VAMPY Summer Camp Celebrates Its 25th Year

By Natalie Jordan, The Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky.

Jul. 10–A three-week summer camp at Western Kentucky University is giving academically talented middle school students opportunities for advanced learning for the 25th year.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of VAMPY, or Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Youth. The Center for Gifted Studies at WKU, through a cooperative agreement with the Duke Talent Identification Program, has offered the camp to students since 1984.

The Kentucky Department of Education received a call from Duke TIP saying that it wanted to start a cooperative program in the state, said Julia Roberts, executive director of the center at WKU. She said she and then-WKU President Donals Zacharias went to Duke in North Carolina and observed the program for three days, and came back with a commitment to start the program here, “and we did,” she said.

“It’s been a wonderful experience for young people,” she said. “When you combine high interest with high ability, it is a wonderful learning opportunity for young people who want to do it. And it has impacted the lives of many young people.”

Roberts said when the camp first started, it offered four classes and students generally came from the region. Over the years, the program has expanded, now offering 13 classes to 206 students who come from states such as Ohio and Tennessee and four countries, including China, Indonesia and Korea.

“This camp is very important for young people,” Roberts said. “It provides opportunities for students to learn with others that are equally interested in that content area and who are also very capable of learning at high levels.”

The camp provides a wide range of classes, from forensic chemistry to art and art history. The students, who were seventh-, eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders during the 2007-08 school year, take one class in the subject they are interested in — taking that one class six hours a day with one hour of study hall at night.

Roberts said many of the classes take field trips: the Spectra: Understanding the Universe through the Analysis of Light class has been to West Virginia, and the class studying Nazi Germany flew to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to visit the Holocaust Museum.

“We do this for 105 hours, which is equal to a college semester, so it pushes us to reach our potential,” said Nick Neuteufel, 14, of Dupont Manual High School in Louisville. “I came last year, and really enjoyed it — meeting with all kinds of people and taking higher-level classes. It has helped my analytical and interpretation skills.”

Joe’docei Hill, 14, who will be a ninth-grader at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Lexington in the fall, said the camp has been interesting.

“They’re teaching me stuff here they didn’t teach me in school,” he said. “They go more in depth on subjects so I comprehend them better.”

Megan Carter, 14, of Lexington Catholic High School, said she switched schools a lot and hasn’t had a sturdy social studies education. She said the class she is taking is hard and a lot of work, but she has learned “so much.”

“I love this camp,” she said. “It’s really fun. I like to be around other smart people.”

Roberts said the camp pays for itself through tuition, which is $1,850, with scholarships available for students. Tuition covers three meals a day, room, board, books and classes, she said.

“I got a full scholarship to come,” said LaJuan Hazard, 15, of Campbellsville High School. “I was glad to come. I’m getting a lot of good information that I probably wouldn’t have learned at my high school.”

Students’ eligibility is based on their seventh-grade ACT or SAT scores. Those who qualified for the camp scored at or above average of college-bound high school seniors on one portion of the test, Roberts said.

The students are living in Schnieder and McClean halls.

When the students aren’t in classes, they participate in planned activities, which include a talent show, games and athletics. A dinner and dance will be Friday night for all campers.

Trevor McNary, 14, of the Liberal Arts Academy at Henry Clay High School in Lexington, said many times the work at other summer programs is either extremely easy or extremely hard — the work at VAMPY is on the camper’s level.

“At a regular high school, teachers feel so pressured to do well on CATS that they skip parts that are interesting to students,” said Evan Brown, 14, of Monroe County High School in Tompkinsville. “Here it’s not like that. I enjoy it here, and the community of kids that are my age and think on the same level as I do.

“I get the opportunity to have intellectual conversations with kids from all over.”

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