Trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, 14-year-old Tynia Davis stood in front of a room full of her peers and announced, “My voice is loud -- it gets the point across.”

Assigned in a summer drama class to give a speech about what her voice says about her, Davis dreaded the task. That is, until the rising ninth-grader heard her voice ring out clear and confident.

This turning point – the ability to face and overcome fears and difficulties -- is just one of the moments leaders of the Meyers Institute for College Preparation (MICP) hope every student will experience during its intensive two- to four-week Summer Institute.

MICP brought 100-plus students from Northeast D.C. to Georgetown in July for intensive academic enrichment. The institute targets students from Washington’s Ward 7 neighborhood who, like Davis, show academic motivation and promise from an early age. MICP follows students from their seventh-grade year through their first year of college with the goal of seeing more of Washington’s underserved students excel at post-secondary education.

“Georgetown has a commitment to Ward 7 to help children who are motivated to reach college, and in some cases, be the first generation in their families to do so,” says Jane Holahan, director of Georgetown’s Academic Resource Center and coordinator of this year’s summer institute faculty.

Throughout the academic year, Meyers students attend Saturday classes at Georgetown in core subjects such as English, math and Spanish. During the summer, when most D.C. students are out of the classroom on summer vacation, Meyers students return to Georgetown for instruction that branches out into other subjects, including the sciences, drama and even physical fitness.

The Hilltop draws students from across the country to several academic enrichment programs during the summer, but the MICP Summer Institute is specifically geared toward students within the city.

Over the last month, Georgetown has hosted rising eighth-, ninth- and 11th-graders for MICP from July 6 to 31.

“I’m taking classes I wouldn’t be able to take at my school,” says Davis, a rising ninth-grader at Youth Engagement Academy in Northeast D.C. “The algebra I’m taking is going to help me get through high school and get into college.”

Getting into college or even graduating from high school is a goal that still eludes many students in Ward 7. According to MICP, the ward’s high school graduation rate stands at 33 percent, compared to the city’s 77.8 percent, and 13 percent of adults 25 years or older have a bachelor’s degree, compared to the city’s 39.1 percent.

MICP works to raise the ward’s numbers. Based on the program’s numbers, the institute is making an impact. Ninety-eight percent of MICP’s students in the classes of 1995, 2001 and 2005 graduated from high school; 85 percent of MICP scholars from the classes of 1995 and 2001 graduated from college, according to the most recent statistics.

“I love these students,” says math teacher Dawn Person, who teaches algebra to rising eighth-graders this summer. “The children are here because they want to be. They want to learn. It’s never a question of motivating them. There’s more bickering over, ‘When can I have a turn?’ than trying to get them to participate.”

Person, who teaches math at Friendship Public Charter School during the school year, worked as one of more than a dozen Meyers faculty members this summer. Some faculty members, such as Person, teach at D.C. schools during the academic year, while others are professors at Georgetown and other local universities or work with the Meyers Institute.

“We have a combination of experienced faculty -- both experienced within the Meyers Institute and experienced within their fields,” says Holahan. “Our faculty are master’s level or higher, and they come here with the express purpose of helping our students with their academic achievements.”

MICP, formerly known as the Pre-College Scholars Program, began 20 years ago. The program enrolled and supported a group of students starting in seventh grade through 12th grade, but could only serve one class as a time.

That changed in 2007 when a $10 million grant from Daniel Meyers vastly increased the institute’s resources and outreach efforts. There are now three grades of students in the program -- rising eighth-, ninth- and 11th-graders -- and the remaining grades will be added as the students progress through the institute.

Kevin Williams-Henry, 14, joined MICP after seeing his older sister find success through the program. The rising ninth-grader says he’s partial to the science classes and will attend Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Md., this fall for its science and technology focus.

“This is better than regular school because you don’t just come to class and sit down, you get involved,” explains Williams-Henry. “In regular school, it’s hard to get a teacher’s attention or ask a question, but not here.”

Summer English teacher Hanna Lee took the student involvement aspect seriously during classroom sessions. The former teacher of Baltimore City Public Schools now works as a program coordinator in Georgetown’s Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, but she also taught English to MICP’s the rising ninth-graders.

“Does anyone have extra tubes from wrapping paper rolls?” she asked during a recent faculty meeting. “I need them for a swordfight.”

The much-needed paper rolls were going to be used as her students acted out key scenes from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin the Sun” was also on the list for reading and analysis, with plans to study the play and contrast different staging and movie examples of the piece.

“We’re getting to do things they don’t get to do during the school year,” says Lee. “But I also know a lot of these students will study ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in high school, so I’m hoping to give them a leg up.”

But it was not all work for the students. The slate of activities also included field trips -- camping at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia, horseback riding at Wheaton Park Stables in Maryland and a trip to New York to see the “Lion King” on Broadway.

No matter what field the students are interested in -- language, science or drama, Holahan says the goal is to show them the interdisciplinary nature of academics at a young age.

“What’s extraordinary about this summer program is how we look at the interconnectedness of disciplines. We want people to cross-pollinate,” she says.

That means an environmental science trip also could have students calculating densities as a part of a math lesson or learning the Spanish words for the things they see or writing about what they encounter on the trip for English class.

“We want to help our students see that academic fields can be combined,” says Holahan, “and speak to their interests.”

Source: Office of Communications