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Project Youth
1,500 sixth-grade students sample the U
Media Contacts
April 10, 2007 -- Research shows that sixth grade is the delicate
age at which students either buckle down and focus on their futures, or
fall away from plans for higher education. To help sixth-graders
envision themselves as future college students, the University of Utah
has invited 1,500 students from Title I schools to sample its campus,
facilities and courses for one day.
Project Youth with take place Thursday, April 12, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., beginning and ending at the Huntsman Center.
In its 17th
year, Project Youth is designed to inspire sixth-graders to want to
achieve a college education. Organized through the Lowell Bennion
Community Service Center, the program invites underprivileged
sixth-graders from all over the Salt Lake valley to take part in a
one-day, on-campus event.
"We target sixth-graders because we
want them to realize that doing well in junior high and high school is
a huge part of achieving a college degree. We want to inform them
before it is too late,” says Barbara Spencer Thornton, 2006 Project
Youth co-director.
Hundreds of U of U student volunteers help to
facilitate Project Youth. The volunteers are "mentors-for-a-day,”
sharing personal college experiences, taking groups of students on
campus tours to classroom presentations, and attending a motivational
program given by community leaders, celebrities and other influential
individuals, held in the Huntsman Center.
"We want to impress
upon the sixth-graders that college students come from many different
backgrounds, families, nations, religions, and economic situations,”
says Thornton.
Students tour different departments and parts of
campus to expose them to the variety of options higher education has to
offer. The day culminates in an enormous power rally held in the
Huntsman Center where students listen to guest speakers, see themselves
on big screen in a slide show, and cheer themselves voiceless.
“The
mere hope that we reached even one student and that he or she now
believes that college is an achievable goal is completely worth a year
of effort,” explains Ann Marie Allen, 2002 Project Youth Director.
For
a complete itinerary for Project Youth, 2007, or to discover more about
activities sponsored by the Lowell Bennion Community Center, contact
Alicia Geesman at 801-585-0093 or visit http://www.sa.utah.edu/bennion/.
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