Media
Princeton-Blairstown Center frequently appears in web and print articles. Here are some selections:
TCHS mentor program proves successful as first group of mentees set to graduate
Published: Friday, March 23, 2012, 7:01 AM
By Samantha Costa/The Times
TRENTON — In June, like many other graduates, Jawaun Washington, 18, will toss his cap in the air and celebrate his hard work, defying predictions early in his high school days that he wouldn’t make it.
Washington is one of 36 Trenton Central High School seniors who were found in their eighth- or ninth-grade year to be at risk for dropping out.
With the odds stacked against him, Washington overcame the statistics surrounding the dismal dropout rate at TCHS. Now he is planning his college career.
Washington had been selected through a recruitment day offered at TCHS to participate in the Trenton Leaders of Tomorrow mentor program, which is run by a group of nonprofit organizations in Mercer County. Since its inception three years ago, the mentor program has paired at-risk freshmen with a junior mentor and an adult mentor, and altogether assisted more than 300 students.
Of the 36 kids in the first class of mentees who are now seniors, 34 will not only graduate but also will go to college, and two will join the military.
Princeton ‘indaba’ supports effort to develop new African leaders
Nearly 200 students, alumni, donors, and trustees of a South African school converged on Princeton in August for the first African Leadership Indaba, a daylong conference designed to prepare a future generation of African leaders through networking and discussions.
The indaba — the word is the Zulu term for a meeting on an important matter — was presented by the Johannesburg-based African Leadership Academy (ALA), which was founded in 2008 as a two-year high school program. The program draws students from all over the world to address what co-founder and CEO Fred Swaniker called one of the greatest challenges facing Africa today: a lack of effective leadership....
...Students spent the three days before the indaba at the Princeton-Blairstown Center in northwestern New Jersey, reconnecting through experiential learning activities, such as a ropes course. “These activities bring out what kind of leader you are,” said Carol Christofferson, the center’s development director.
Here is a link to the full story.
Video Feature: "Helping Africa's Young Leaders Tap the Power of Networks"
Nearly 45 future leaders from countries across the African continent were reunited at a five-day retreat and conference in August held in part on the Princeton University campus. They are all alumni of the African Leadership Academy (ALA), a two-year boarding high school in Johannesburg, South Africa, which chose Princeton for its inaugural "indaba."
An indaba, which means "gathering" in Zulu, is often called by Southern African tribal leaders when there is important news to share.
A video documenting the indaba shows the participants' reactions to the outdoor experiential education activities and workshops at Princeton-Blairstown Center, a camp in northwestern New Jersey that is affiliated with the University. The video also covers the last day and a half, which featured a professional conference and receptions on the University's main campus.
Here is a link to the full story.
Unique Princeton partnership benefits Trenton pupils
Published in the Princeton University Bulletin - April 18, 2011
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann
In the halls of Martin Luther King Jr. School in Trenton, N.J., sixth-graders frequently stop guidance counselor Marsha Martin in the hallway to ask, "Is Princeton Project coming today?"
The sixth-graders are hoping it’s Monday or Friday, the days when a group of undergraduate students from Princeton come to help them with grammar and study skills. The tutoring is part of a unique collaboration among a group of Princeton students and professors and an affiliated center that works with underserved youth, designed to help pupils in Trenton grow academically and socially.
Here is a link to the full story.
What role for Blairstown?
Princeton examines its ties with a camp that serves urban youth 65 miles from campus
Published in the April 6, 2011, issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly
José Gonzales taught his students in no ordinary classroom — the children would kneel at the foot of a waterfall, attention fixed on a hemlock clinging to the cliff face. Their teacher was a masterful orator. A former fighter pilot and theater major before his career in experiential education, Gonzalez would lead the youth through confidence- and leadership-building activities in the outdoors. “See how the hemlock’s fight to grow has made it beautiful and strong,” he would say. “It won’t blow over in the first storm.”
During 30 years with the Princeton-Blairstown Center, until he retired in 2001, Gonzalez brought hundreds of campers from the inner cities of the tristate area to peer at the tree. The children would unpack the analogy, discussing how struggles within their environments have shaped them.
