 |
|
 |
||||||||
|
National TRIO Achievers (2006)
I am the youngest of five daughters. My sisters and I grew up in poverty, in a three-room house with no running water; our father had long deserted the family. When I was 13, my mother died from alcoholism. I became rebellious and delinquent in my behavior and school studies. Sent away to a foster home, I continued with that behavior, yet also managed to find certain individuals who provided me with meaningful guidance and direction. Mr. Barry Yocum was one of the people who came into my life at that crucial period and recruited me for the Upward Bound program. I sincerely believe that the Upward Bound program set me on the path to a successful life-one where education became my ticket out of poverty. Upward Bound taught me many life lessons-the most vital lesson was the importance and value of attending college, and that college was a real possibility for me. No one in my family had attended college. The Upward Bound program taught me that academic preparation was critical to a successful educational experience and equipped me with some of the skills I needed. It also gave me an opportunity to interact with other students from similar backgrounds who shared my dreams. Ultimately, Upward Bound taught me that higher education was both achievable and valuable, that friendships and collegiality are an important part of a successful life, and that being prepared for the journey is vital.
“I sincerely believe that the Upward Bound program set me on the path to a successful life-one where education became my ticket out of poverty.”
Statistically, as an American Indian child, born into welfare, poverty, and a broken home with serious family issues, I was not destined to finish college, become a lawyer, pursue a Ph.D., nor become the President of a college. My Upward Bound experience certainly played a profound role in achieving my educational dreams and in making a better life for myself, my children, and my community. As a former student, I will be forever grateful for the gifts and blessings given to me by the Upward Bound program.
In my personal, academic, and professional lives, TRIO stands out as the educational opportunity with the most significant impact. I had the privilege of participating in two TRIO programs-Student Support Services and the Ronald E. McNair program, both at Marquette University. I developed a special relationship with everyone there, from the secretary to the directors of both programs. My TRIO participation resulted in my persistence and success both as an undergraduate and graduate student. In fact, my decision to become a higher education administrator was directly related to my experience with TRIO.
The Marquette University program was a lifeline for students. Program staff not only became family, but had an impact on families. There are not enough words to describe the comfort that my own mother felt with placing me in the hands of my EOP family. One of my greatest mentors, my sister, participated in the TRIO experience four years before me. She became the first graduate of Marquette's McNair Program to receive a Ph.D. While she serves as a great role model for me, my sister says that she would have never made it through without EOP.
“My TRIO participation resulted in my persistence and success both as an undergraduate and graduate student.”
TRIO has fostered some of the closest relationships that I maintain today. I have remained friends with other Marquette University TRIO grads over the years and we often comment on "how good EOP was to us." Academically, the TRIO programs prepared me for the rigorous curriculum and fostered the discipline necessary to complete two degrees and to pursue another. Professionally, it helped shape my decision to become a higher education administrator. As a poor, first-generation, African American college student who successfully participated in and graduated from both Student Support Service and the McNair Program, the best thank you that I can give to TRIO is my story. I graduated from Marquette University EOP almost 11 years ago and I still remember the telephone number by heart. It's seemingly simple-but a true sign of how TRIO became a crucial part of my existence.
I grew up on the deep south side of Chicago in various towns extending into the steel mill counties of Northwest Indiana. My dad worked at Bethlehem Steel in the day and was a college student (he never graduated) and drummer in a band by night. Eventually, my parents split up and life changed. My father came to see us every Sunday, and this made a very big difference in all our lives. At the time, this was the life I thought everyone experienced. I remember the embarrassment of taking welfare coupons to the store to buy groceries (but only when nobody I knew was around) and skipping lunch because I didn't want people knowing I needed a welfare token to get my lunch. I remember going to caddy at the golf course to earn money for college (I was eleven at the time) and working at my uncle's dry cleaners.
My mother worked various jobs to keep the family going, including a midnight shift at a hotel on the Hammond-Gary border. She spoke of shootings and robberies. Her job used to really scare me. I thought we would end up as orphans and get separated one day. I realize my mother did all this so her family of eight would survive.
“Upward Bound was the secret to my success. It taught me how to focus and led me to college and eventually to success in the business world.”
My brother and I won scholarships set up by Chick Evans-an amateur golfer who wanted to make a difference in the lives of others less fortunate. He certainly made a difference in our lives. But another critical event for me was participating in Upward Bound. It prepared me for college and taught me how to write. Upward Bound also taught me about diversity, enabling me to look at the world in a different way and setting me on the right path.
In college, focused on my own survival, I remember giving blood, refereeing basketball games, waxing storage doors, doing numerous other odd jobs to make money, and also waiting tables at a sorority to earn my meals…how could this piece of paper (a degree) possibly be worth all of this, I wondered… but of course, it was.
Upward Bound was the secret to my success. It taught me how to focus and led me to college and eventually to success in the business world. I never have regrets regarding the past. The past builds our character that allows us to embrace a more challenging and exciting future.
It is ironic that I would be accorded the humble privilege of submitting a personal statement for the 25th anniversary of the Council for Opportunity in Education. It was 25 years ago that I entered the TRIO Upward Bound Program at Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. I was a teenager, trying to navigate the foster care system into which I had been thrust as a small boy. There are times when you take stock of your life, of the path that you have chosen, and of those who touched you along the way. Consider where I am today -- a happily married husband and very proud father of three children, thought by some to be a leader in the business world and involved and committed to the community. Certainly this was not the life initially intended for me.
