"The Chronicle of Higher Education Highlights" AULA’s Bridge Program Recruitment
AULA’s Bridge Program is unique in that it provides free humanities courses to low-income adults. Each year 35 students earn up to 15 credits over three quarters. All necessary expenses are included; tuition, books, supplies, bus tokens and meal vouchers. Unlike many programs that offer skills training for low-level jobs, Bridge was designed to impart academic skills.
Bridge Director Kathryn Pope recruits students for the program in the summer, visiting shelters, community centers, rehab clinics and adult day schools. During one recruiting session at Chrysalis, a nonprofit group that helps poor and homeless people find jobs, she was joined by Eric Hoover, a reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Hoover “chronicled” the recruiting trip for an inspirational article that appeared in print on July 25, 2011.
Hoover describes Pope’s interaction with the potential students during the recruiting trip as well as details of the program. During the presentation questions arise from potential students and Pope answers them. Is it really free? "Yes, this is really free," (she finds herself answering that question a lot.) Can I use these credits at another school? “Most of the credits should count toward degrees at other colleges.” What are the admission requirements, “You need to be able to read a newspaper in English, and your income can't be too high.”
That day Hoover meets a former Bridge graduate Terry Moore. When Moore met Pope in 2008 she told him he could "be something" at Antioch. In one Bridge class he read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and couldn't stop thinking about it. "If you've never had an opportunity to see anything but what's put in front of you, all you see are shadows, and you think that's real," he says. "I thought, that's right." A Chrysalis client came in that day to use a computer and look for sales jobs, but stopped when he heard Pope’s presentation. "I started thinking about what I could have been,” he says. In his Bridge application essay he writes, "I'm trying to get my heart back." He hopes the Bridge Program will help him find it.
