As a result of a fund started to help send more Oberlin High School graduates to college, Oberlin College’s Community Based Writing Program has started the Ninde Scholars Program for that purpose.

“[Since] we’ve had the Community Based Writing Program, we’ve been doing different things in the high school,” said Anne Trubek, associate professor in rhetoric and composition and director of the CBWP. “We found that our niche really was helping students with the college process.”

At the forefront of this year’s CBWP array of services is the new Ninde Scholars program.

In 2002, two residents of Kendal at Oberlin, Dick and Anne Ninde, started a $450,000 fund solely to help send more Oberlin students to college. They called for matching donations, which they received enthusiastically from Lorain County residents, particularly Oberlin residents.

This summer, Oberlin College put together a direct collaboration with this fund.

“It’s a three-pronged collaboration formed by the school district, the Lorain County Urban League and the CBWP,” said Trubek. “The high school hired a college counselor named Will Torres; the Urban League is going to have a mentoring program for fifth and eighth graders and help with the college tour [happening in the spring] and we have the Ninde Scholars program.”

The program now consists of four tutors — Oberlin College students — and 13 high school students. Among the high school students, there are six seniors, four juniors and three sophomores.

“They’re bright high school students who are really motivated and aren’t going to be helped in the college process at home,” said Ninde tutor Monica Gagnon.

“The majority of scholars would be first-generation college students,” said Trubek. “Most have a lot of financial need.”

Most importantly, the scholars have to be motivated. There is a rather lengthy application with questions about family background, college goals, what kind of help is being received in the college process, obstacles in that process, school skills and larger life goals. There is also an essay question reminiscent of the kind asked on most college applications; this year, it asks applicants to describe something that has shaped his/her views on education. All scholars are required, aside from meeting with a tutor, to go to Saturday morning workshops and finish six projects about the college search. They have to agree to continue in the program until high school graduation.

Two motivations for students to join the program are the laptop scholars receive upon acceptance and the $250 received with the program’s completion. Both rewards should help students achieve the ultimate goal of the program: going to college.

“Basically what I do as a tutor is I meet with two students weekly,” said tutor Erica Kramer, a College senior. “I have two seniors who are in the process of applying to college, who didn’t really know what to look for, how to look at financial aid, how to make themselves attractive to colleges.”

“Because it’s such a new program it’s pretty much my own initiative,” said Gagnon. “They each got these huge SAT books and right around then my students were about to take the PSATs. So we talked about techniques. We’re working on the essay now, which is good because [the tutors] are trained in college essays; we’re writing tutors.”

The College worked with the program in another way this week when Student Academic Services’ peer liaisons organized a dinner for the scholars in Stevenson.

“When I heard what this program was doing I thought it would be really good to join parties,” said College junior Matt Kaplan, the peer liaison who organized the dinner. “We want to give as much support as possible to these kids. This was an open invitation for them to explore this resource.”

Kaplan suggested that scholars could look at the college experience through Oberlin, whether just by eating in Stevenson or maybe, in the future, attending classes as prospective students do.

“We definitely plan on following up with these kids,” Kaplan continued. “This is a part of the community that is often overlooked but who could really use the plethora of resources we have at Oberlin College.”

“What we want to do is connect first-generation and/or low-income Oberlin students with the scholars to give them support and information,” said Trubek of the dinner.

“The mission statement of the CBWP is to share the wealth of resources and information the College has with the town,” concluded Trubek. “The students who had priority were the students that most needed information and resources.”