• Home Delivery
• Customer Services
• Contact Us

Print | Email |

UVA guides show teens college trail

UVA college guides came to UVa-Wise Friday as part of a tour of 22 colleges and universities across Virginia this summer. Photo by Stephen Igo.

 

WISE - If only there was a guide to take high school seniors by the hand and show them the path to college, many of the kids who may have the impression higher education is out of reach may find that trail is not so steep or perilous after all.

That was the thinking of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which led to the 2005 inaugural year of the college "guides" program at the university. The idea is as simple as it is brilliant: Send recent UVA graduates to assist high school counselors for a school year to help nudge high school students toward college.

The foundation pays a total of $20,000 to each guide, with $5,000 of that applicable to current or future college loans, such as law school. The school divisions don't pay a dime for their college guides, and there certainly aren't enough to go around for every school system in Virginia. This year 23 UVA guides will be "imbedded" in the communities of their appointed high schools across Virginia, said Nicole Hurd, coordinator of the program as well as UVA's assistant dean of arts and sciences, and director of the UVA Center for Undergraduate Excellence.

"The fun part of the program, I think, is that none of our guides are school counselor-trained graduates. They represent a cross-section of the academic disciplines," Hurd said during a tour of the University of Virginia's College at Wise on Friday. "We have engineering, religious studies, history, nursing - just about every major you can think of, going out to high schools for a year to help guidance counselors show students who may think college is beyond their means, and may not be considering college as an option after high school, that college can be accessible and affordable and, yes, achievable."

Hurd brought 14 of her 2006-07 installment of college guides to UVa-Wise as part of a tour of 22 colleges and universities across Virginia this summer. Guides get a feel for the institutions firsthand in order to be able to discuss with some familiarity the range of options available in higher education, and perhaps help "guide" students to a college that would be a good fit for their interests, personalities and needs.

Allison Walthall of Roanoke, for example, is a recent UVA computer engineering grad. She had no idea UVa-Wise is prepared to launch a software engineering program this fall semester and lit up a smile only a brand-new computer engineer could at the discovery.

"I think that's just great. It will be good for this area, and good for students who want to pursue computer careers like I did when I went to UVA," she said.

Walthall said she would "most definitely" keep UVa-Wise in mind if high school students she meets this coming school year express an interest in the discipline.

"I'll be able to say, ‘Oh, I know a college in a really pretty part of the state that you might like if you want to pursue that,' " she said.

UVa-Wise Chancellor for Enrollment Management Rusty Necessary told the group of new guides that "you will change lives" by serving their year with high school students. He said youths of meager means need reminding by recent college graduates that college is for them as well as anyone else, and used his own personal story to emphasize his point. His father was a high school dropout and a blue-collar worker, and neither of his parents had any familiarity with college, he said, so his enthusiasm for the UVA guides program wasn't just for show on Friday.

Paulin Cheatham, a 2005 UVA grad with a degree in history, served as a guide during last year's launch of the program and liked it so well he's taking another tour of duty. Last year he served at Holston High School in Damascus.

"It was a lot of fun. Very enjoyable. A lot of the students I worked with last year had that mind-set that ‘I don't have the means to go to college.' And I got along fine with everybody down there, because I'm from a rural community myself and I went to college and now have my degree," said the Surry County native. "We talk to them about college admissions and financial aid, and what they need to do (academically) in high school to prepare for college, and be successful in college."

Vivian Uwamaka is a 2006 UVA American politics and religious studies grad. She heard about the guides program from a friend, and the next thing she knew she was touring 22 colleges across the state. Uwamaka said she wanted to take a year off from her own plans to continue her studies, and plans to go to law school after her year as a guide.

"I wanted to do a job, basically, that had some impact on people not so much younger than I am now. And this is better than I was even hoping to find," said the Midlothian native of the guides program.

Necessary told the new guides that UVa-Wise is "a place where a student can come and be a big fish in a small pond."

Getting swallowed up in a 25,000-plus student population won't happen at UVa-Wise, he said, with 2,000 students and faculty and staff who act more like an extended family than an aloof academic bureaucracy.

He told the guides a UVa-Wise student from Richmond wanted to play soccer, but there wasn't an organized soccer program at the college - until she organized one with the full blessing and support of UVa-Wise.

"If there is something students want here at UVa-Wise, this is a place where they are empowered and encouraged to do it," he said.

The liberal arts college - the only branch campus of UVA - seeks to produce problem solvers, critical thinkers, collaborative people who can integrate technology into their lives and careers, he said, as well as foster the leadership and social skills that are unlikely to be emphasized at many other colleges and universities.

Necessary said the guides program proved its worth to him as a result of its inaugural year. UVa-Wise received 33 applications from high school graduates of schools served by the program the previous year, a number that went to 70 applications after the first year the guides program was launched.

There were just five applications from Patrick County students to UVa-Wise in 2004-05, he said, and 29 after the guides program served that county in 2005-06.

"We had a great experience with this program last year," Necessary said. "They promote access and college affordability and what the opportunities are that out there, and I just believe this is one of the best programs to come along in quite awhile."

"Our guides are really excited about their public service to high school students," said Hurd. "The idea being to partner with guidance counselors and be really excited by the academic bug."

Home | Login | Local News | Obits | Sports | Business | Opinions | Blogs | Classifieds| Business Profiles

Web Feeds/RSS | Contact Us | Customer Service | Privacy Statement | Common Questions | E-Edition | Subscriptions | Site Map

© 2010 Kingsport Publishing Corporation - Innovation by Times Digital Group