All hope needs a home, that is to say it needs a place where it is made real and tangible to its possessor. And did I have hope-it was my only weapon and throughout my childhood I would wield it like a hammer. I always knew that there was a better life available to me. Yet as I entered my teenage years, I was struggling to determine how to get there. Upward Bound was the turning point of my life for it was exactly the place where my hope became real.
“All hope needs a home, that is to say it needs a place where it is made real and tangible to its possessor… Upward Bound was the turning point of my life for it was exactly the place where my hope became real.”
The number of ways the program helped me are too many to count. When I was told that college was beyond my reach and not something attainable, it was the TRIO Upward Bound Program I turned to for direction. I wound up with a full scholarship to one of the top universities in the country. When I found myself without a place to live just a few days after Christmas, it was a teacher from the summer program I called to see if I could stay with him "for a few weeks." Today my children call him Grandpa.
Thank you for consideration of my nomination, but more importantly, thank you for the amazing way that TRIO's Upward Bound touched this life and the lives of so many others. In a world where cynicism is given too much of the stage and where cynicism is frequently encouraged, Upward Bound demonstrates that there is nothing greater than hope manifested.
My father and mother were migrant farm workers who followed the harvests of tomato, onion, garlic, broccoli, and everything else green, up and down California beginning in the late 1960s. My father's message to me, his eldest son, was simple but on continuous playback: education is the only way! And thus I never missed school, nor was I allowed to, regardless of any physiological (in me) or meteorological (out there) condition. Upon entering high school, gangs and drugs began to appeal to me. Graduation was no longer a priority. Learning became secondary, and my future lacked the suggestiveness which it held in my parents' minds.
“My personal ideals are shaped by a deeply-rooted sense of responsibility that calls me to give back to the programs that paved my way; thus, I plan never to divorce my professional work from my personal ideals, and to always keep TRIO in my sights.”
Then fate intervened in the form of San Jose State University's Talent Search Program. The program's college advisor, Carolina Lujan, would travel more than 100 miles on a regular basis to our high school, call a few of us out of class, and talk to us about a virgin concept to most of us: attending a university! I had heard about joining the Army time and again; about going to the Navy or to the local community college, but never before about going to an actual university for four years and receiving a degree in something specific. I resisted the idea, as did most of my teachers, who saw in me little potential for higher learning; these individuals promoted the idea of joining the military or starting off "easy" i.e., starting in community college. Carolina persisted, however, and instilled in me the belief that I could, if I tried a little harder, go to college and do what only my parents thought that I could.
I arrived at San Jose State University in the fall of 1994. Two years later I became part of the first cohort of a new TRIO program: the Ronald E. McNair Program. The lessons learned from my McNair Scholars experience became invaluable. Five years later, I am on my way back to San Jose State, no longer a student. I am returning as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. I go back not from a lack of options (I had many), but from a sense of responsibility to the community that nurtured my growth and ambitions.
Although my philosophical work centers on social and political issues, my personal ideals are shaped by a deeply-rooted sense of responsibility that calls me to give back to the programs that paved my way; thus, I plan never to divorce my professional work from my personal ideals, and to always keep TRIO in my sights.
I grew up in a working class poor neighborhood in Fort Worth, TX, literally and figuratively from the "wrong side" of the tracks. The Union Pacific freight train lumbered through my neighborhood, past my home, dividing my community, the working class poor on one side, and more affluent on the other. I was the youngest of eight children. My siblings were all very bright, but I was my family's intellectual "star." My bookworm status was a source of pride for my parents because my mother had an eighth grade education and my father was functionally illiterate. A "gifted and talented child," I was in honors and advanced placement classes. I was fortunate to be supported by many amazing teachers, administrators, and others who were dedicated and kind enough to help me on the educational journey that culminated in my attending the University of Oklahoma.
“If not for my participation in Project Threshold [TRIO], I would not have attained an undergraduate degree and certainly would not have had the courage to attend the University of Miami, obtaining a Juris Doctorate.”
My OU career had a rather rocky start. I had the intellectual capacity, but I was not prepared for the freedom and the choices of college. I did not know how to cope with the nuances of academic life -- how to drop classes when I registered for too many hours, the importance of seeing a professor during his or her office hours, the need to do homework though the professor did not check it. After fall semester of my sophomore year, I was placed on academic probation. My hopes and dreams, and those of my entire family and community, were threatened. I had no idea where to turn. One referral, to OU's TRIO program, Project Threshold, and its Director, Dr. Anthony Bluitt, changed the course of my future. If not for my participation in Project Threshold, I would not have attained an undergraduate degree and certainly would not have had the courage to attend the University of Miami, obtaining a Juris Doctorate.
Throughout my life and career, I have tried to live the important lessons learned in my Fort Worth community and at Project Threshold: the importance of determination, faith, discipline, asking for help when it is needed, and the courage to offer help to others. I became a mentor to other OU students through Project Threshold, desiring to provide others with the same type of help that was so generously given to me. I carried this commitment through law school and my career. Currently I mentor young women from backgrounds that are substantially similar to my own.
I am proud that I carry the torch of commitment, support, honesty, excellence, and community service that was passed to me by Project Threshold. I have used it as a beacon of light to many other dedicated, qualified, and deserving young people who have gone on to make their families and communities proud, in the same way that I did mine.
|
|||||||
|
© 2008 Council for Opportunity in Education | 1025 Vermont Avenue N.W., Suite 900, Washington D.C. 20005 | Tel: (202) 347-7430, Fax: (202) 347-0786
|