CU: Guiding students to and through college

By Cathy Beuten | CU system

Through pre-collegiate courses for middle and high schoolers, pipeline programs and outreach to undergraduates and graduate students, thousands upon thousands of first-generation and traditionally underserved students have opened doors to their future that once seemed locked. The University of Colorado is beside them, helping to guide them to and through college into rewarding careers and healthy lives.

CU student Michael Najera, left, has taken a hard look into his future and is proud of the places he’s going.

“I’m just so excited to be here. It feels like I’m finally achieving my dreams."

A first-generation student, Najera started out in CU pre-collegiate programs in seventh grade and is now a senior at CU-Boulder. He works for the Pre-Collegiate Summer Residential Program.

Christian Ayala wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he “grew up,” but found endless options as a CU-Boulder student: He is interning with the City and County of Denver and has been involved with the Aspen Institute, and Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity.  

Maranda McGowan chose to attend CU Colorado Springs and now works for pre-collegiate as a student advisor. Paula Abitia graduated from CU-Boulder, is a former pre-collegiate peer counselor/teaching assistant. She is now an admissions counselor at the University of Colorado Boulder and is applying to graduate school.

CU’s collaborative outreach to students is paying dividends. The results can be seen in rising enrollment, with 14,361 ethnic minorities registered at the university in fall 2014 compared to 8,123 in 2005; and in Pell grant recipients (an indicator of  students from low-income families), which rose the past decade from 6,720 to 11,150.

Behind each of those numbers is an individual – many of whom are going further in their lives than they imagined they ever could. And behind each individual, there is a story.

Mario Martinez-Varelas wants to be an F22 pilot and is currently working in CU-Boulder’s Pre-Collegiate Summer Residential Program as a peer counselor/teaching assistant.

Joe Duarte wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he got to college, “But I do know that I want to give back to my community.” Duarte graduated from CU-Boulder and worked as an educator/coordinator at FRIENDS FIRST for a couple years. He recently started in a new role at the Leeds School of Business as a diversity affairs program manager.

Other programs, such as ArtsBridge at CU-Boulder, the Aurora Lights program at CU Anschutz Medical Campus and PIPEline Partnerships at UCCS provide K-12 students a peek into careers in health care, robotics, STEM and even crime scene investigation.  

Not all students who take part in the pre-collegiate programs go on to attend CU – and that’s fine. Rachel Lane is now a student at Stanford University. Luis Lepe is at Colorado Mountain College. Zak Golden attends the University of Denver. Empowering students and preparing them for college is what matters most. Dakotah Grett, left, summed it up.

“You can come and be whatever you want to be and I think you’ll always find somebody here that you can relate to and you can have a connection with.”

Grett is attending Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.

For students who choose to attend the University of Colorado, CU’s support and guidance doesn’t end once they’re admitted. The university walks with them every step of the way with programs such as the Undergraduate Pre-Health Program, Graduate Experience for Multicultural Students Summer Research Program, the BA-BS-MD pipeline and the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.

CU-Boulder student Veronica Williams attended K-12 schools that had very little ethnic diversity. Williams, who is Hispanic, is studying molecular cellular developmental biology and enjoys a richly diverse university community. She admits that – being first-generation – the process of entering college was intimidating. But programs at CU helped her realize that there is a place for her at CU.

“It was really hard to take that first step,” she said.

“It is important to realize what resources are offered; that way you can take advantage of them.”

Williams is paying it forward, working with youngsters in the Students Enriching Communities (STEM) program at CU-Boulder. The program, funded by a Diversity and Excellence Grant through the CU Office of Academic Affairs, provides learning tools and encourages low-income, first generation and underrepresented minorities to apply to professional programs.

“It is important to me to not only get something out of an internship or opportunity, but to give back,” she said. “I know there are a lot of kids out there who are thinking ‘college isn’t for me,’ or ‘I can’t afford it,’ or things like that, but it’s really important to keep the goal in mind.”

One of the guiding forces behind Veronica’s engagement and that of many other students in pipeline programs is Dominic Martinez, senior director in the Office of Inclusion and Outreach on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. In middle and high school, Dominic was told he wasn’t smart enough to succeed. He not only set out to prove his naysayers wrong, he set about making sure those who came after him would never doubt themselves.

“Growing up stuttering, I was placed in a track where I was labeled unintelligent,” Martinez said. “Because of that, I always had this inferior mindset that I was never good enough.”

Dominic, who earned his doctorate in education at CU Denver, is a first-generation college graduate from a small town in Wyoming. The opportunity of college has opened doors in his life and he has in turn dedicated his career to building a pipeline for diverse undergraduate students.

“What I do in my role today is reach out to those underserved populations and empower them and provide them the tools and the mechanisms to be successful in the health career professions.” 

Yet while much is being done across CU’s campuses to take the ‘dis’ out of students’ labels and bolstering the ‘advantaged,’ there is still work to be done. Minority students want to see faculty members and staff they can identify with – whether ethnically or culturally – and CU is one of many colleges challenged with recruiting diverse employees.

In addition to other recruitment initiatives, CU’s pre-collegiate and pipeline programs are at the heart of the long-term solution. Regent Irene Griego, left, told the CU Board of Regents at its June 2015 meeting that sometimes you need to “grow your own.”

“We have to start with young people, working with them so they can visualize themselves as a professor with tenure at the University of Colorado.” 

The CU pre-collegiate, pipeline and engagement programs are doing that, and more.