Building on the momentum generated last summer, Wabash College is pleased to again partner with
Blueprint Admissions to provide high school men a unique pre-college summer program.
Wabash’s summer program is designed for young men entering grades 10, 11, or 12, and provides students an opportunity to experience Wabash College while still in high school. Students can choose from either one and two-week programs throughout July. The deadline for registration is April 15, 2011.
The academic offerings have expanded substantially this year. Courses include Pharmaceutical Development, Coaching for the Greater Good, Life and Death — Ethics in Law, Spanish Culture and Tradition, and “We Don’t Need No Education.”
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All courses have been developed by Wabash College faculty and staff.
“Blueprint Admissions at Wabash College offers a unique opportunity for students to have both an engaging intellectual summer experience and to experience life on a college campus,” said Rhetoric Professor Todd McDorman, who taught in the inaugural program last summer. “The Wabash program is unique in that Wabash faculty and staff teach the courses — providing students with an interdisciplinary examination of topics ranging from law and ethics to chemistry to leadership in coaching.”
Professor McDorman was part of the faculty who taught a Law and Ethics course last summer. He said the strength of Wabash’s program is that it gives bright high school students a sense of what college work is really like in a discussion-based format.
“In the Law and Ethics program students interact with a political science professor (and attorney), a philosophy professor, a rhetoric professor, and a high school teacher,” added McDorman. “Students explore philosophical, moral, and ethical questions, examine media representations of end of life decision-making, learn about prominent figures in the right-to-die movement, and engage in two moot court style exercises in which they argue legal hypothetical on the issue.”
Last year, the students in the Law and Ethics course interacted with current Wabash students and traveled off campus to meet with a judge who has been involved with right-to-die cases, and even spent a day with alumni attorneys and other Wabash graduates.
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Chemistry Professor Ann Taylor will lead the course on Pharmaceutical Development. In last year’s program, students worked in the lab before traveling to Indianapolis for a personal, in-depth tour of the Eli Lilly & Company research labs.
"The Development of Pharmaceuticals camp was a great mix of classroom learning, computer modeling, and laboratory experience,” said Dr. Taylor. “Students used programs and equipment that are not normally found in a high school, including Multichannel Pipetmen, a 96-well plate reader, and docking software that Dr. Wally Novak uses in his research.”
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It’s not all work and no play at Wabash’s camps. Students live in college residence halls. Counselors provide daily recreational and social activities — tapping Wabash’s $20 million Allen Athletics and Recreation Center, going to movies, and a road trip to Indianapolis for a tour of the NCAA Hall of Champions and dinner at some of the top restaurants in the city.
Andre Adeyemi served as a counselor in the 2010 program. “I was fortunate to see how the Blueprint Program allows high school students the chance the experience what Wabash has to offer during the summer,” Andre said. “The College not only allows students to take advantage of some our most respected faculty, but also our nationally ranked athletic facilities. Through trips to Indianapolis, and scavenger trips around Crawfordsville, the students of the program forge bonds with each other.”
Professor McDorman was impressed with the students’ abilities during the summer 2010 program.
“As a college professor it was a valuable opportunity to work with high school students, but in the end the high school students demonstrated that they are capable of college-level work,” he said. “The program is a great opportunity to explore a liberal arts environment and have a thought-provoking summer experience.”
With a work hard, play hard attitude, the students came together, which caught Professor Taylor’s eye. “The students really bonded with each other, and I’ve seen one of them at several Wabash recruiting events since then!”
