UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 37, Page 1
July 7, 1994
Upward Bound counselors provide 'positive attention'

       Wanted: Tireless, personable, committed, resourceful,
       patient and responsible management/ teaching/counseling
       team, to spend six weeks of a Delaware summer caring for
       40 high school students and sundry resident assistants
       in a University residence hall setting.

                               * * * * *

     If you were advertising for Upward Bound residence directors,
such an advertisement might be your pitch. Not that the positions are
open.
     Graduate students Beth McCoy and Bill Harrison have done the job
since 1992, and their bosses at the Academic Services Center aren't
about to let them go.
     "They're model directors," said program coordinator Marjorie
Hingston. "Tremendous listeners, for one thing, and very open with me,
very professional."
     Neither are McCoy and Harrison inclined to quit.
     "I'm proud of it. I really am," McCoy said. "To run something, to
make decisions, to keep everybody safe. There's something very
satisfying about getting in bed at the end of each day and knowing
they're all safe asleep."
     "The neat thing," Harrison said, "is I feel we've had some input
as to what the program's become. In turn, we learned a lot from
academic services."
     McCoy came to Delaware in 1984, discovered an enigmatic Newark
native named Bill Harrison in the English department, and married him
in 1991. That was the same year Lin Alessi, Academic Services Center
director, spotted McCoy's teaching in the Summer Enrichment program,
came to know Harrison, and saw their potential as Upward Bound
instructors.
     And that led to several long, hot, dorm-room summers.
     Their marriage has an impact on the work they do, Hingston said.
"It's a side issue that has turned into a major thing for me. They
model a strong union for kids who don't necessarily see one. They're
independent. They can switch who's in charge. They can disagree. But
they remain committed to one another."
     McCoy and Harrison don't see themselves as role models, they say,
though they're careful with their language and visible emotions and
they avoid gender-stereotypes. McCoy drives the van, for instance.
Also, they like to promote a sense of mutual responsibility, making
decisions jointly to illustrate the value of consensus and presenting
a united authority where possible.
     "Kids, themselves, say they don't want contradictions," Harrison
said.
     The current class of Upward Bound students arrived June 26. Their
six-week schedule is intentionally hectic. Program participants
immersed in the University experience are shown what efficient time-
management and energetic pursuit of goals can achieve. It's a
demanding regime for everyone concerned.
     McCoy and Harrison rise at 6 a.m. Each student residence hall has
a piano, Harrison said, ruefully. So they frequently are awakened
earlier than the planned time by dawn serenades of "Chopsticks" or
"Heart and Soul." The first of the daily staff meetings begins at 8
a.m., the last after the students go to bed at 10 p.m.
     Upward Bound students attend class till 3 p.m. then have an hour
and a half of supervised recreation, supervised study between 5 and 7
p.m., and some kind of structured meeting or entertainment after
dinner. McCoy is free between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., while Harrison
squeezes in a technical writing class as well.
     The rewards are numerous. First, there are the students
themselves. "These kids are funny," McCoy said. "We just show them
they can be funny and smart, too-that smart is cool."
     Dealing with young people keeps them current, and flush with
anecdotes for their regular school year teaching. It also hones their
grasp of practical multiculturalism.
     This year, they welcomed 16 white, 16 African-American, six Asian
and two Hispanic students, roughly half of them female. They've cared
for students who are homeless, emotionally withdrawn and from remote
and rural areas who are needed on the weekends for farm work.
     "Multicultural education has less to do with what you teach than
how you teach," McCoy said, and Upward Bound has been a lesson in the
how.
     Then there's the sheer Boy-Scout pleasure of helping people. Take
Drew, for instance. He came to Upward Bound as a freshman in high
school with minimal skills and no conception of his capabilities. By
the end of the summer, the previously reticent Drew was demonstrating
math problems in front of 60 people. The next year, backed by doting
parents, he took honors classes in school. This year, he starts
college.
     Among the students eligible to attend Upward Bound, notes
Hingston, only 4 percent nationally go to college. But, of the 10 high
school seniors who've been with the Delaware program since it started,
six have signed up to attend the University of Delaware.
     "It's weird," McCoy said, enthusiastically. "It's a refutation of
the idea that you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it. You
can. Six weeks is all it takes. Six weeks of attention. Positive
attention, not Pollyanna attention."
                                                      -Steven O'Connor