The Blairstown Center is a 263-acre wooded campground 65 miles from Nassau Hall that offers hiking trails, high and low ropes courses, a river, and Bass Lake. Against this backdrop, the camp runs weeklong social and emotional learning programs for at-risk urban youth.
But Blairstown recently has been weathering its own challenges. The departure of two executive directors in three years and the dwindling involvement of Princeton students in recent decades have shaped ongoing discussions between the University administration and the center’s leadership. A question mark hovers over the relationship between the two institutions.
Here is a link to the full story including "letters to the editor" in support of the Princeton-Blairstown Center/Princeton University relationship.
Unique Princeton partnership gives boost to Trenton pupils
In the halls of Martin Luther King Jr. School in Trenton, N.J., sixth-graders frequently stop guidance counselor Marsha Martin in the hallway to ask, "Is Princeton Project coming today?"
The sixth-graders are hoping it's Monday or Friday, the days when a group of undergraduate students from Princeton University come to help them with grammar and study skills. The tutoring is part of a unique collaboration among a group of Princeton students and professors and an affiliated center that works with underserved youth, designed to help elementary school students in Trenton grow academically and socially.
Since October, the Trenton sixth-graders have received tutoring twice a week through the Student Volunteers Council, a student-led organization that is part of Princeton's Pace Center for Civic Engagement. As part of the same project, other pupils from the school are participating in a program with the Princeton-Blairstown Center to enhance their social and emotional learning skills. The Blairstown Center is affiliated with the University and operates adventure-based and experiential education programs for urban youth and their families.
Here is a link to the full story.
Princeton Alumni Weekly - March 3, 2011
Princeton-Blairstown Center is pleased to note that several of the schools highlighted in the article entitled "Schoolhouses Rock", written by Kathy Kiely ’77 in the March 3, 2011 edition of Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) take their students to Blairstown every year and have done so for some time. Marc Sternberg ’95, currently the deputy chancellor of NYC schools, the founding head of the Bronx Lab School, brought his students to Blairstown for three years running. Rajiv Vinnakota ’93,co-founder of the Washington, D.C. SEED School has the 9th grade students coming to Princeton-Blairstown Center for a annual four day trip to Blairstown each spring.
Ron Brady *92 is the founder of The Foundation Academy in Trenton, NJ and espouses the tenets of Social and Emotional Learning that are taught weekly by PBC staff at the school. Foundation Academy is a deep partner of PBC and the sixth through eighth graders go to Blairstown at least twice a year and make an annual expedition to the Princeton campus each year.
We also mention the strong support PBC provides Jason Griffiths ‘ 97, the head of the Brooklyn Latin School through their upcoming trips to Blairstown that his sixth and seventh graders will be taking each year. And finally, we would like to highlight the 23-year relationship that Princeton-Blairstown Center has had with Jane Fremon ’75, co-founder of Princeton Friends School. The entire school community comes to Blairstown every spring for 3 days.
Watch for upcoming articles that highlight Princeton-Blairstown Center's partnerships with additional urban schools.
Freshmen tackle challenges and new adventures
Nearly 800 members of Princeton's newest undergraduate class are preparing for the start of their freshman year by confronting physical challenges and forging bonds with their classmates through the Outdoor Action pre-orientation program.
The incoming freshmen are participating in Outdoor Action, the University's oldest and largest pre-orientation program. In addition to outdoor adventure activities such as hiking and rock climbing at various sites from Virginia to New England, some of the Outdoor Action groups engage in service projects. One of the groups helped to repair trails and bridges at the Princeton-Blairstown Center.
Rutgers Future Scholars helps urban kids with climb to college
Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
Published: Saturday, August 07, 2010, 7:46 AM Updated: Saturday, August 07, 2010, 11:22 AM
Photo by Jerry McCrea/The Star Ledger
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Javier Estevez of New Brunswick, 16, joins other relay team members as they pull a fellow scholar high into the air during a team building exercise called "The Flying Squirrel," part of the Rutgers Future Scholars Program, held in Blairstown. |
Every year, Yvans Tsague spends part of his summer vacation sitting through a series of grueling academic classes, college prep programs and confidence-building exercises.
