Third-Year Stroud Scholars Reflect on Time at CC

Three years after starting the Stroud Scholar Program, 21 local rising high school seniors look forward to their future. They continue to see the benefits of the Stroud program and believe it has set them up for success in their academic careers.

Every year, CC accepts up to 25 rising high school sophomores to spend the next three years as Stroud Scholars. The program focuses on setting these students up for success in college, both academically and holistically, by helping them build a strong foundation and connecting them with a supportive community. It also helps students build their writing and quantitative reasoning skills and gives them experience living and learning on a college campus and in a college setting.

This group of Stroud Scholars has lived through challenging times. The current Third Year Stroud Scholars, who started the program in 2021, spent much of their middle and high school experience online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID began during this group’s seventh grade year, giving them limited opportunities to socialize and connect with peers during those formative years. Some say that participating in the Stroud Scholars program has helped narrow that gap. Because the cohorts are recruited at the end of their ninth-grade year and stay together for the duration of high school, they have the opportunity to form close relationships with each other and with their Stroud Mentors.

“I believe that Stroud has helped these students by helping them create community,” says AliciaRose Martinez, Assistant Director of CC’s College Access Programs. “We have been a consistent resource and community over the past three years, with many of our mentors and staff returning to engage with Stroud students each summer and during the school year. These students have been able to also make a strong connection to the CC campus and community and feel at home here, so I believe this has contributed to their emotional growth and well-being. They know that when they are here, they are family, and feel supported.”

Stroud Scholars receive mentoring, academic supporting, and guidance throughout high school and when applying to colleges. They participate in a two-week day program during their first summer on campus. The following year, they attend the two-week day program on campus, with an additional trip to a satellite campus. They then return to campus in their third year to participate in a three-week residential experience, where they live on campus in CC residence halls. Students who successfully complete the three-year program, maintain a cumulative minimum GPA between 3.0 and 3.5, and submit a completed application are guaranteed acceptance to CC with a financial aid package that will allow them to attend.

“The writing course in the Stroud Scholar program has helped me improve and refine my writing into something I’m more proud of,” says Alan Ventura Duran, a Third-Year Stroud Scholar. “I’ve been able to develop it to high levels and I would give some credit to my Composition professors. Overall, the whole program has shown me how to better manage my time between my social life and the homework assignments.”

Duran will be a first-generation college student and plans to study electrical engineering in college. He especially appreciated the Writing Center visiting his composition class to help students work on their college essays.

“Writing my college essay is one of my current worries and I’m glad we were able to go over this and improve our drafts through this class,” Duran says. “Their presentation was very informative and gave me lots to think about. I also like our teamwork presentation during our writing class. It gave me a new lens to see teamwork and how it isn’t just leaders and followers. Everyone has a role in the team and could help with the final product in different ways.”

Duran says that he was also taught how to use Excel in his first summer on campus, which he has continued to use throughout his courses with Stroud, as well as in his high school classes.

“Stroud Scholars is helping me reach my goals by giving me an opportunity to have an education out of high school, and developing crucial skills for college early,” says Adalee Campbell, a member of the Third-Year cohort who hopes to work in healthcare as a traveling nurse and then specialize in neurology. “My experience in the program has adequately prepped me for not only college, but college applications as well.”

Over the past three years, CC professors and staff have prepared these students for selective college environments by teaching them essential skills and how to use certain technological tools, how to make a cover letter and an annotated bibliography, how to work in groups and with other people, and how to think and debate critically. Each summer, the students are supported as they increase their independence in these new skills.

“My previous years in the Stroud Scholars Program has helped me this academic year by giving me a head start into topics I would soon learn,” Campbell says. “In the second year of the program for writing, there was a focus on different types of writing and how to properly conduct research and report on it. This academic year I used all the skills I learned from that year of Stroud in my AP Language and Composition class, as well as writing reports for my Biomedical class.”

