Community College Scholars Explore Life at Bucknell

This summer, 27 high-achieving community college students are getting an inside look at life and learning on the Bucknell University campus. They're spending days climbing ropes and rappelling down towers at the CLIMBucknell Challenge Course and nights studying and honing skills they'll need to thrive in a challenging academic environment. At the end of the six-week program, they'll know if Bucknell is the place where they want to culminate their undergraduate education.

Bucknell's Community College Scholars Program has supported outstanding students from five partner community colleges in pursuit of their four-year degrees each summer since 2007. Every year, around 30 students from community colleges in Pennsylvania and Maryland are invited to attend a six-week summer session at Bucknell, where they live on campus, take two classes and attend workshops to build the study and time-management skills they'll need to excel at a four-year residential university. The program allows the students to see that they can be capable of completing bachelors level study, and opens further avenues of academic opportunity for them.

After completing their two-year associate's degrees at their home community colleges, the students will become eligible to apply to transfer to Bucknell, where each year between 15 and 20 enroll and receive full scholarships to complete a bachelor's degree in a further two years. This year's class marks more than 300 scholars who have taken part in the program since its inception, approximately 200 of whom have gone on to graduate from Bucknell.

"The diversity of life experiences these students bring with them during the summer, and after transferring to Bucknell, enriches the campus, as well as the courses and programs they choose to enroll in," said Professor T. Joel Wade, psychology, the program's academic director.