College prep: Discipline and goals

By Robb Murray
Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO July 05, 2009 12:55 am

— Derrick Jacobs goofed off in high school. Vanessa Chandler had a violent freshman year. Holly Rodriguez got pregnant. Alex Salcedo, who was raised in the Dominican Republic and attended high school in St. Paul, didn’t have anyone in his life, including a father, to show him what he had to do to get into college.
For whatever reason, each of them had done enough during their high school years to get themselves pigeonholed into an unfortunate slot: not college material.
Yet here they are. On campus right now. Taking classes. Learning what it’s like to be college students. Figuring out what it takes — how much work is involved — to succeed at the next level.
They, and 150 others like them, are in a four-week stint in Minnesota State University’s College Access Program — where the kind of students who don’t typically make it to college come for a second chance with a program that is highly intrusive in their lives, and overwhelmingly supportive.
It began in 2006 with a few dozen students. It worked, and word spread. This year’s class is 154. Its retention rate is remarkable — of the 14 who started the program in 2006, 12 are still students at MSU. Twelve students who didn’t meet entrance requirements, 12 students who were unlikely to succeed, 12 students who, counselors said, should consider something else.
Most go on to successful academic careers and take part in student life activities. Several serve on the Student Senate, lead the Black Students Union and other groups.
At the four-week camp they receive daily academic support and tutoring. And when they get to college, that support continues. When they start college, they meet regularly with the same College Access Program advisers they met during their four-week stay.
Ubenti Tepi (whose first name means “the brightness of the day before the sun rises”) spent last year at Bloomington Kennedy High School. She was a good athlete and had lots of friends. But she didn’t apply herself in the classroom, and she hated homework. So it
didn’t get done. And she couldn’t catch up.
When she heard about the College Access Program, she knew immediately she wanted to come to Mankato. And since starting the program, she doesn’t regret her choice.
“The staff here are very knowledgeable about what we need,” she said.
She also likes the responsibility each student assumes when they agree to join.
“It makes you mature quickly,” she said. “No more mom making sure you do this, do that.”
That kind of growth, program leaders say, is one of the main goals behind the program.
Its operation is almost military-like. In fact, they call the four-week stay on campus the “academic boot camp.” All students are out of bed by 6 a.m. and heading out for a run by 6:30 a.m. The rest of the day is filled with college-level classes in geography, writing or life skills. There is time structured into their day to study, and hours set aside here and there for recreation.
From the time they arrive until the time they leave, every minute is scheduled. They are far, however, from spoon-fed or coddled. And if there are slip-ups, they are dealt with swiftly.
Michael Fagin, MSU’s vice president for institutional diversity and founder of the College Access Program, says rules — and the following thereof — are essential to the program.
A young couple was caught kissing, a violation of the rules (Rule No. 23: No inappropriate physical contact), and were sent to Fagin for discipline. The young man objected. He said that because he’s performed well in his academics, this rule infraction should be overlooked. He also said the rule was a poor one.
“I told him, ‘I don’t like that there’s a stop sign on Malin (Street). I really don’t. But I stop because it’s the rule,’” Fagin said.
When one strays, they all pay. Sometimes that pay comes in the form of extra running or some other extra physical punishment. And when they do, the instructors do it with them.
“By week two,” said Tonya Phillips, director of the College Access Program, “they’re checking each other.”
Rules also govern who can come to the College Access Program. Students must be at least one of following: low-income, first-generation college student, or come from an underrepresented college demographic. Many, says Phillips, are all three.
Most come from Minnesota, but this year the program has five students from Florida. There are also students from Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
And since the program was launched in 2006, other programs have sprouted to support it.
Jimmie Gunn, one of the program’s academic support advisers, also heads up a weekend program for elementary school students. It runs during the regular academic year and targets the same type of students targeted by the regular College Access Program.
For first- and second-year high school students from the Mankato area schools, there is the Mankato College Access Program. The program identifies early some of the students who may be candidates for the regular College Access Program. Successful completion of that program allows them to easily transition into the regular program.
At a recent classroom session led by Phillips — a former Boys and Girls Club director who runs a classroom with a rare blend of charisma, discipline and personability — she stepped off the stage and told student Derrick Jacobs to take over.
Jacobs hopped up on stage and picked up right where Phillips left off — using his own blend of charisma and stage presence to keep the attention of the 50 other students in the room.
Up closer, one-on-one, he is articulate and thoughtful. His handshake is firm and he looks you in the eye. You’d be hard-pressed, after watching him work the room and speaking to him face to face, to find a reason why he wouldn’t be academically successful in college.
“I kind of sloughed off in high school my first couple of years,” the Northfield High School alumnus says. Why? Girls, friends, sports. The usual reasons.
“I was a ‘C’ student,” he says, and adds that, if he applied himself, which he plans to do in college, “I could get straight A’s.”
Vanessa Chandler’s freshman year was marred by physical violence — and she, in some of the cases, was the aggressor. But over the next few years, she turned her life around and her performance at Fridley High School improved.
She heard about the College Access Program from MSU alumnus Obie Kipper. And when she was considering the program, Fagin called her personally and urged her to apply. She did, and made it through the interview all applicants must endure to be accepted. She’ll the first person in her family to attend college.
“After the first couple of days here I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I get myself into?’” Chandler said. “But I know it’s going to make me better, and I know I’m going to make my family proud.”
Holly Rodriguez has every reason in the world to not be here. But another reason carries a little more weight than the others: her 1-month-old baby.
She was a model student and exudes the confidence of a valedictorian. But she’s on the verge of three enormous moments in anyone’s life: She’s a recent high school graduate, she’s a new mother, and she starts college in August.
Rodriguez is counting on the College Access Program to help her learn the skills she’ll need.
“It’s gonna be hard,” she said, “but they tell me they’re going to help me, and I believe them.”
Like most of the students here, Rodriguez will be the first from her family to attend college. Nothing, she says, means more.
“I’m repaying my parents for everything they’ve done for me,” she said. “And I’m a role model. I need to do this for me, my mom and my family.”
Fagin, who has been at MSU since the late 1960s, ranks the College Access Program high on his list of accomplishments at the university.

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