Yale-Bridgeport GEAR UP Partnership and will sponsor a College Signing Day ceremony to celebrate GEAR UP students’ transition to college on June 7, 2017 at the University of Bridgeport.
GEAR UP students, their parents, alumni, staff, and representatives from the Bridgeport Public Schools will attend the ceremony, which will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the University of Bridgeport’s John J. Cox Student Center, 244 University Ave., Bridgeport.
GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a national educational initiative launched in 1999. Its mission is to significantly increase the number of low-income and minority students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education. The Yale University School of Medicine has partnered with the Bridgeport Public Schools twice since 2008 to offer the program to two cohorts of Bridgeport public school students.
The program helps students develop critical academic and social skills so they graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college. It achieves these goals through professional development for teachers and guidance counselors, academic enrichment and support programs, tutoring and mentoring services, and high-quality college preparatory tools as well as outreach to parents.
The ceremony in Bridgeport on June 7 coincides with the National College Signing Day initiative, a tradition to celebrate students going to college. In 2016, more than 1,000 College Signing Day events were held across the country reinforced, in part, by former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative, a nationwide effort to inspire every student to complete their education past high school.
Yale-Bridgeport GEAR UP 2017 graduates have been accepted to several colleges and universities, including Eastern Connecticut State University, Elmira College, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Fairfield University, Housatonic Community College, Husson University, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Quinnipiac University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Sacred Heart University, Southern Connecticut State University, University of Connecticut, University of Bridgeport, and University of New Haven.
Registration at the ceremony will begin at 5:30 pm. Nadia Ward, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Director of Yale-Bridgeport GEAR UP, will deliver welcoming remarks. Students will receive gifts from their colleges and universities, and dinner will be served. An awards and scholarship ceremony will follow.
For more information about the Yale-Bridgeport GEAR UP Partnership Project, visit http://yale-bridgeportgearup.org/.