FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — Forty-three Indianapolis high school students are heading south today on a college awareness tour of five out-of-state universities. The five-day bus trip is the finale for the 2014 Upward Bound Summer Academy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
The students — all juniors and seniors — are in their final week of the summer session of Upward Bound, a program launched as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty to improve college admission and retention rates among youth from families who are income challenged and families in which neither parent has a bachelor’s degree.
After visiting the University of Louisville in Kentucky, the students will travel to Atlanta, where they will visit Clark Atlanta University, Georgia State University, Morehouse College and Spelman College. The trip will also include stops at cultural venues such as the Mohammed Ali Center in Louisville; and CNN studio, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s childhood home and burial place, and the Georgia Aquarium, all in Atlanta.
Upward Bound celebrates its 50th anniversary this year as the oldest component of the federal TRIO program. Students can enroll in the national college preparatory program in the ninth and 10th grades and will receive services until they graduate from high school.
Famous graduates of Upward Bound programs across the nation include actress Angela Bassett; media owner Oprah Winfrey; and Franklin Chang Diaz, the first Hispanic astronaut, to name a few.
The Upward Bound program at IUPUI runs year-round, with eight Indianapolis high schools participating: Broad Ripple, Arsenal Technical, Arlington, Northwest, Warren Central, Emmerich Manual, Indianapolis Metropolitan and Thomas Carr Howe. During the school year, Upward Bound participants visit in-state campuses such as IU Bloomington, Purdue, Ball State University and Indiana State University.
During the 2013-14 school year, 127 students participated in the IUPUI Upward Bound program, meeting every other Saturday for instruction, tutoring and academic counseling. Students and their parents receive assistance with the preparation of college applications and financial aid forms.
Seventy-five students attended the Summer Academy program. All spent six weeks on the IUPUI campus, living in residential housing, taking academic classes, participating in community events and more. They received academic skill instruction in math, science and language arts to help them prepare for their high school classes in the fall. The Kentucky-Georgia college tour was open to the juniors and seniors attending the academy.
Located in downtown Indianapolis, IUPUI is a core campus of Indiana University that awards degrees from both Indiana University and Purdue University. Known as Indiana’s premier urban research and health sciences campus, IUPUI has more than 30,000 students in 19 schools, which offer more than 250 degrees.
For more information, contact Harriett Bennett at 317-274-5036 or hbennett@iupui.edu.