Callie Cole can relate to high school students in her Upward Bound chemistry class. She grew up in a small town in Idaho, where her school was at times strapped for resources and limited in pre-collegiate offerings. But an influential high school teacher sparked her interest in chemistry, and now she is a chemistry doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“One good teacher can change your life,” Cole said. “The way I see it, that one person could be someone in CU Upward Bound.”
With the support of her faculty advisor, Cole pours her heart into teaching chemistry through Upward Bound, a six-week summer institute that provides high school students from underserved communities with the opportunity to experience and prepare for college. Most of the students come from low-income families and many will be first-generation college students. The program aims to increase the possibility that participants will enroll in and graduate from post-secondary institutions.
This year the Upward Bound cohort consists of more than 90 students from eight states: Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah. The students’ academic standings vary, but program admission requires submission of grades, teacher recommendations, and student essays.
Unlike other nationwide Upward Bound programs, the CU-Boulder program is partially funded by a grant that targets 10 specific communities and American Indian Tribes. CU Upward Bound is not exclusively for Native American students, but the majority of participants tend to be American Indians, said David Sanders, Upward Bound director.
Sanders collaborates with CU-Boulder departments and schools to design program curriculum. Former Upward Bound students serve as resident assistants, and CU students like Cole serve as instructors and instructor assistants.
Cole likened Upward Bound to an “education boot camp.” The program emulates a mini college semester with a dense schedule of classes, study halls, homework, midterms, and finals while students live on campus.
As her own chemistry teacher once did for her, Cole attempts to inspire her students through hands-on experiments. In her class, students aim ping pong balls at a bowling ball to simulate the Rutherford Experiment probing atomic structure, and they chomp on mint Lifesavers in the dark marveling at the spark that results from the candy’s triboluminescence. The interactive activities precede practice problems, homework, and questions borrowed from college-level curriculum, but the students seem engaged and dedicated throughout the varied lesson.
“These students are awesome,” Cole said. “This is the best simulated college experience ever.”
Many Upward Bound students apply as freshmen and return year after year. They often recommend the program to their peers, and the tight bond that forms between students is a hallmark of the program, Sanders said.
“At the end of the summer, they use the word family, which I see as a marker of success,” he said.
Sanders said Upward Bound’s take-home message extends beyond pre-collegiate preparation. Students return home with a new worldview and a sense of purpose.
“The overall goal is not just to result in enrollment in college,” he said. “The goal is to help the kids understand social and political situations and to give them a broader perspective so they can have an impact on their own communities.”
Watch Callie Cole's teaching in action in this YouTube Video and CU-Boulder Graduate School Student Profile.