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Students get motivated at West Virginia GEAR UP Academy

CHARLESTON W.Va. — Hundreds of eleventh-grade students from southern West Virginia made the trek to Charleston on Wednesday for a leadership academy hosted by West Virginia GEAR UP and the West Virginia High Education Policy Commission.

The academy, that took place at the Clay Center, is geared towards informing students of college options and to empower them to take charge of their future after high school.

“I am here to share a college mindset and my personal story and to get students excited for their future,” E.J. Carrion, keynote speaker at the academy and CEO of the Student Success Agency, said. “I think for me it’s all about making things relatable. Sometimes when you see the institution or the beauty of the campus or the cost and you see where you come from, it almost makes a person feel like they are from a far away land. But I think when you can be relatable and bridge a connection, it allows them to see themselves more identified with the potential.”

Carrion, an award-winning motivational speaker, headlined the academy being the co-founder of the Student Success Agency, an online mentoring program that gives students advising and mentoring anytime, anywhere from their cell phone. The agency works with GEAR UP and has 150 GEAR UP high schools across the country.

“Hopefully they can find identifiers with my story,” Carrion said. “My biggest thing is not what you know, but what you do. It’s not how smart you are but how much heart you have. Inside of your own will and determination, you can design a future you want.”

“I’m not one of those speakers who had the toughest upbringing. I was an average student, suppose to do average things. I feel like that is the connection to most students, but my whole goal is to show you can pick yourself up from the bootstraps and actually do great things and not have to do average things.”

Students also heard from Carolyn Long, Interim Chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, and Dr. Sarah Tucker, Chancellor of the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia. Brenda King, Executive Director of Admissions and Recruitment at West Liberty University, and the university’s mascot, Topper Bear, were on hand to provide students with an overview of the university, including its program offerings and the admissions steps students can take to enroll once they graduate from high school.

The academy also featured a scholarship award ceremony.

“This program has had one of the greatest impact of my life,” Ikie Brooks, a current intern at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and a graduate of the first cohort group for GEAR UP, said. “Just because it gave me the confidence and knowledge that I needed to get me to college. There’s a lot of people that come from a rural area in the state that don’t necessarily have a college-going culture in their schools and so GEAR Up is trying to get in those schools and change that.”

An estimated 1,400 students from ten counties gathered at the Clay Center, including Boone, Fayette, Mason, Mercer, Mingo, Nicholas, Summers, Webster, Wirt and Wyoming. West Virginia GEAR UP is a federally funded college readiness project coordinated by the Higher Education Policy Commission. More than 5,000 students total are served annually through the 10 counties.

“It was something that West Virginia and this program did for me and my peers,” Brooks said of his passion for helping students. “It’s so incredible to give back. When a student comes up to you and says you did make a difference in their life or you did help them to get to the point where they did apply for scholarships, it makes you feel and good and makes you feel like you did your job. And the students they deserve every opportunity to succeed.”

“It’s an incredible program, I think the students are lucky to have a program like that this and it’s doing its job. It’s very effective.”





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