Here’s a crew of budding scientists from Nathanael Greene and Roger Williams middle schools in Providence! They got involved in a Crusade program last fall called Pathways for Success in Science and Technology. The afterschool program, delivered in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island, is designed to help Crusaders see how science plays a major role in our lives. Students who participate get to practice their skills in math, science, and technology and build their academic confidence. This year they worked with a hands-on curriculum called “Capture the Universe.” They explored how telescopes work, requested astronomy images from real telescopes, and learned how to process those images. They also visited the Museum of Natural Science, Planetarium, and Botanical Garden at Roger Williams Park to end their great session. At left, Christopher Henderson, a 7th grader at Roger Williams Middle School, shows off his project display!

Crusaders at Mount Pleasant High School received a flock of academic accolades for fall 2011. Here are the honorees! Above, from left to right: Etebom Samuel, Stephen Pena, Alvaro Morales, Joana Delva, Alliyah Phin, Jeffery Avila, and Julia Franco. At left: Alondra Berrios. Below, from left to right: Jasmin Urquilla, Ariel Wilkerson, Chavelin Romero, Adadeyo Monterio, and Jahlill Prince.  Congratulations to everyone for your great achievements!

Ninth-grade Crusaders in our high school Passageways program spent the whole fall term learning how to survive and thrive in high school, and last night they celebrated with a skating party! Passageways is an afterschool workshop hosted by Crusade Advisors in a dozen different high schools. Participating students work together on a curriculum that includes relationship building, conflict resolution, interpersonal communication, transitioning from middle school to high school, goal setting, and community mapping. Congratulations to everyone who completed the program this year!

Welcome to the first ever edition of Crusade Career Tracks. We are interviewing Crusade alums about their career choices and goals! Click on the link to read what Renee Lavoie ’04 and Andersen Deossa ’09 have to say about working in sports media. Stay tuned for more alumni career stories soon!

We are honored to recognize Amgen Foundation, and the many Amgen volunteers who give their time as career speakers for Crusaders, as our Partner in Philanthropy for 2011. Several staff members from The College Crusade celebrated recently with representatives of the Amgen Foundation at the National Philanthropy Day in Rhode Island!

Pictured from left to right are: Todd D. Flaherty, president & CEO; Chanda Womack, high school field coordinator; Ranika Spiver, middle school field coordinator; Bob Oberg, VP of development and communications; Jerry McAndrews, director of supply chain at Amgen and chair of the RI Amgen Foundation Site Review Committee; Christina Evon, associate of communications and philanthropy at Amgen; and Elsie Palmieri, high school Advisor. We are very grateful to Amgen Foundation for their exceptional support of the educational aspirations of RI youth!

Crusaders at Roger Williams Middle School have been thinking and writing about bullying recently. They watched a documentary film called Bullied, which chronicles one student’s ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today. After the film, Crusade Advisor Kristina Moyet invited several Crusaders to write essays that expressed their feelings about the topic. The two-page essay written by 8th grader Joseph Mendes was selected as the best one!

In his essay Joseph explained how he can help if he witnesses someone being bullied. “To be honest,” he wrote, “it wasn’t Jamie’s fault he was bullied just because of his sexual orientation. I’m going to make sure when I see bullying happening in school I’m going to tell a teacher or principal and I’m going to stand up for the kid.”

Congratulations to Joseph for his great essay. He won a $25 gift card to the Warwick Mall!

Four 8th-grade Crusaders at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence assist College Crusade Advisor Kristina Moyet in many ways. Pictured here from left to right with Kristina at the center is the Roger Williams mentoring team: Kimberly Gomez, Jacqueline Escolastico, Elfreda Hoff, and Kirsi Madera. During afterschool Cru Club, they help organize activities and snacks for all the Crusaders in the program. They also help other students with homework. Thanks to Kimberly, Jacqueline, Elfreda, and Kirsi for your great leadership and Crusade spirit!

Over 160 Crusaders gathered at Johnson & Wales Harborside Campus this weekend for the first Saturday Cru Club day of the year! We welcomed a packed classroom of new 6th grade Crusaders to our Ways to A’s study skills program. Other classrooms of middle school Crusaders got involved with language arts games, advisory activities, and a STEM workshop on DNA expertly taught by Kim Pond, a science educator from the University of Rhode Island. Meanwhile, two groups of 9th grade Crusaders began our two-session workshop Passageways, which is designed to help students learn how to “survive and thrive” in high school. And that was just the morning! Career speakers, a class in financial literacy, and a presentation by Unspecified, our high school robotics team, rounded out the afternoon.

Check out these photos from our DNA workshop to see how Crusaders assembled the building blocks of deoxyribonucleic acid to create the double helix of genetic identity:

“Get your applications done early. Don’t procrastinate. Take advantage of all your opportunities to meet people and build your personal networks. Embrace the freedom and responsibility that will come with the college experience. Make an investment in your own future.”

Crusaders at our Getting to College Workshop on Saturday, October 22, heard all this great advice and more from a visiting panel of experts: four Crusade alums who came by to share what they did to get ready for college. They were (above, left-right)  Edgar Meza-Lopez, a graduate of Central High School and a freshman at Rhode Island College; Brian Estrada, a graduate of Mount Pleasant High School and a junior at Johnson & Wales University; Stephanie Tavares, a graduate of Hope High School and a freshman at Rhode Island College; and Isamar Morales, a graduate of Hope High School and a freshman at the University of Rhode Island.

After the panel discussion, participating Crusaders attended workshops on the college search, resume building, essay writing, and the mock application. Many thanks to Brian Stevens, admissions officer for Rhode Island College, who led our essay-writing workshop, and to E-Cubed Academy for hosting us for the day. See our album below!

Crusaders at Mount Pleasant High School welcomed U.S. Senator Jack Reed and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to their school library today! A big group of state education officials and College Crusade staff members joined them for a press conference to celebrate the announcement of a $3 million federal GEAR UP grant for Rhode Island. Featured speakers in addition to Senators Reed and Whitehouse were Todd D. Flaherty, president & CEO of The College Crusade; Paul E. Moran, chair of the College Crusade board of directors; Michael Trainor, special assistant to the Commissioner, RI Office of Higher Education; Susan F. Lusi, Interim superindendent, Providence Public Schools; Nkoli Onye, executive director of high schools, Providence Public Schools, on special assignment to Mount Pleasant High School; and Dwayne Clement, College Crusade Advisor.

Pictured above, from left to right are: (front row) Viengsavan Sayasene, Steven Sanchez, Alliyah Phin, and Joana Delva; (back row) Aaron Escobar, Oluwadamilola Animashaun, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator Jack Reed, Dwayne Clement, and Todd Flaherty.

Thank you to Mount Pleasant High School for graciously hosting us today. And many thanks to all the partners in Rhode Island GEAR UP who made it possible to win this federal grant on behalf of our students. To read more about it, see this news release from Senator Reed’s webpage.