The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee
March 27, 2002, Wednesday, First Edition
SECTION: METRO; Page B3
BYLINE: Duncan Mansfield, The Associated Press

KNOXVILLE: Nearly two-thirds of the students in Scott, Cocke and Campbell counties never go to college or even a trade school.

It's the lowest rate in Tennessee, where less than one in five adults has a college degree.

But a program the Appalachian Regional Commission is bringing to Tennessee, with support from the University of Tennessee, hopes to change that.

With a $50,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, the Tennessee Appalachian Higher Education Center is being formed, officials announced Tuesday.

It will target some 4,600 students in the six high schools of Campbell, Cocke and Scott counties - rural counties in East Tennessee where the need seems most urgent.

The program will take students on field trips to colleges, help them prepare for college entrance exams and let them tag along with professionals to see how they could put their degrees to work.

The idea is to empower students whose families never went to college or never considered it for themselves.

“It is powerful but it is not all that complicated or expensive,” ARC co-chairman Jesse White said. “The way I see it, it really deals with exposure, information and self-esteem.”

Terri Lashley, Tennessee program coordinator, said she expects the program running by the fall. “I see it getting started very quickly with the proposals being funded in time for school,” she said.

The first program of this kind was created in Ohio in 1993 as part of a challenge from restaurateur Bob Evans to Ohio's higher education system. The Ohio Appalachian Center for Higher Education, with headquarters at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, now serves 29 school systems.

The ARC successfully sponsored a similar program in West Virginia and is now spreading the word throughout its 13-state region, adding programs in Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi.

The Ohio and West Virginia programs say they have doubled or tripled the college-going rates of their students to more than 70 percent.

“Whether kids go to vocational school, a community college or a major university, it doesn't matter,” ARC coordinator Jeff Schwartz said. “The point is they need to take that next step to be successful.”

Campbell County has a community college branch campus and a vocational school, but vocational director Sharon Ridenour said, “We have a hard time getting students to take advantage of it.

“It is amazing how many students believe they can quit school and will be fine. We need it badly,” she said of the program.

White said this is key to improving the economic condition of Appalachia, where 118 of 220 counties served by the ARC are considered in desperate straits and many good-paying jobs requiring limited education have evaporated.

“The future economy is not brawn power, it is brain power,” he said. “And we have got to get our people globally competitive in terms of their brain power.”

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