PORTLAND, Ore. — There’s not much noise this time of year on a college campus. But things are still rolling at the University of Portland’s Shiley School of Engineering.
“It's really important for us that we're creating opportunities for students to utilize their brains over the summer but we're also utilizing our campus,” said university president Dr. Robert Kelly.
This week, the university hosted the nonprofit Building Blocks 2 Success, a STEM-focused organization empowering and giving opportunities to underrepresented youth.
“Seeing a young person not think they're able to do it, and then when they do and they figure it out ... a light bulb does turn on and they're like, ‘Wow, I can do this!’” said co-founder and executive director Antonio Jackson.
Jackson is a Portland native and David Douglas High School product. He’s coached kids in athletics, but says this kind of coaching is different.
“This my passion to inspire young people," Jackson said. "Athletics, it always ends at a certain point, but this will always continue to carry on for the rest of their lives.”
The week-long “Pathway to U.P. Stem Summer Camp” gave middle schoolers an opportunity to get a taste of college life. Each camper got a meal card and even stayed in the residence halls. Dean Brian Fabien of the Shiley School of Engineering taught the classes.
“We get to actually express how we like to try different things, see if we like it and see if it's for us or not with other people that like the same things, potentially,” said 13-year-old camper Jackie Noil.
On Thursday, students tested gravity cars built earlier in the week. The trial and error of engineering couldn’t deter them.
“It's not going to always work the first time, and not to get like frustrated about the situation of what it is now, like, 'What is going on,' then and work on how to make it better,” Noil said.
“Seeing their eyes light up or sparkle in their eyes when they have that a-ha moment about how to do something, especially as it as it relates to science, technology and engineering," said Dr. Kelly. "Again, things that are really important to us but things that can change their life and change the trajectory of their lives.”
The camp is part of a larger STEM program that Building Blocks 2 Success aims at K-12 students of color. It carves out space especially for them and lets them build toward their future, showing them college is a feasible option.
“Building the gravity cars is something that many kids at beginning of the week, they're like, ‘I don't know if we can do this,’” said Jackson. “Now they're building cars. They're making them better. They're working in teams. They're collaborating with each other. They're learning how to be critical thinkers, how to be problem solvers, how to work in collaboration with each other, and those are the foundational pieces to our organization.”