Ceremony at West Virginia State to Celebrate 50-Year Anniversary of Upward Bound

10/28/2014

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Contact: Kimberly Osborne
(304) 766-3363
kosborne@wvstateu.edu
 
   
INSTITUTE, W.Va. – A celebration commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the Upward Bound program will take place Saturday, Nov. 1, at West Virginia State University (WVSU).

Beginning at 11 a.m. in the auditorium of the Davis Fine Arts Building the celebration will feature recognition of current and former students from each of the Upward Bound programs in West Virginia.

The event is free and open to the public.

Created in 1964, Upward Bound is a federally funded program that more than doubles the chances of low-income, first-generation students graduating from college. Since its inception, it has provided millions of Americans between the ages of 13 and 18 instruction in college readiness, literature, composition, mathematics, and science on college campuses, after school, on Saturdays and during the summer.

The program began in West Virginia with three colleges participating, WVSU, Concord and the West Virginia University Institute of Technology. Today, there are 11 Upward Bound programs in West Virginia serving approximately 650 students.

“Upward Bound has been changing lives one student at a time for 50 years,” said Barbara Cary, Upward Bound Program Director at WVSU. “Former alumni are now veterinarians, physicians, teachers, accountants, attorneys, engineers, nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, social workers, computer scientists and even a West Point graduate.”

Nationwide, today, there are 964 Upward Bound programs serving more than 80,000 students from all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico.

For more information, contact Barbary Cary at carybw@wvstateu.edu or (304) 766-3088.

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West Virginia State University is a public, land grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi-generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service, and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.