinity's Upward Bound program serves 65 students from the high schools
in the Harlandale and Edgewood school districts,
and Robert E. Lee High School and the International School of the Erica Clarkson learned of the Upward Bound program during the summer before she entered Harlandale High School in 1987. “You really didn’t think about college then,” she recalls. “If you did, you saw it as something you wouldn’t be able to do. You thought, ‘how could we afford it?”’ Ms. Clarkson graduated from Harlandale in 1991. She not only ended up going to college at Baylor University, but she received a degree in nursing and is now a school nurse at her alma mater, Harlandale High School. “People who go through Upward Bound enjoy giving back to the program and to the community,” Ms. McQueen says. The Trinity program has two phases. During the academic year, students attend 14 Saturday workshops on the Trinity campus, participate in small group counseling, visit college campuses, attend admissions and financial aid workshops, and learn about college life. Trinity University students tutor the students and serve as role models for student participants. During the five-week summer program, Upward Bound students attend classes, counseling sessions, tutoring sessions, cultural events, and field trips. During the summer after graduating from high school, students enter the Bridge program. They are enrolled in a college course at Trinity University or at a San Antonio community college, live in the residence halls at Trinity, and learn to adjust to the freedoms and frustrations of college life. As the director of Upward Bound, Ms. McQueen receives help from two Trinity University professors, an instructor provided by Princeton Review to conduct SAT Preparation courses for rising juniors and seniors, seven teachers from the local school districts, Trinity University students, and graduates of the Upward Bound program who return in order to encourage students in the program. |
|
Back to the Trinity Today Page The Trinity Home Page |
Last updated on August 7, 2003 by the Office of Public Relations |