UA helps create proactive enrichment program for local teens

For some students, summer brings to mind endless hours of TV, chores around the house and most importantly, boredom.

]This is not the case for 15-year-old Laquashia White and 14-year-old Morgan Fields. White and Fields are two of 20 high school students chosen to participate in the first-ever Tuscaloosa Academic Enrichment program, which began June 11 and lasts until June 29.

The UA Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility united with Tuscaloosa's Westlawn Middle and Central High schools to create a program that teaches literacy and language instruction, along with afternoon enrichment activities.

So far this summer the students have had an etiquette lunch with Mayor Walt Maddox, toured the UA campus, sponsored a career day and participated in a jazz program. White and Fields said their favorite trip was to the McWane Center and Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham.

This program is a partnership between the University and Tuscaloosa city schools, and it provides a learning experience to prepare young people for difficult schoolwork and fruitful citizenship.

Lindsey Thomas, the research project coordinator of the CESR, said Lisa Scherff had the idea to start the program. Scherff is a UA English education professor who is also teaching the service-learning summer course for the program. Scherff teamed up with the center's Stephen Black, senior lecturer in communication ethics and director of the CESR, to launch the enrichment program.

Alongside Scherff is Tammy Cook, a graduate student who also teaches education classes at the University and has been helping with the project this summer.

"I think the program has been extremely successful," Cook said. "It has really served as a good foundation for the students to build upon later. These students have been given opportunities to do things they never would have done."

UA students serve as volunteer mentors for the program. Undergraduate and graduate student volunteers receive intensive training during a summer course at the University and participate alongside certified teachers in staffing the summer program.

"They have been wonderful," Cook said.

The daily lessons take place at Central High School, because the students involved in the program are eighth graders from Westlawn Middle School and will be freshmen at Central in the fall.

"It's important for them to be in the school and become familiar with it," Thomas said.

The students do not pay for anything while participating in the program. The center takes care of admission fees while Tuscaloosa City Schools has provided transportation and lunches.

Tuscaloosa Academic Enrichment uses special research-based methods of teaching to help students who show signs of being academically "at-risk." The goal is to guarantee that these students have access to high quality academic opportunities while also becoming more culturally experienced.

White said if she were not involved in the program this summer she would be "on the streets, getting in trouble, some fights, maybe even in jail."

She said she has learned from the experience.

"Be happy at your school, and do other activities you didn't think you could do," she said. "You can be a great teacher for your friends."

Fields said through the program, she has realized she needs to read more. She said she would rather be in the program than at home doing nothing.

The girls agree that meeting the mayor was very exciting, and they enjoyed seeing their friends and classmates every day.

"It's fun being here," White said. "I hope they can do it next year. They said we can even come and help out next year."