July 28, 2008
SIS debuts new precollege program for high school students
(Photos by Jeff Watts)
College started early—very early—for a group of young students this summer.
Thirteen high school students from Washington, Maryland, and Virginia are spending part of their summer break at AU, taking courses as part of the School of International Service’s new Community of Scholars program.
“We have a couple of goals,” said Peter Howard, SIS’s director of precollege programs. “For SIS, we get into the precollege area, which is a growing market for reaching out to students while they’re still in high school. We’re also developing an appreciation for the university as a place you can attend and form a deeper relationship with.”
During the July 7 to 25 program, students take college-level classes, and earn college credit. The first class is Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: Conflict, Culture, and Communication. Also taught is International Security in the Age of Terror.
“They’re getting a full 45-hour class,” Howard said. “The goal is to really take what we do best, which is teach, and bring that to a precollege market. Obviously you have to tailor it a little bit to the fact that you’re dealing with precollege students and in a three-week class.”
SIS professor Peter Howard (blue shirt) and graduate students Tazreena Sajjad (white dress) and Julie Norman (red top) work with rising high school juniors and seniors during SIS’s intensive college credit Community of Scholars program.
The rising juniors and seniors in the program spend their mornings in class, then eat lunch on campus and participate in academic skills lessons, mentoring sessions, or other activities in the afternoons. They’ve done workshops at the library, computer lab, writing center, and learned about the college admissions process. There also was a trip to the State Department and other forays out in the community, as well.
“From a marketing perspective, for the university it’s a great way to reach out to students in the area and let them know about the university,” Howard said. “We don’t just want to market to students, we’re working with high schools and programs and reaching out to different groups. The goal over the long haul is to find folks we can build partnerships with.
“We’re also trying to develop a service aspect of this as well, in that we’d like to, as we’re going on, make this available to students in D.C. or some of the suburban high schools that are less economically advantaged and can’t afford the tuition but certainly could use the social capacity to apply to college. We’ve been able to put together a couple scholarships. We’re able to give them a taste of college and also give them a leg up when they’re applying to college.”
