Upward Bound program intense

Kristin Harty
Cumberland Times-News

July 05, 2009 10:18 pm

— FROSTBURG — For Nikki Everett, a typical summer day starts around 6 a.m. and includes more than four hours in a classroom, where she studies math, science, writing, literature, and preps for the SAT.
Not exactly the “lazy days of summer” many teenagers dream about.
But Everett, 15, doesn’t want to just hang out.
She’s Upward Bound.
“It’s like school on steroids,” said Everett, one of about 70 Allegany County students participating in the college-prep program at Frostburg State University. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Upward Bound is designed for students who will be the first in their families to attend college, or whose families are low-income.
“Some people don’t really dig it because they’re not that into school,” Everett said. “But it’s really fun.”
Students who qualify attend a six-week summer “camp” at FSU, where they live in dormitories and attend high school-level classes in campus buildings. The idea is to encourage good study habits and expose students to college life so that it’s more familiar and less intimidating.
Academically — and socially — it’s an intense experience.
“It can be overwhelming,” said Steven Flanagan, a fifth-year senior at FSU who participated in Upward Bound for four years when he was in high school. Now he’s a tutor counselor who with seven other “TCs” lives in the dorms with students and serves as a role model.
“It has great things for students who struggle with study skills and things like that,” said Flanagan, 22. “The main thing for me, it helped me get acclimated to college life. I mean, you live on a campus. You live with people you might not even know.”
Flanagan’s Upward Bound experiences helped him to spread his proverbial wings and fly all the way to Spain, where he spent last year in a study abroad program.
“Not a lot of our students go into college thinking about that kind of possibility,” said Tim Malloy, director of FSU’s Upward Bound, founded in 1979 and one of more than 800 programs in the country. Participants also attend Upward Bound activities every other Saturday during the school year.
“It’s a big commitment on the part of the students,” Malloy said. “It’s a good opportunity for them, too.”
About 90 percent of FSU’s Upward Bound graduates go on to college each year, Malloy said, most to FSU or Allegany College of Maryland. About 45 percent graduate from college.
“I think we have a fairly good rate,” said Malloy, adding that staff works with students to identify financial aid and scholarship opportunities.
During the summer program, students stay on campus Monday through Friday, returning home on the weekends. Recreation and other activities fill afternoons and evenings, and the group takes several field trips, visiting museums and historical sites — and other college campuses.
Last week, they all dressed up and attended a “formal dinner” at the Lane University Center for a crash course in table manners.
Some of the basics:
• Eat with utensils. Never use your hands (except for a dinner roll).
• Never season food before tasting it.
• Chew with your mouth closed.
“That’s a pretty basic one, right?” said Eric Barker, manager of FSU’s Chesapeake Dining Hall, who explained more abstruse rules, such as don’t pick up your fork if you drop it, and always hold a goblet by the stem.
“That one about crossing your utensils on the plate when you’re done eating, I didn’t know that one,” said Keirstyn Younger, 16, who attends Fort Hill High School and has participated in Upward Bound for three years. She hopes to eventually attend FSU.
“I’m not very mannerful,” Younger said. “I don’t go to big occasions like this, so coming here helps me learn better manners.”
Everett, who will be a sophomore at Mountain Ridge High School this fall, doesn’t know where she wants to go to college yet.
But she plans to go.
“This encourages it so much if I don’t go to college, everybody here would come and kick my butt,” she said.
Contact Kristin Harty at kharty@times-news.com.

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