Tsague, 15, admits it’s a little bit of fun and a lot of hard work. But if he sticks with the multi-year program until he graduates from high school, he could receive a $50,000 reward.
"I don’t really mind because I’m still getting my scholarship at the end of it," said Tsague, of Piscataway.
The 10th grader is one of nearly 600 teenagers participating in Rutgers Future Scholars, an experimental pre-college program for low-income students. If the scholars complete the five-year program and keep up their grades, they will be eligible for a full four-year scholarship covering tuition and fees at Rutgers University — currently worth $50,236.
Rutgers started the ambitious program three years ago after its board of governors noticed that fewer and fewer students from the neighborhoods surrounding the state university’s urban campuses were getting admitted to their hometown college. Most either didn’t apply or failed to earn the grades or SAT scores to qualify.
So, Rutgers began selecting 200 students a year — 50 each from New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden — for intense mentoring. The idea is if the university can identify teenagers while they are still in middle school and make a commitment to help them for several years, the students will improve their chances of getting into Rutgers.
"It’s a commitment to our communities," said Aramis Gutierrez, the program’s director. "They are our neighbors. We are invested in their success."
Rutgers has raised nearly $1.8 million from alumni and private donors to help finance the Rutgers Future Scholars summer programs, tutoring and year-round mentoring.
George Tsacnaris,a Rutgers alumnus, was among the first to donate after hearing about the program at an alumni event. He liked the idea of helping shape the future of students from his hometown.
"It’s my community. I live in Piscataway. I see some of the kids walking around in my development," said Tsacnaris, a software engineer.
This summer, the Rutgers Scholars spent between one and four weeks on the university’s campuses, depending on their age. They took classes for college credit, made documentary videos, held a mock trial competition and participated in art and dance programs.
Some students also spent several nights sleeping in cabins at Princeton-Blairstown Center, a Warren County camp where they braved an adventure course that required them to scale ropes suspended in trees.
Photo by Jerry McCrea/The Star Ledger
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Juan Rojas of Piscatway waves to his teammates with his arm in a cast as he descends a 45 foot dam wall during the Rutgers Future Scholars Program, held in Blairstown. |
Yvette Israel, 15, said she likes the mix of new activities she’s done over the three years she’s been in the program.
"This is actually interesting because it gets you to open up your mind and think," said Israel, of Piscataway.
Fellow Rutgers Future Scholar Alvaro Escalante said he still feels like he won the lottery three years ago when he was selected for the program that could result in a full scholarship.
"It’s a blessing. Without that scholarship, I’m not sure if I could go to college," said Escalante, 16, of Piscataway.
Each year, Rutgers uses recommendations from local school officials to help select the new class of 200 future scholars. All must come from low-income families and be among the first in their families to attend college.
However, neither admission to Rutgers nor the full scholarship is guaranteed, program officials said. Scholars must have the grades to get into Rutgers on their own. If they are admitted, Rutgers will help them get federal and state grants to pay their tuition and fees. Any tuition and fees not covered with grants will be paid with a Rutgers Future Scholars scholarship funded by private donors.
Rutgers officials said the program is still experimental. The first class of Rutgers Scholars is preparing to enter 10th grade. It will be several years before the university can determine how many of the students actually get admitted to Rutgers and whether the program made a difference.
Several education researchers and other universities have been keeping an eye on the program — which costs about $1,600 a year per student —to see whether Rutgers’ investment produces measurable results.
As the students get older, keeping them in the multi-year program gets more complicated, program administrators said. Some scholars move away, while others have jobs or family responsibilities that keep them from participating. But Rutgers officials said they make accommodations and try to do everything possible to keep the students on track and coming back to campus year after year.
"This is truly like a second home to them," said Gutierrez, the program’s director.
Inspiring Harlem's youth to pursue education
Senior Writer
Do college students have curfews?” a curious sixth-grader asked a panel of five Princeton undergraduates Friday morning. The answer, “no,” came as a surprise to the middle schooler.
