WSU lends Ogden School District students a hand

For some students in the Ogden community, college attendance is not an expected goal, but some people at Weber State University are working hard to make sure everyone gets a chance at higher education.

Ruth Stubbs, director of the Education Access and Outreach Department, is intent on helping traditionally non-college-bound students find a route into post-secondary education.

“We’re really access-oriented,” Stubbs said, “and that’s why we’re called Access and Outreach, because we’re providing access to a population who may not go to college if it weren’t for that support.”

EAO facilitates higher-learning opportunities for students who may not come from a college-going culture. 60 percent of the students served by Stubbs’ department are ethnically diverse, but she emphasizes that their efforts are not solely geared toward students in any specific minority population.

“Yes, we do focus on those students, because that is a growing population in our community, and we know that especially the Hispanic community is growing,” Stubbs said. “But we use the term ‘underrepresented’ because it’s more encompassing of low-income students and first-generation students, which come from all ethnicities and cultures.”

The department has to work through measurable, concrete efforts, with less of what Stubbs refers to as the “soft-touch” volunteering and peer-mentoring endeavors tried by other departments and community organizations.

“We aren’t the only show in town,” Stubbs said. “There are lots of offices across campus that really do a lot of work to support the community. But a lot of our work isn’t just going out to a school and giving a hoo-rah presentation. It’s services. It’s a consistent presence in those schools. It’s providing a relationship with those kids. It’s building trust with them. It’s building partnerships with the schools themselves and the personnel in those schools.”

Three major programs are based in the EAO department. The first is Educational Talent Search, which works with 600 students in the Ogden School District who fit the traditionally non-college-bound demographics, but still have a GPA around 2.0 or 2.5. Goals are provided which help students focus on completing high school, enrolling in a post-secondary program and finding a form of financial aid or scholarship.

“We’re helping these students who have potential,” Stubbs said. “They’re not failing, they’re not skipping out. They’re doing well. Weber State is an open-enrollment institution, and we want to open the door for them here.”

In 2009-10, 624 students were served by ETS, and 85 percent of those students have completed college applications.

The second program is Gear Up, which is focused on tutoring and is housed in every junior high, serving an entire grade of Ogden schools.

“Next year, it will be the whole, entire ninth grade of Ogden City School District,” Stubbs said. “The challenge of that is now is when drop-out starts.”

The third program is Student-To-Student Outreach. Primarily a tutoring program, the focus of S2S is on being the academic support arm of Gear Up and Talent Search. Currently 68 WSU students work with S2S as tutors, and the program directors plan to add 40 more tutors for next year.

“We’re trying to help students see that they have a right to a higher education,” Stubbs said. “Getting a trade is great and important, but we’re not really tapping into the potential for these kids, for the reasons of not having the resources or tools on hand for them to advocate for themselves. Sometimes they just don’t have that.”