For teens in the Me2We and AVID Summer Bridge programs at UNC Asheville, the summer of 2015 has been a time for deeper discussion, coming together across racial and ethnic lines, and making plans to help each other and improve their schools.
The two programs, which took place in late June on campus, brought together more than 100 Asheville area middle and high school students.
“We’re trying to empower them by facilitating in a way where there’s a lot of room in both of these programs for student voice, student agency and creativity,” said Kim Kessaris, of UNC Asheville’s Education Department faculty, who coordinates the university’s tutoring support for students in the Asheville City Schools AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program. “AVID Summer Bridge, which just completed its 15th summer, grew out of the school-year AVID program. It has evolved into a more thematic program with more of a social justice emphasis. It gives us the opportunity to explore things in depth that matter to the students, and also gets them looking toward their future and what it will feel like to be on a college campus.”
The Me2We Program, largely for high school students, has an even stronger student leadership component, and this year’s program was titled Racing Together for Racial Unity. Me2We was begun in 2010 to honor the civil rights activism 50 years earlier by the Asheville Student Committee on Racial Equality (ASCORE). “They started in 1960,” said Deborah Miles, director of UNC Asheville’s Center for Diversity Education, which leads Me2We. “We wanted to honor ASCORE’s work over a five-year period. We’ve recognized the desegregation of the library, the desegregation of UNC Asheville, and started the Me2We program.”
Me2We began five years ago with ASCORE veterans teaching young students, almost all African Americans, about the history of civil rights activism. “Over time, it has grown to be a more multiracial group and that was the hallmark of this year,” said Miles.
“This year, we branched out,” said Michael Davis, an incoming UNC Asheville freshman who has gone from being a Me2We participant the past few years to being one of its youth leaders this summer. “We went to the Jewish community, the Latino community, again the African-American community, and the Caucasian community and we all came together as one diverse group. It changed so much in terms of the perspectives people had when it came to stereotypes, food and culture, and we had a music session. It really opened eyes to have someone from that culture speak up about it instead of assuming or drawing conclusions which we normally always do. And after Me2We ended, a lot of people went back to their communities and had conversations about ‘what can we do to bridge the gap between our social groups?’ It’s something that’s growing with people coming together.”
Designed by Davis and other Me2We veterans like rising Asheville High School senior Raekwon Griffin, this year’s program brought students together with ice-breakers and community-building, and then moved to sharing of experiences and issue discussions that challenged those involved to move beyond their comfort levels. And after problems and challenges were identified, the students focused on actions they could take.
Griffin got feedback and ideas he will incorporate as he and classmate Stephen Buys work this fall to form a new Asheville High student group, Students in Action. Griffin and Buys were together in two AP courses last year – Griffin was the only African American in either class – and the two began talking about their shared concern with the lack of diversity. Griffin says he and Buys have a series of ambitious goals for Students in Action: building a support system to bring more minority students into high-level classes at Asheville High, mentoring middle school students and helping freshmen adjust to high school, engaging students in the public debates over social justice issues, and working to close the achievement gap between black and white students in Asheville City Schools. And Me2We was a place to gather ideas and support from other students in advance of the start of the new club.
“I was able to lead a session at Me2We on Students in Action,” said Griffin, “and I got positive feedback from the high school students. And the middle schoolers said they would feel more comfortable with high schoolers helping them with registering for classes and adjusting once they get to high school. People are pretty excited about the club.”
Having completed its original goal of a five-year program, Me2We will be continued, said Miles, with support from current partners – AVID Summer Bridge, the City of Asheville Youth Leadership Academy, the I Have a Dream Foundation, the Asheville Jewish Community Center, the Asheville YMCA, Manos (the Latino outreach program of Children First/Communities In Schools) – and perhaps with additional partners next year.
“All of the partners are committed to the idea that this is important work,” said Miles. “Especially after all the law enforcement-involved deaths that have happened and the killings at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, this is no time to stop this work with young people. It’s the impetus to continuing to give students the tools they need to live in the 21st century. We’re increasingly a multicultural nation and we’ve got to work on a local basis to prepare students from the white community as well as students from multicultural communities.”
(Photos taken by Makeda Sandford via UNC Asheville.)