The panel discussion was part of several activities led by Students for Education Reform (SFER), a group of undergraduates that volunteered on a campus expedition which brought roughly 25 middle-school students from Global Neighborhood Secondary School (GNSS), in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhoods to campus. The effort, coordinated by Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC), aimed to expose the sixth and seventh graders to college life through a dorm-room visit, a tour of Woolworth Hall and a student discussion panel.
PBC, which is affiliated with the University, partners with urban schools and community organizations in the New Jersey, New York City and Philadelphia areas to offer enrichment activities and in-school programming to underprivileged students.
Dinah Jordan, programs and curriculum coordinator at PBC, explained that a main goal of this trip was to encourage students to begin thinking early about college plans.
“How you think about it today can change [or] it can stay the same, but it’s still not too early to own that thought of, ‘I want to go to college,’” Jordan said.
SFER volunteers led the middle-school students in small groups that rotated through the various activities. At the student panel, current undergraduates spoke about their college experiences, including favorite courses, life away from home, the social scene and extracurricular activities.
“One thing I really liked to see was the college students talking about the fact that they actually study because they want to, and that took some of the kids by surprise,” said Bryan Glover, a sixth-grade science teacher at GNSS.
During a tour of Woolworth, Nathan Pell ’12 showed students classrooms, practice rooms and the Mendel Music and Dance Library, and spoke about some of the music programs and groups on campus. The groups also visited a dorm room in Feinberg Hall.
“Some of the students really got into the trip to the dorm,” Glover said. “They like to see how regular college students live and spend their time.”
Julia Blount ’12, a member of SFER who helped organize the event, said it was an opportunity for SFER members to talk to individual middle-school students to “make sure we don’t forget why we are doing education reform ... We have to keep them in mind when we are talking about theoretical education changes.”
“That’s the big thing — for our members to interact with the kids and think more about education reform on a personal level, and for the kids, to promote college awareness,” Blount said.
Jeremy Kent ’12, a PBC program assistant who worked on organizing the event, noted that Friday’s trip was an extension of the in-school programming that PBC already does with GNSS.
“We do what’s known as social and emotional learning, which provides the building blocks for kids to be more self-sufficient, to learn teamwork, to learn leadership, so that their vision is broadened,” Carol Christofferson, who is director of development for PBC, said.
Kent added that another goal of the campus expedition was to get University students more involved with PBC.
Kent noted that holding an event on campus — rather than in cities, as PBC normally does — and using undergraduate volunteers helped to “strengthen [PBC’s] ties with the University.”
“Historically, PBC has been a really closely associated organization with the University, but recently — at least in the last 10 years or so — it’s become kind of distant,” Kent explained.
Glover said that the idea for the campus expedition stemmed from a proposal to bring students to the 263-acre PBC campus in Blairstown, N.J., to collect data for a science project. He and Jordan then began to entertain the idea of a trip to the University incorporating an overview of campus life. The original plans for the campus expedition on Friday included a lab activity where students would take measurements of trees around campus, but this segment was cut off by time constraints after the GNSS group received incorrect directions and arrived late.
In addition to its relationship with GNSS, PBC has also partnered with the Foundation Academy Charter School in Trenton and has arranged four more similar campus-expedition events this spring for students from these schools.
The next campus trip for GNSS is scheduled for March 5, Glover said, when the students will have a chance to tour a University science lab. Jordan added that PBC plans to expand the campus-expedition program to address specific areas of study.
“We visualize this to be something that we can do at least twice a year with the schools — once in the fall, once in the spring — and [at] each event have a theme,” Jordan explained. “As we move forward with this project, we would like to theme it around subject areas, like in the fall we’ll visit departments or the part of campus that is math and science. In the spring, we’ll visit those areas of the arts.”
Dejah Lynch, a seventh-grade teacher at GNSS, said she felt one of the benefits of the campus-expedition trip was for the middle-school students to meet University students who might inspire them to continue their education.
“One of the largest challenges is to get people to open up their minds and be flexible,” Lynch said, “to ... not generalize and feel limited because you might be from a background that’s ‘struggling’ or ‘impoverished’ ... that the world is open to you, and basically have control of that.”
