"They drive by campus every day on the way to school, but have no idea what it is," said Rachel Rapp '08, referring to students at local middle schools who have spent little or no time on the college campus that sits at the center of their community.
Rapp is a student in Latin American Cultures, a class taught every spring by Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Program Director of Latin American Studies Enrique Yepes. This Friday, Rapp and her class will welcome 88 Brunswick Junior High School students to Bowdoin.
This event is part of the Community Service Resource Center's (CSRC) Aspirations in Maine program, a plan that is still only a vision but will be officially formulated within the next month, according to Director of the Community Service Resource Center Susan Dorn.
Aspirations in Maine is Bowdoin's unique program meant to tackle the problem of low college attendance rates in Maine, despite the state's outstanding high school graduation rates. According to Sarah Mountcastle '05, an AmeriCorps volunteer in service to America, 86 percent of Mainers graduate high school, 69 percent intend to enroll in college, and only about half of those who intend to enroll actually do.
"The program is trying to address that gap," Coordinator of Community Service Programs Sarah Seames said.
The middle school students coming to campus tomorrow are scheduled to view the work of Cuban artist Elio Vilva-Trujillo currently displayed in Lancaster Lounge as part of their morning-long tour of the college campus.
The actual artwork focuses on the saints of Santeria, a religion created when African slaves were brought to Cuba. The slaves were forced to practice Catholicism, but only used it to cover up their own indigenous religious practices. The paintings are of Santeria saints, each of whom has his own color and meaning.
"I first heard about the artwork through the Brunswick-Trinidad sister city association," Yepes said. Brunswick is part of a sister city program with Trinidad, Cuba. Through correspondence, the Brunswick sister city association started promoting Vilva-Trujillo's artwork.
"We're going to talk about some of the culture behind the paintings, and point out the meanings of color, to give the kids a feel for that," Rapp said.
While the students are coming to campus with the initial aim to view the Cuban art exhibit, most of their time will be spend out and around campus. Student co-coordinator Megan MacLennan '07 has been organizing the program over the past few weeks.
"[Artwork was] the reason why we thought of doing the event, then [we] though it would be a great idea to use this to give them a glimpse of college life," she said.
The middle school students will be seeing a first-year dorm room, a classroom in Massachusetts Hall, as well as other points of interest on campus before eating lunch with their student tour guides at Thorne.
"I think it's a really neat opportunity," MacLennan said. "They get to form a relationship with a real Bowdoin student?an example of what to aspire to."
In addition to showing them the campus, Yepes' students will be incorporating Spanish into the tour. "They will be conversing in Spanish throughout the day, [but] it's going to be more of a 'Spanglish' mix."
The students of Yepes' class are very excited about showing the kids around campus.
"We're not only going to look at dorms, but the cultural aspect [of Bowdoin]," said Rapp. "It's cool to be a part of that."
Other programs contained under the umbrella of Aspirations in Maine include America Reads and Counts, the Youth and Education Conference, eight student-run mentoring programs, and "Aspirations in Maine: The Bowdoin College Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service." The MLK Day of Service, sponsored by the CSRC and Upward Bound, invited 65 ninth graders from seven surrounding high schools to Bowdoin earlier this month to encourage high school students to seek higher education.
"They came for the day to learn about college and experience college first hand," Mountcastle said.
During their visit, the high school students were paired up with Bowdoin students and got a chance to learn about the University of Maine system and local community colleges.
"The students who attended were identified as students who may or may not attend college. Many will be first generation college students," Mountcastle said. "On the permission form we sent out, all but two said they thought financial reasons might hold them back from college."
Today's event also hopes to spark local students' interest in college.
"Bowdoin, being a very accessible campus, makes it easy to put this together here," Dorn said.
Anne Riley contributed to this report.