By Zoe Folsom

Although Northern clearly caters mostly to college-aged students, it has a history of involvement with students still in high school. One of its most profound impacts came through the Upward Bound program, which ran through NMU for decades. Started by the U.S. Department of Education in the 1960’s, the Upward Bound program seeks to offer support for high school students with a historically lesser chance of pursuing higher education. Typically, it does so through offering summer school programs, as well as workshops and tutoring throughout the year. Schools (often universities) apply for grant funding in order to host an Upward Bound program for their local communities. In the early 1980’s, Northern Michigan University did just that, establishing this highly beneficial student support for those in the surrounding area.

    A summer class of the Upward Bound programStudents entering the Upward Bound program originally came from the Marquette school district, though the opportunity eventually expanded to surrounding schools like Negaunee and Ishpeming. NMU’s program included activities throughout the year, like tutoring, educational workshops, and social nights, as well as a 5-week summer program in which students lived on campus at NMU and took high school summer classes throughout the week. At the end of the program, students usually had the opportunity to take a field trip to a city like Milwaukee or Chicago to expand students’ horizons. Dee Dane, who entered the program in the late 1980’s, remembers the summer program and its accompanying high school shenanigans most fondly: “we used to pull some epic pranks on people…we had one girl who took a nap once, and she slept so soundly, so when she woke up we told her it was the morning and everyone was in on it, even though it was the afternoon…[on the trips] we would go fun places, like we would go to the theater or to a baseball game, stuff that I would not have been able to do had it not been for the program.” Although students had plenty of fun, they also grew immensely from the new exposures they gained through the program.Upward bound program iceskating

Upward Bound continued to make a difference for Marquette area high school students for decades. The Guidebeck family sent three of their children—Courtney, Kimber, and Ashton—through Northern’s Upward Bound program while they could during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Although only Kimber attended the summer live-in program, they each remember their Upward Bound experience with great fondness. They developed close relationships with their tutors (one of whom they even babysat for), and with the director Jeffery Gagnon. They took college tours, and had the opportunity to attend a leadership conference downstate throughout their Upward Bound years. Although their siblings couldn’t participate in the program, they still sent them along to Jeff for advice about things like applying to colleges and filling out FAFSAs. As they explained it, from their parents’ perspective, “it wasn’t a matter of if we would go to college, but where”, and Upward Bound provided the knowledge and resources to make sure every one of them could go on to receive (at least) their undergraduate degrees.

When these Upward Bound participants graduated from high school, every single one spent at least some time studying at Northern. Dee Dane had another offer from Oakland University, but when the director of Upward Bound offered her a position as an office assistant for the program, she couldn’t turn it down. She worked in various capacities with the program during her undergraduate years, and was grateful to be able to give back to the program that had given her so much. She’s now an attorney, a career path she likely wouldn’t have thought possible without the support and encouragement she received during her time at Upward Bound. Only one of the Guidebeck sisters actually graduated from Northern, but it still played a part in each of their educations: for Ashton, it meant a place to comfortably start the college experience before transferring to try something new, and for Kimber it was a place to pursue a new path when she realized her degree from the University of Michigan wasn’t right for her.

For Jeffery Gagnon, a Marquette native who served in almost every Upward Bound position available before becoming the director of the program in 2006, “it was more of a calling than a job.” He began working with the program as a tutor while he was still studying at NMU; after earning his degree in education, he wanted to stay in the area, but noticed the shortage of teaching jobs around, so he continued his work with the program by serving as a summer school teacher and then as a guidance counselor. He loved the dramatic change he could see in his students: “they became really attached, especially if they came to our summer program…and you got to see these kids every day and it was great how they came out of their shell…when they were in a place of support, and they could see their potential, how they would blossom. A lot of them would come through Northern when they did choose to come to college, so I would be invited to their graduations, or their high school open houses, and I’ve been invited to their weddings…so they keep in touch, and that’s a really cool thing.” 

NMU’s traditional Upward Bound program ran until 2012, when a competitive grant written by then-director Jeffery Gagnon fell short of the national cutoff (despite its more-than-perfect score of 104.6/100). The abrupt termination of the program came as a surprise and a sadness to those who knew about its impact: Courtney Jukkala described it as both “sad and frustrating, because it was so needed up here”. Jeffery Gagnon considered it a tragic loss for the community, which had benefitted so greatly from this program for over 30 years. NMU does still host an Upward Bound Math Science summer program, but those students come from Detroit to experience the unique natural opportunities for scientific study that the U.P. has to offer. Although incoming high schoolers in Marquette County Schools may not know the term “Upward Bound,” it will never be forgotten by those lives it changed. Nearly each person interviewed for this project reiterated the same sentiment: I can’t imagine what it would have been like without Upward Bound.