EPA Administrator Jackson to discuss economy's impact on environmental priorities
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will speak on "Environmental Justice in the 21st Century, A Bipartisan Approach" in a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall, on the Princeton University campus. Jackson, a 1986 alumna of Princeton's Graduate School, will explore the impact of the economic downturn on environmental priorities, the future of sustainability for urban youth and environmental justice.
The event, which is free and open to the public, is hosted by the University's Office of the Vice President for Campus Life and the Princeton-Blairstown Center, a University affiliate that provides programs for urban youth.
Jackson was nominated to lead the EPA by President Barack Obama on Dec. 15, 2008, and was confirmed by the Senate on Jan. 23, 2009. She is the first African American to serve in the position.
Jackson lists among her priorities reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, managing chemical risks, cleaning up hazardous waste sites and protecting America's water. She will discuss these priorities in light of the current economic climate.
Jackson earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton after graduating summa cum laude from Tulane University's School of Chemical Engineering. She served as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine before being selected by Obama for the EPA position.
From 2006 to 2008, Jackson served as commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). She worked to ensure that underserved communities received fair environmental protection under the law, which will be a topic during her talk.
Jackson joined DEP in 2002, serving as assistant commissioner for compliance and enforcement, then assistant commissioner for land use management, before becoming commissioner. Prior to joining DEP, Jackson worked for 16 years for the EPA in Washington, D.C., and then in New York City.
No tickets are required for Jackson's talk. The doors to Dodds Auditorium will open at 4 p.m., and the event will be simulcast in 104 Computer Science Building for overflow attendants. The lecture also will be archived later for viewing on the University's WebMedia site.
In addition to the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life and Princeton-Blairstown Center, sponsors of the event include the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for African American Studies, Office of Sustainability, Outdoor Action, Pace Center and Princeton Environmental Institute.
Former EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson with Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, PBC Executive Director, Wardell Robinson-Moore and Princeton VP of Campus Life, Janet Dickerson (Retired)
Blairstown revamps programs to better serve urban youth
Princeton Weekly Bulletin December 10, 2007, Vol. 97, No. 11 - By Ruth Stevens
Princeton NJ — The Princeton-Blairstown Center is in the process of a major transition with a goal of providing the nonprofit organization with sustained and better structured opportunities to empower urban youth.
Wardell Robinson-Moore, who has been connected with the center since her appointment to its board of trustees in 1995, has been selected to guide the transition as interim executive director.
The center is affiliated with the University and operates adventure-based and experiential education programs for urban youth and their families. Until now, most of these programs have been delivered during the summer at the facility near Blairstown in northwestern New Jersey. The center also has an administrative staff housed in offices in Princeton.
In 2005, the center launched a full-scale examination of the challenges faced by urban youth, including poverty, gangs and violence, and reviewed the programs offered by Blairstown, identifying areas of programming that could be revamped in order to be more responsive. In March 2006, the center’s program committee, made up of board members, staff members and community members, worked in consultation with young people and agencies that Blairstown served to develop goals and a general description of what the new program should be. The concept then was approved by the Blairstown board.
“Our programming will provide young people with a continuum of experiences over time that will help them to build the strengths that they have, unfetter the talents and the intelligence that are theirs in such a way that they will stand firm and determined in the face of the most daunting of challenges,” said John Webb, current co-president of the Blairstown board, who chaired the program committee.
“The goals that we have articulated cannot be accomplished in the one-, two- or three-week stays at camp that have been the centerpiece of previous programming at Blairstown,” added Webb, who also is director of the University’s Program in Teacher Preparation. “In fact, they cannot be accomplished by the Princeton-Blairstown Center alone. These goals speak of enduring strengths and enduring understandings, the development of which require a dedicated, comprehensive and long-term approach that necessitates a complete restructuring of our programming and the creation of concrete partnerships between the center and other organizations.”
During this academic year, the center is establishing “deep partnerships” with six schools and agencies in Camden, Philadelphia, Newark, Trenton and Princeton. The plan is to identify cohorts of young people in each location who will work with center staff over an extended period of time, from three to six years. The programming will target urban youth ages 11 to 17 who are not realizing their individual potential socially, academically and personally.
