Campus crusade: Making higher education less intimidating

SIU, Shawnee Community College bring summer lessons to low-income students.

ULLIN, Ill. -- In a basement classroom at Shawnee Community College, 9-year-old Stephanie Waggoner couldn't sit still.

She wiggled around in the college-sized desk, crossed and uncrossed her legs, finally folding her feet beneath her in the seat.

Her arms, sliding back and forth across the desktop, remained an outlet for the excess excitement and energy though, an emotional combination brought on by the writhing creatures just inches in front of her.

"I love snakes," the Carbondale, Ill., girl explained. "They're so gentle and smooth."

She had an opportunity to admire and even pet numerous reptiles Monday as one of about 80 fourth- and fifth-graders from Southern Illinois participating in the Saluki Kids Academy at Shawnee.

Karen Wilhelm watched Waggoner from the back of the classroom and smiled at her quick answers to the teacher's questions about snakes.

"She's very smart isn't she," Wilhelm, curriculum and evaluation specialist at Shawnee, said of the dark-haired girl in the front row.

When Wilhelm takes time out to peek in on the progress of the kids camp, she sees more than just a group of low-income students having a fun time over the summer. She sees the often-locked doors to college cracking open a bit for them.

"These are kids who wouldn't normally be exposed to college life," said Wilhelm, who has been involved in Saluki Kids Academy for the four years since its inception.

The program is a joint venture between Shawnee and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. It runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. over two weeks, the first spent at Shawnee and next week at SIU.

The students come from Carbondale, Cobden, Ill., Meridian, Ill., Cairo, Ill., and Massac County. They're divided into four groups and spend their mornings in a literacy program that helps improve reading skills.

The afternoons are for enrichment, such as Monday's visit from an Illinois Conservation Department agent and her snakes.

While Waggoner's group studied reptiles, another practiced drama skits in the college auditorium, and a third group created T-shirt logos in the computer lab.

In the lab, 9-year-old Taylor Lagrone carefully selected pink and purple for the background of her T-shirt logo and blue for the font.

"Blue is the only science color I could think of," said Lagrone, who lives in Cairo. "I've watched cartoons and laboratories are always blue."

The students will eventually print out their logos and iron them onto T-shirts provided by the academy. They're bused in every day and fed lunch and snacks as well.

They leave with improved reading skills and knowledge that "college" isn't a totally forbidding place.

"And they really have fun," said Wilhelm.

cmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128