In 1987, the university began the Upward Bound Program that continues today.
According to the Upward Bound Program page found on the Southeastern website, “The purpose of the Upward Bound Program is to generate in low-income and first generation high school students, the academic strength, skills and motivation required to ensure their success in postsecondary education. The program is designed to better prepare selected students to enter and complete a postsecondary educational program after the completion of high school.”
The Upward Bound Program is designed to help high school students who may come from low income families whose parents did not attend college.
“It [Upward Bound Program] currently serves 425 first-generation college students, meaning neither parent has a college degree,” said Director of Upward Bound Programs Ron Abel. “When I say college student, I mean these are pre-college students.”
The Upward Bound Program currently has five different Upward Bound grants aimed with particular goals.
“Three of them [grants] are what we call the Classic Upward Bound grants,” said Abel. “This grant serves students preparing them for majors in any field. We have two others, math and science Upward Bound grants that prepare students for the STEM field: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”
The program currently has 12 full-time staff members which include a director, five assistant directors and six outreach specialist. According to Abel, Upward Bound works with the students in several ways during the week, and the outreach specialist are kind of like counselors.
“First of all, we keep the students we work with after school, and we become like their high school counselors,” said Abel. “We do with them what a counselor would do with the time and resources. We help students prep for the ACT. We help them determine what college they are going to go to. We help them apply to that college. We help them identify scholarships, [and] help them apply for those scholarships. When they get into those schools, we help them apply for classes, help them get in there and help them figure out how they are paying for it. We help them stay above a 2.5 GPA in the core curriculum in high school so they can graduate and move forward. We also work with them and help them bring their ACT score up so they can score the required 20 points to get TOPS.”
Saturday is another day during the school year in which the Upward Bound Program works with the high school students.
“On Saturdays, they [high school students] come to the university and take courses,” said Abel. “Some from professors, others from certified teachers, and strengthen their skills so they can do better at their core courses in school and prepare them for college classes.”
After the school year is done and summer arrives, the Upward Bound Program helps to enrich the student’s educational lives through the campus.
“When summer comes, we bring the schools to campus, and they’ll live in the dormitories, eat in the cafeteria and attend classes for six weeks,” said Abel. “They are here Sunday through Thursday late. Their coursework in the 9th and 10th grade is to prepare them for the core curriculum so they can do better in that. When they become juniors and seniors, they work on college credit based on what their ACT indicates. If they are not in advanced enrollment English 101 and Math, they’ll take classes with us to get ready for that. If they are English 101 ready, they will take that with us.”
The summer also offers students a chance to take full-credit college classes, which according to Abel will change from year to year depending on faculty availability. Students will also participate in a physical fitness and cultural enrichment class.
“The kids who take college credit classes are taught by the faculty, and their coursework is exactly the same as Southeastern students would have,” said Abel. “The students in the summer participate in evening classes that help them build their skills in cultural enrichment and in getting more healthy. They will have one class in the evening that is a physical fitness type class, and the other will be a cultural class like drama or choir or art, visual arts and things like that. At the end of the summer, the students will put on a performance in what they have done with the cultural classes at the Columbia Theatre. And it is what we call cultural night and we invite the parents and family members to come attend.”
According to Abel, a seventh week of summer is offered for the top students in which they will attend an education cultural enrichment field trip as well as have a chance to visit other college campuses.
After the students become seniors and graduate, the Upward Bound Program will help the students start college as well as hoping that the students will finish in the time frame specified.
“[The summer graduation] we call a bridge summer,” said Abel. “We will keep a protective hand on them, but they will become Southeastern students that summer. We pay for their tuition, fees and their living expenses to live on campus that summer. After that, they are enrolled in college, and hopefully they will complete a college degree in the time frame specified. Our time frame is six years which is what the state requires for successful college completion. Our goals for them is that 80 percent will enroll in college initially after high school graduation. Of those that enroll in college, our goal is that 50 percent will complete their degree within six years, and we are always around 60 percent.”
Since 1994, the Upward Bound Program has been able to do intensive follow-up studies to see how students who participated in the program finish up college.
“We do follow ups,” said Abel. “The follow ups we do now are much more intensive than in the years we did before. From ‘94 and on, we can tell you that about 80 percent of the students, as much as 84 of the students, enrolled in college. Out of that number, about 50 percent have completed a degree which is astonishing when the Southeastern completion rate is about 36 percent. We are about 14 points higher, and we are taking the students that are expected to be lower.”