“We know that there are many different kinds of opportunities available to young people through countless agencies,” Webb said. “We are also aware that many of those programs are more short-term, one-time efforts that, while wonderful and effective, do not carry the potential for the kind of strength and confidence-building that the Princeton-Blairstown Center programming, delivered in collaboration with it partner agencies, will provide. Time is one of the most significant variables in learning, and the Princeton-Blairstown Center intends to make time a significant part of its programming.”
Blairstown staff will develop curricula rooted in experiential and social-emotional learning and provide a sequence of learning experiences designed for concentrated multi-year contact with specific groups of young people. The curricula will marry the academic year program with the summer experience at Blairstown, and also will integrate the instructional programs of the partners.
“During the 2007-08 year,” Webb said, “we’re going to engage in research and development to try out curricula and program delivery models both on the site of our deep partners and the Blairstown facility, evaluate the effectiveness of those curricula and delivery systems and out of that to structure to be implemented in 2008-09 a fully developed program.”
Uniquely positioned to lead
Leading the transition will be Robinson-Moore, who first came to Princeton in 1977 as a staff member in the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs. She then joined the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she worked for 19 years, first as director of graduate admissions and then as assistant dean for graduate studies. She began and ran a successful summer program for students of color who were interested in pursuing careers in public and international affairs.
Since leaving the University in 1997, she has worked part time at Rutgers University and at the Institute for International Public Policy, a division of the United Negro College Fund Special Programs Corporation. A graduate of Brown University, she earned her M.Ed. from Boston College.
“We are in a crucial transition period that involves every single person who is connected to Blairstown,” Webb said. “The paradigm shift is going to impact the board of directors, the executive committee, staff and previous partnerships. A lot of structures have to be reconceptualized. Having someone like Wardell, who has been associated with Blairstown for many years, who has served on its board, who has been its secretary, who knows the workings of Blairstown intimately, and who was there during the conceptualization of this entire program plan and knows it well, is critical. In addition, she has previously been involved with the University and therefore has familiarity with the sponsoring institution and an awareness of the communities we serve and from which we derive support.
“Wardell is acquainted with the whole staff — she knows what their needs are, what their sensitivities are, what their strengths are, so that she can efficiently and effectively bring all of those elements to bear on the process,” he said. “Wardell is uniquely positioned to help guide the organization through this transition period.”
Robinson-Moore said that she looks forward to assisting the staff in implementing the enhanced programming. “The opportunity to help fulfill the mission of the center by working with the excellent combined staff up at Blairstown and at Princeton is what drew me to this interim directorship,” she said. “I see Princeton-Blairstown Center as poised to embark upon a sustained period of valuable service delivery to our targeted population of underserved youth in the greater New Jersey area. I want to be a part of this effort.”
The timing is right
Blairstown and its predecessor programs have been serving young people for nearly 100 years. Founded by undergraduates and alumni in 1908 near Bay Head at the New Jersey shore as the Princeton Summer Camp, the program moved to Blairstown in 1930.
In addition to revamping its programming, the center plans to further professionalize its staff by recruiting well-trained individuals “who are knowledgeable about the lives and realities of our population of young people, who can plan and implement these curricula throughout the school year and then oversee the delivery of programming at Blairstown with the help of summer staff who will be selected from the undergraduate student population at Princeton University,” according to Webb.
The staff also is developing mechanisms to conduct long-term, comprehensive and systematic evaluations of the programming to measure its effectiveness and to calibrate the curricula and program delivery system accordingly. “We are already piloting evaluation instruments and procedures for use once full programming has been implemented,” Webb said. The number of Blairstown’s partners in the programming could be expanded in the future.
He added, “It’s an enormous undertaking, but we believe that the timing is right. We have for starters a beautiful facility in Blairstown that has great potential for making a difference in the lives of young people. And there is a very deep commitment on the part of the members of the board and representatives from the University in working with our partners and expanding programs during the academic year so we can really accomplish what the program committee proposed.”