Students aim to be first in family at college

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Kelechi Springer is 17 years old and African American. He lives with his grandmother in Kingsbridge. He calls himself “the man of the house.” 

“I do want to go to college,” he said. “It’s mandatory. I don’t have another choice.”

Kelechi is sitting in the dining hall at Manhattan College on Monday at lunchtime. This week, Kelechi and 30 other rising seniors from around the city are participating in the Summer Literacy Institute (SLI) at the college. The students will take classes, stay in the dorms, study together, go on trips to museums and see a Broadway show and receive help writing their college admissions essays.

Like Kelechi, the students are minorities from lower-income households. Just one participant has a parent who went to college. The students also tend to come from schools that lack strong writing programs and college support teams. The purpose of the SLI is to give these students a taste of the college experience and make college more attainable — all for free.

“Us being minorities, we have a strike against us. What pushed me, I don’t want to be part of a statistic,” Kelechi said. He recently heard that if current incarceration trends continue, one in three African American men will spend time in prison during their life.

Kingsbridge residents Diamond Brown, Vanessa Nuñez and Natasha Del Rosario are also attending the SLI this week. The young women, who called themselves the Three Musketeers, know each other and Kelechi from the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC).

Diamond said her mom did not go to high school and her brother dropped out of college before he graduated. She explained that her sibling did not have enough support.

That’s something Diamond hopes to receive at the SLI. She is excited to work with the institute’s peer writing mentors, who are all first generation students at Manhattan College.

“Just to know that there’s someone who was first-generation and went through the college process and they’re succeeding is enough for me to say, they did it, so why can’t I do it?” Diamond said.

first generation, college, students, Kelechi Springer, Manhattan College, Summer Literacy Institute, Diamond Brown, Vanessa Nuñez, Natasha Del Rosario, Dan Collins, Marisa Passafiume, Isabel Angell
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