Mayor Speaks @ Dwight Morrow High School

Mayor Wildes was a guest speaker at Dwight Morrow High School, as part of The COC Community Lecture Series, a college motivational series geared to future first generation college students. First generation college students are students whose parents have had little or no college or university experience.

This COC Community Lecture Series (1 hour) has been carried out for three years sponsored by the COC Community Foundation and integrated directly into the Dwight Morrow High School AVID Program (9 th and 10 th Grade). AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is an academic support program for grades 4-12 that prepares students for college eligibility and success. It places academically average students in advanced classes and uses its own unique curriculum to give them the skills they need to succeed.

Mr. Isaiah M. Jefferson, CEO and founder of the COC Community Foundation and the COC Community Lecture Series along with the Dwight Morrow High School AVID Program has made the idea of going to college an attainable goal for the AVID students!

Turning Dreams into Realities

For those students whose parents have gone to college or university, there is no question that they will continue in their parents' footsteps, but for those whose parents have never gone or have not finished college, there is a great tendency to repeat this behavior.

The cause is quite easy to understand. Their cultural, social and personal background does not adequately prepare these students for envisioning college as a reality. For many of these students the idea of going to college is extremely unattainable, it may be something mentioned, but because of their background, they are not adequately prepared to embrace this endeavor as an honest possibility. Therefore, the idea that they may be college material does not become internalized.

Our Community

The COC Community Lecture Series has been devised to make our students understand and believe that college is something they should aspire to. On a weekly basis, and in an intimate and inviting environment, guest speakers from a vast array of different college and professional backgrounds bring advice, knowledge and anecdotes of their college experience to our students. The students listen to these speakers and are invited to ask questions and interact in an inviting and comfortable manner.

The constant interaction between students and Professional/Community/Entrepreneur guest speakers allows the students to understand that going to college is not a utopia but a reality. For the students, going to college is becoming less and less a dream and more of a reality.

An important factor to the success of the COC Community Lecture Series is that it is carried out steadily across the year and that there are no more than 40 - 60 students for each guest speaker. This allows each guest speakers and students to interact, hear and be heard in a natural manner. Guest speakers hand out their business cards in case the students should want to contact them at the end of the school year.

The COC Community Lecture Series guest speakers are invited by the students to a luncheon in which the students get to become the guest speakers and express and explain their progress and the milestones attained after another year of lecturing from the professionals of the COC Community Lecture Series.

Paid for by Friends of Michael J. Wildes, Assemblyman Arnold Brown, Treasurer