Up with Upward Bound

By Angela McClurg

VERMILLION, S.D. – Chuck Swick understands the importance of guiding high school students toward success through the Upward Bound program.

He used to be one of those students.

Now Swick, 60, is director of Upward Bound at the University of South Dakota. It’s a position he’s held since 1972.

Upward Bound is a federally funded summer program that starts in early June and ends in early July.

The program prepares students for college with courses, preparatory workshops and assisted college searches. Students live on campus, so they experience what it’s like living as a college student.

“I thought it would be fun because it got me off the reservation for six weeks,” said Pauline Jackson, 18, a senior in the program. “We don’t have a lot of outlets.”

Jackson said there is not a lot to do on the Rosebud Reservation, where she lives. There are no stores and the nearest fast-food restaurant is 30 miles away. She wants to attend a four-year college and major in business or technical administration.

Students in the program must have completed ninth grade, have a need for financial and academic support and be a first-generation college student.

The hope is the students continue their education after high school. The program offers counseling, tutoring and numerous educational and cultural activities.

“The goal is to get the kid an education,” Swick said.

Between 70 and 90 percent of students go to college after the program. Less than .09 percent drop out, Swick said.

Swick was a junior in high school when his counselor urged him to join the program.

“He twisted my arm,” Swick said. “But I thank God I ended up going. I don’t know where I would be today.”

Swick relates to many of the students he recruits. He didn’t have a lot of money and was raised by a single mother.

“My mom never went to college so I didn’t get that knowledge that comes with some parents,” he said.

Most of the students in Upward Bound are Native American, Swick said. Many of their parents never went to college, so they either don’t feel obligated to go or they don’t know how.

“This year a good number of our seniors are going to college with the Gates scholarship,” Swick said.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates funded the Gates Millennium Scholars Program with a $1 billion grant to assist minorities striving for academic excellence. Many of the students who enroll in Upward Bound come back every summer.

“We don’t lose very many,” he said.

There may be a future Upward Bound student as a new director.

“I plan on taking over when I’m older,” said Renelle White Buffalo, 20. “I don’t know what I would do without it.”

White Buffalo has been a student at the program for four years and is in her second year as a mentor.

White Buffalo has seen a change in confidence in the students she has mentored.

“They come in thinking they want to go to college not knowing they actually can,” she said.

The students who drop out of the program are people who fall in with the wrong crowd, she said.

Shania Laysbad, 18, is another senior in the bridge component part of the program. The component helps students enroll in college by teaching them how to write personal statements, research colleges and anything that can get the students on their way.

The best part about the program is making new friends, Laysbad said. Laysbad received the Gates scholarship to the University of South Dakota and will attend this fall.

“It also takes the fright of going to college away,” she said. “I want to graduate with a major in pre-med because I want to be a doctor.”