July 12, 2002

LMC's Educational Opportunity Center Receives Grant

BENTON TOWNSHIP, MI - Lake Michigan College's Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) was recently awarded a four year, $312,756 per-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The EOC annually helps 1,200 adults in Berrien, Van Buren, and Cass counties in Michigan and St. Joseph County, Indiana, enroll and succeed in post-secondary education programs.

"With this grant, we'd like to expand into LaPorte County, Indiana, as well as help an additional 100 participants a year," EOC project director, Curtis Warren, stated. "We are also looking to add another employee and provide a mentoring service."

EOC's focus is on helping adults who have low income or who would be considered first-generation college students work through the process of entering college. Some of the services Warren and his staff of four provide include tutoring for GED and college-placement tests; assistance in filling out college, financial aid, grant, and EOC applications; career information, assessment and advising; college research; and referral to other appropriate community service agencies when needed.

"Most of the people we work with are worried about how they are going to pay for their education. We assure them that there is money available and then assist them with the application process," Warren stated. "We have the opportunity to work with many people from the time we meet them until the time they've enrolled in college. It is great to see them pull their educational plans together."

A large part of the EOC's job is community outreach. They visit adult education programs, Welfare to Work, Work First, drug rehabilitation centers, safe shelters, and correction facilities to find adults in the community who are interested in pursuing post-secondary education.

"Basically, we go to the places where most people don't want to go and offer the people there our services," Warren noted. "Sometimes people are interested in the program at first and then decide they don't want to go to school. And other times, someone who wasn't interested when we talked to them will call us four months later and ask if we can still help them."

Warren went on to add that most of the people in the program think that college is for everyone else, not them. "What's great about this job is watching the expressions on their faces when they realize that college can be for them, too, and that getting there isn't as difficult as they had thought. A lot of what we do is coaching and building their confidence." In his years with the EOC, Warren has seen many students succeed in college with the help of the program despite any concerns they had, but two examples stand out in his mind.

"One young lady spent the first half-hour in our office crying because she had been out of school for so long, and she was afraid that she was going to fail, that she couldn't do it," he said. That young lady enrolled at LMC, graduated with an associate's degree while earning the EOC achievement award and Student of the Year award, and is now completing her bachelor's degree at Western Michigan University.

"During one of our visits to a correction facility, we met a young man who had spent a significant amount of time in prison. He had decided that he needed to turn his life around and that he needed to go back to school," Warren stated. He is now working toward an associate's degree at LMC and is also an EOC achievement award recipient.

Not all EOC participants attend LMC. The EOC staff assists people in getting into any school they want. That includes two- or four- year colleges or universities and trade or vocational schools.
Educational Opportunity Centers were created in 1972 as one of the nation's TRIO programs. TRIO programs help students overcome class, social, and cultural barriers in order to receive higher education. Currently, there are 82 EOCs in the United States, serving 158,036 individuals, but Warren expects there to be about 110 by the end of the year. There are only two in Michigan; Wayne State University administers the other. The EOC at LMC has been in existence since 1994.

Every four years, TRIO programs complete the application process to receive further funding. Receiving the grant relies significantly on the prior experience of the program and the people in it. It's decided by how well the individual programs have done reaching their goals and objectives in previous years.