Upward Bound Spanish instructor Alba Fernandez designed an android character modeled after herself for her Upward Bound virtual classroom. Alba Fernandez
FARMINGTON — Upward Bound (UB) students are encouraged to “go the distance” as they begin completely online what is normally a summer residency program held at the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF). The federally funded, year-long educational program recruits high school students that would be the first to attend a college or university in their families.
“It’s year-round. We meet with our students, when we’re not in the pandemic, we meet with our students twice a month in their schools, and we also have monthly events and trips that we go on throughout the whole year,” Upward Bound Director Lynn Ploof-Davis said in a phone interview. “So once a student is with us, we want them to stay with us right through high school graduation.”
High school teachers and guidance counselors refer students to the Upward Bound program. They then go through an intensive application process that includes gathering recommendation letters and an interview with UB staff.
“They also have to be pretty motivated. They have to want to go to college, they have to get decent grades in high school,” Ploof-Davis said.
The summer portion of UB includes a fully funded residency at UMF where students take five academic courses in the mornings, volunteer at local businesses in the afternoon and attend cultural and social events in the evenings.
Due to the pandemic, the 83 participating students are attending an adapted version remotely. They are only required to take one course this summer. The 14 class options range from dystopian literature to cultural Spanish to a robotics and coding course. Four students are also attending online, college-credit courses at UMF.
“So, we wanted to give them choice this summer and also not force them to sit in front of a screen all day. At the forefront of everything we do is the concept of inclusivity,” UB Assistant Director Elyse Pratt-Ronco said in an email.
Students were surveyed before the program began on Monday, June 29, about their access to technology and internet. The UB staff then delivered backpacks full of supplies to students a week prior to courses beginning.
“We travel all over our target area which is the size of Rhode Island, and we traveled all there on Friday and they all got beautiful backpacks with supplies and headphones and books for their classes and all kinds of really neat things,” Ploof-Davis said.
Upward Bound academic counselor Eric Pratt holds backpacks loaded with school supplies and books that were delivered to students before their classes started on Monday, June 29. Andrea Swiedom/Franklin Journal
The UB staff will also be traveling every Monday to students to deliver a weeks’ worth of breakfasts and lunches prepared by the Regional School Unit 9’s food service department.
“We were already preparing food for our communities, and it’s a good partnership that worked out where we can just prepare the ingredients and boxes of food, and they can pick them up and bring them out to students,” Director of RSU 9’s Food Services Andy Hutchins said in a phone interview.
Normally, students would eat their meals on the UMF campus during the summertime so the UB program is offering this food delivery service as an alternative.
“Our remote program, it really has all of the components of the residential program except for the sleepover,” Ploof-Davis said.
The remote courses are individually designed by instructors and are either conducted on Google Classroom or via Zoom.
Spanish instructor Alba Fernandez, who also works as a mentor for UB, anticipates communication being the biggest challenge during the summer program.
“In order for this to work, we need to have a really good communication system. If there is any problem, they need to contact you right away,” Fernandez said.
As a mentor she also meets with students over Zoom, sharing her screen to teach them how to navigate the UMF website, turn in assignments online and understand college-level syllabi.
After students attend their courses in the morning, they participate in a virtual volunteer opportunity with local businesses.
“Our students are out in the community at 30 different job sites in what looks like an internship. So when we took this program online, as remotely, we designed a component where they’re volunteering, they are reaching career-development benchmarks,” Ploof-Davis said.
UB is still offering their social and cultural activities every evening as well with two different options to choose from. Monday’s first set of activities included an online bullet journaling workshop and a virtual dance class held over Zoom.
“Most of them don’t have limits to them. The more, the merrier!” Academic Counselor Eric Pratt said, who has been organizing the summer extracurricular events.
“We’re reimagining the way we’ve done things in the past,” Pratt said, who also has yoga and Dungeons and Dragons on the event calendar.
The summertime Upward Bound program will run until August 7. UB staff will continue to support students afterwards either remotely or in-person depending on COVID-19 guidelines for the remainder of the year.
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