B.U. Bridge is published by the Boston University Office of University Relations.

Contact Us

Staff

GEAR UP jump-starts college planning for inner-city kids

By Brian Fitzgerald

"How many of you think that it's hot in Kenya?" asks Barbara Brown, outreach director at the GRS African Studies Center. All 13 seventh graders raise their hands.

"Well, I lived in Kenya for two years, and I know that it never really gets hot there," she says. "Many tourists are wearing only T-shirts and shorts when they arrive, and the local merchants are happy to sell them warmer clothes."

	Barbara Brown, outreach director for the African Studies Center, discusses the continent with Edison Middle School student Laneisha Sumrall. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Brown was eager to point out common misconceptions about Africa to students from the Edison Middle School in Brighton, and at the same time challenge the false belief that going to college is out of the question for academically at-risk inner-city school kids. GEAR UP, an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is trying to dispel that assumption.

The federally funded GEAR UP program, launched in 1999, is designed to provide services to support early preparation for higher education. Although the program provides mathematics and language arts tutoring four days a week, the Edison students' visit to BU on March 21 and 22 is a vital element of its activities. "I think it's important for the students to see what college life is all about," says GEAR UP coordinator Gretchen Lahey. "Many of them don't really see much of Boston beyond their own neighborhood, let alone a college campus."

After their visit to the African Studies Center, the students attended a lecture on nutrition by Sargent College Health Sciences Professor Gary Skrinar. Following lunch at the Warren Towers dining hall, they looked at skin cells and connective tissue under a microscope with CAS Biology Laboratory coordinator Gary Heiserman. Then they went on a scavenger hunt, using global positioning equipment with GRS geography students.

"GEAR UP starts with seventh graders and follows them through high school," says Ruth Shane, director of the BU/Boston Public Schools Collaborative, an administrative organization in SED that oversees more than a dozen programs created in support of the city's public school system. "The program is currently serving two cohorts of students -- seventh graders and eighth graders. Each cohort is comprised of about 180 students. The eighth graders will be visiting the campus in May. We also run a five-week summer program with academic enrichment classes and career interest clubs."

In addition, the program informs families about college selection and financing options. "It's a slightly different approach to helping an underserved population," says Shane. Because the Boston Public Schools have established new citywide learning standards for English language arts, math, and social studies, it is essential for the students to pass standardized tests. "These are students who have been struggling to meet the benchmarks," she says. "But they're showing gradual improvement. Our hope is to get them up to grade level by the end of the year. If they don't, they go to summer school. If they need extra time and extra attention, they can get that with the tutoring."

Tutor Jennifer Boerner (CAS'03) says GEAR up "is a great idea, because middle school is definitely not too young to start thinking about college."

Lahey says that GEAR UP also teaches organizational skills to participants. In September, BU's 13 undergraduate tutors gave the middle schoolers planners for homework assignments. The planners are signed by the students' parents every week. "The students are tutored after school for an hour, and then they have an hour to get their homework done," she says. "After that, we give them 45 minutes of recreation time as a reward."

The young people obviously relished their time at BU, and seemed astonished at the sheer size of the University. Dorchester's Pedro Fernandez, who says the Charles River Campus is "phat," is thinking about a career in journalism. Andrew Maxwell, from Mission Hill, is interested in software design. He says that he is "amazed at the amount of academic choices college students have."

GEAR UP is a five-year, $15.4 million U.S. Department of Education effort that has paired eight Boston middle schools with area colleges and universities. "Getting [students] interested in college has to happen early on," said Edison Middle School Principal Elliot Stern at the inaugural press conference in 1999 announcing the program. "It's got to happen at this level, because between middle and high school you start to see test scores drop and attendance problems crop up. This is a crucial age."

30 March 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations