Ohio University’s Patton College of Education is appealing the rejection of its Upward Bound grant renewal proposal by the U.S. Department of Education after the proposal was rejected in early June.
Upward Bound is a college preparatory program that provides first-generation or low-income students resources to prepare them for college. The grant renewal proposal has to be submitted every five years. OU spokesman Dan Pittman said the Department of Education overlooked facts and data when they rejected the proposal, but he could not clarify what specific facts and data were overlooked while the university is writing an appeal.
“The University is currently working to explore every opportunity to be able to offer Upward Bound services in the future,” Pittman said in an email.
OU’s Upward Bound was granted more than $375,000 annually over the past five years to serve a minimum of 90 students, Pittman said, but the program stretched its resources to accommodate 100 students.
Other college prep options for high schoolers, such as the free Startalk program from the Center of International Studies and the High School Journalism Workshop from E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, were not impacted by the rejection of the grant proposal.
Jacob Haskins, an 2017 OU alumnus who participated in Upward Bound at Shawnee State University and worked with the program at OU, believes that there is no way to get the same experience students get in the Upward Bound program from other programs.
“The Upward Bound program is an invaluable resource for first-generation students,” Haskins said.
Chloe Musick, a 2017 OU alumna who was involved in OU’s Upward Bound for seven years as both a student and an employee, said each year of the program provided her different opportunities. During her first year with Upward Bound, she took high school classes; in her second year, she attended the honors academy at OU, where she lived on campus and took classes for college credit. Her third year was dedicated to easing her transition from high school to college.
“There's no way I would've graduated college without a full-ride scholarship,” Musick said. “Upward Bound taught me everything along the way.”
Steve Hays, a classics and world religion professor at OU, who taught a class offered through Upward Bound, encouraged Musick to become a Cutler Scholar.
"Around the end of the summer quarter, he emailed me personally,” Musick said. “(He) said, 'Hey, Chloe … I'm pretty close with the Cutlers Scholar Program, and I think you'd be an incredible candidate for the … program. Just promise you're going to check it out.'"
Musick checked it out and approached her guidance counsellor at Vinton County High School, who told her the school had stopped pitching the program to the students.
“Right then and there I knew without Upward Bound, without that connection to honors academy, that connection with Steve Hayes ... I would never have heard of the Cutler Scholars,” Musick said.
The Patton College of Education is encouraging Upward Bound participants and Athens residents to contribute to a letter writing, email, phone and social media campaign the college has started aimed at Ohio’s politicians.
"I will say that it is a long shot, but it was reassuring in some way to walk up there and see that there are lots and lots of people filling out emails … and everyone was super eager to participate in that, and people see the value," Musick said.
If Upward Bound does not successfully appeal the decision of the Department of Education, the next chance for the program to come back to OU would be roughly five years from now, at which point the Department of Education starts accepting grant proposals again.
“This advocacy for Upward Bound — even though its future seems grim — it's not pointless,” Musick said.