Campbell says that Assistant Professor of English Dr. Aline Lo had a significant impact on her through her years as a Stroud Scholar. “Her teaching style and passion for helping her students really shined throughout my time on campus,” Campbell says. “My writing significantly improved, and I became more confident in my abilities. Professor Lo scheduled personal meetings with her students at the end of the program to see if she could provide any extra aid or help in our college admissions journey. I gained a lot of insight onto possibilities that I could take on campus, but what stuck with me the most was our discussion on growth. She was able to see me change throughout the years both personally and academically, creating a nice connection, so if I go to Colorado College, I know that I’ll have her support.”

Because the Stroud Program only serves students from El Paso County, all Stroud Scholars are from local schools, which means they can utilize CC’s resources and campus throughout the academic year. Th program has partnered with the Quantitative Reasoning Center to offer weekly tutoring for students so they can get additional support in their high school classes. In addition to the formal programming both over the summer and during the year, students are assigned Stroud Mentors who stay with them through the duration of the three years. During the academic year, Stroud Mentors run their own programming with their cohort, which has ranged from inviting their mentees to attend a concert on campus to making something in CC’s art studio. They also do check-ins with their mentees every two weeks to maintain the relationship between summers on campus. Many Stroud Mentors help students prep for presentations or read over their papers for their high school English or history classes. The Stroud Program also offers programming each month for all the cohorts, which can range from FAFSA and other financial aid workshops to college essay and application support.

While Stroud Scholars puts an emphasis on participants’ independence, the program recognizes the importance of familial support. During the academic year, Stroud Scholars hosts numerous family programs, where students and their families are invited to events on campus, CC hockey games, and different volunteer programs, including the holiday volunteer program at Christmas Unlimited.

Third-Year Stroud Scholar Ravyn Wagener has attended 14 Stroud events throughout the academic years between summers on campus, with most of them being calculus tutoring. One of her favorite Stroud activities between summers was in December 2023, when Stroud Scholars and their families volunteered at a Christmas Toy Drive. Wagener and her Stroud peers stocked toys on shelves and worked the checkout spot.

“I never worked customer service before so I gained a little of that skill, which I am sure will help in future jobs and interactions,” says Wagener, who added that she thinks this event taught him a lot of emotional intelligence. “It also opened my perspective to what people really go through. Some were frustrated, others were determined, but all of them when they left were appreciative.”

The program aims to help local students improve their academics by working on their writing abilities and helping them gain organizing and time management skills. The Third-Year scholars say their grades have improved overall, but they are especially happy with how their writing skills have progressed since their first summer on campus.

“I believe what we were taught during the program has helped me immensely when it comes to my critical thinking and writing skills,” says Gen Daly, a Third-Year Stroud Scholar who hopes to go to college to become a nurse or an author.

“The Stroud Scholars program really helped me with my writing skills, especially in Honors English 10,” says Benjamin Chisholm, a rising high school senior who just completed his third year as a Stroud Scholar. “We had to do poetry responses twice a month for the class, and the writing class from Stroud helped me develop the necessary skills I needed to analyze the poems. Since the responses could only be one page long, I was really grateful that the assignments we had for Stroud were also within a one-to-two-page restriction, giving me that extra practice. As of my junior year, the program helped me to find my voice, so for my Inter. Comp. class I was able to express myself in my essays and papers.”

While it is clear that the Stroud Scholar program has helped students with their writing and academic skills, many also credit the program for helping them grow as people and become more confident in themselves. Chisholm says that Stroud Scholars helped him learn how to live on his own, and how to remain in contact with his family while he is away from them.

“I do not have much anxiety about staying by myself thanks to the Stroud Scholars program,” he says. 

While this cohort has not yet applied to colleges, there are seven students from the first two graduating Stroud cohorts who are currently enrolled at CC and over 90% of students in the inaugural Stroud Scholar cohort enrolled in two-or-four-year degree programs.

“They are all very excited to be here and have expressed that their time in Stroud has made them feel very confident coming to campus and ready to take on their first year,” Martinez says.  

Donations to the Stroud Scholars program can be made here.