Outreach on Campus – Middle Schoolers Get a Taste of College Life at Johnson & Wales
By Linda Borg; Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – Thirty middle school students crowd into a typical dorm room at Johnson & Wales University’s downtown campus. Four bunk beds line the walls; the desks are jammed beneath them. A pair of fuzzy slippers sits next to an overstuffed laundry bag.
The campus tour guide tells the eighth graders that female students share one bathroom, while male students share the other. That fact seems to come as a big surprise to the students from Roger Williams Middle School, some of whom have never visited a college campus. One girl isn’t keen on sharing a bathroom with strangers; another is stunned by the size of the room.
More impressive is the dining room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and extensive selection of hot and cold lunches. The students are also taken with the campus setting, a park-like oasis on Weybosset Street in the middle of gritty downtown. The tour guide describes the diversity of the university, which attracts students from more than 90 countries.
The recent campus tour was part of the College of Business’s Career Education Shadow Day, which is designed to introduce youngsters to a college campus and encourage them to consider careers in business.
“It’s an opportunity to show middle school kids what college life is all about,” said Marianne Rousso, a special-education teacher at Roger Williams. “It’s an opportunity to make students realize that there is a connection between what they’re learning in middle school and what they will need to know in college.”
After a welcoming address and snacks, the eighth graders break into small groups and take turns visiting classes in accounting and marketing and meeting with individual professors. Christine Crompton, a professor of organizational behavior, hosted two groups of eighth graders, asking them ques tions about their career interests and their college prospects.
Crompton, who could pass for a college student herself, asks four students what they want to be when they grow up. One boy says he wants to be a sports star; another wants to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because the university excels at math and science.
“What did you do before you became a professor?” one of the boys asks.
Crompton says she started out working in retail and then moved to Citizens Bank, where she created computer systems for the banking giant. Next, she attended Johnson & Wales for her master’s degree. Teaching college students, she says, is by far her favorite job.
“Do any of you want to be a college professor?” she asks.
“Nah, it’s boring.”
“How many exams do you have to take in college?” a student says.
“In my class,” Crompton said, “you have to take two exams per term.”
“Are there still grades?”
“Yes,” she said, “But you have a grade-point average, and 4.0 is the highest.”
“What can you do if you don’t go to college?”
“You can go to a technical school and learn a trade, like electronics.”
Four years ago, when Irving Schneider became president of Johnson & Wales, he promised that the university would become more involved in the city’s public schools. The college decided to partner with Roger Williams Middle School in a number of different ways: Johnson & Wales students volunteer to help youngsters with their homework; they participate in after-school activities; and professors occasionally teach a class in economics.
“The theme of the partnership is careers,” says Paul Gounaris, an associate professor in the department of management. “When I was in eighth grade, I didn’t have a clue about college. We really need to expose these kids to potential opportunities.”
Gounaris introduced the eighth graders to students from China to give them a taste of the university’s multi-ethnic student population. At lunch, a couple of former Roger Williams students talk about what it’s like to attend college and the ways in which you have to prepare to be successful in a university setting.
“The more we reach out,” Gounaris says, “the more of a chance these kids will have.”
lborg@projo.com / (401) 277-7823
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Beth Cannata, a professor of accounting at Johnson & Wales, talks with Roger Williams Middle School eighth grader Ladonna Witter about opportunities at Johnson & Wales University. On the right is Sean Moni, another eighth-grade student. The university held a Career Education Shadow Day’ for middle school students.
The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy
(c) 2007 Providence Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.