Of all the Upward Bound courses that she took during six weeks at Lyndon State College over the summer, Lauren Holt expects the one on financial literacy to stick with her the longest.
“It helped me so much,” the Rivendell Academy senior recalled last week. “The subjects they cover, they’re awkward things to ask people about. It made me feel really comfortable talking about money with people who are in my position. Like credit cards — it was crazy.”
And the enlightenment didn’t stop there. Seventy students from northern New Hampshire and Vermont spent a week touring Washington, D.C., before spending the next five weeks taking classes in everything from calculus to college essay writing. They volunteered each afternoon in the Lyndonville/St. Johnsbury area and visited the campuses of public and private colleges around Vermont.
All of this took place under the auspices of a 50-year-old federal program in which Lyndon State has participated since 1980. The students come from low- and moderate-income families or from families with no history of post-secondary education.
Upper Valley students joining Holt in the program this year included fellow Rivendell Academy students Michael Delaney, Kirstyn Binford and McKenna Binford, and Woodsville High seniors Myra Hollis, Curtis Wyman, Chelsea Paye, Charles Chandler and Christian McFarland.
“All of us agree that it was not a summer wasted,” said Holt, who will spend her senior year of high school taking classes at the Community College of Vermont (CCV). “We really put all of our energy into the program, to make it beneficial for us in the future.”
Woodsville High School’s new guidance counselor, Rosalie Farr, will encourage students to apply to Upward Bound.
“I have a relative who did the program, I think it was more than 30 years ago,” Farr said last week. “It’s extremely valuable. I think our kids get a lot out of it. They make lifelong connections, which is so important at this stage of their lives. The different experiences they get, that maybe they would not at a smaller public school, really broadens their horizons.”
Holt said that the afternoons she spent volunteering at a day care center this summer reinforced her long-term goal.
“That’s what I want to do when I get older, to be involved in early education,” she said. “It’s something I’m really passionate about.”
“The volunteering in the community, I love that part,” Farr said, adding that Woodsville has been sending students to Upward Bound since 2000.
Holt said that when she first heard about Upward Bound from friends, “I thought it was just a camp kind of thing.” Then representatives of the Lyndon State program made a presentation at Rivendell, and Holt sent in an application.
“I showed the information to my guidance counselor and some teachers, who said it would be really good fit,” Holt recalled.
What doubts Holt still had — I thought I would be one of the dumb ones there — her peers and her teachers erased pretty quickly.
“A lot of people think it must be just boring classes all summer,” Holt concluded. “But it’s a lot of fun stuff as well.”
For more information about Upward Bound, including the application process for the summer 2017 program, visit lyndonstate.edu/academics/upwardbound.
After maintaining the highest possible grade-point average of 4.0 during the spring 2016 semester, Teagan Atwater of Plainfield graduated from Connecticut College on May 22 with a bachelor of arts degree in architectural studies and in computer science. His accomplishments during his four years at the New London, Conn.-based school included earning a certificate from the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology for completing a three-year program that included a summer internship in Uruguay, co-founding the entrepreneurship club Launch, founding the cycling club, tutoring students in the computer science department and doing web development for the college relations office.
Dennis Wirth of Lebanon received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, during commencement exercises in May.
Harper Shawverhowell of Randolph recently graduated from Binghamton (N.Y.) University, with a bachelor of arts degree in cinema.
North Pomfret residents Caroline Atwood and Hadley DesMeules received bachelor’s degrees from Williams College on June 5.
Atwood earned honors for her achievements as a geosciences major, and DesMeules, who majored in anthropology, received all-academic honors from the New England Small College Athletic Conference for the 2015-2016 school year.
Eve Warner of Hartland returns to Hartford High School this week after spending the spring semester of her sophomore year on the coast of Maine, examining acidification of ocean waters in the Coastal Studies for Girls program.
In addition to classroom work, Warner and her fellow researchers collected data about the pH levels of intertidal and ocean water off Freeport, Bailey Island and New Harbor. She presented results, including impacts of acid levels on creatures living in the water, during a public forum at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.
For more information about Coastal Studies for Girls, visit coastalstudiesforgirls.org.
With sisters Maxine Park and Roxane Park posting the top individual scores among girls in their grades, Crossroads Academy’s math team placed fifth overall at the national Mathleague.org competition in Houston in mid-June.
Competing individually in grade 6, Maxine Park finished third overall and first among girls in her grade and scored highest among girls at all levels. Meanwhile, Roxane Park placed third overall in grade 3 and first among all girls in that category. They and Crossroads teammates Audrey Lewellen (grade 5) and Saia Patel (grade 6) combined for the highest score on the team test among 112 squads at nationals, making them the first team of all girls to finish in the top five.
The University of Massachusetts at Lowell recently named Joshua Fontaine of Lebanon to the school’s dean’s list for the spring 2016 semester. Fontaine, a 2015 graduate of Lebanon High School and a distance runner for UMass-Lowell’s cross-country and track-and-field teams, earned the recognition for maintaining a grade-point average of 3.25 or better out of a possible 4.0 during the final term of his freshman year. He is majoring in exercise physiology.
For maintaining the maximum grade-point average of 4.0 during the spring 2016 semester, six Upper Valley students earned places on the president’s list at the Community College of Vermont: Amy McClure of Bridgewater, Abby O’Donnell of East Thetford, Katie Paroline of Randolph Center, Crystal Johnson of Vershire, Mona Abdelghani of White River Junction and Rachael Drinker of Springfield, Vt.
Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., named senior Matthew Field of Post Mills and sophomore Ryan Servant of West Lebanon to the school’s dean’s list for the spring 2016 semester. Both majoring in sports management, Field and Servant maintained grade-point averages of at least 3.5 out of a possible 4.0.
Joseph Sweeney of White River Junction was named to the dean’s list at Boston University for maintaining a grade-point average of at least 3.5 out of a possible 4.0 during the spring 2016 semester.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304. Send educationnews to schoolnotes@vnews.com.