BOULDER, Colo. – A program administered through the University of Colorado Boulder’s BUENO (Bilinguals United for Education and New Opportunities) Center for Multicultural Education is helping provide access to higher education for student’s from migrant and seasonal farm worker families.
The College Assistance Migrant Program or BUENO CAMP provides financial and additional educational support to students.
“We are a research center that provides research, professional learning and services to our communities, and we are advocating for cultural and linguistically diverse learners and equitable education and giving access to the students supporting their families and the educators that serve them,” Tania Hogan, the Executive Director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education said. “We are working to remove those barriers. So oftentimes it's a financial barrier, and so we apply for federal grants to be able to cover the costs of the programming…if students are getting their GED, to be able to pay for the test, if they're doing the College Assistant Migrant Program, providing the scholarship and the holistic supports.”
Hogan said holistic supports are crucial to BUENO CAMP’s success.
“We have found that when they attend a community college that first year, they can get some holistic support services, they're close to home. And then our team helps them and supports them in that next step of visiting colleges across the state and getting them into a university so that they can continue and pursue, possibly a B.A. and we have students that have gone through, you know, started in the GED, moved into the CAMP program, received a B.A., came back and did a master's. And then we have one person who used to be the executive director, who he did all of that an got his PhD as well,” Hogan said.
Hogan said she is passionate about the work BUENO CAMP is doing in part due to the personal inequities she faced during her educational experience.
“I happened to get all the way to 3rd grade before my teacher realized I didn’t speak English,” Hogan said. “So BUENO’s all about relationships. I think we value that so much.”
Jessely Chaparro, the Assistant Director of BUENO CAMP is an alum of the program.
“I got involved with BUENO CAMP because I was actually a camp student. So back in 2012 I graduated from high school. I wanted to go to college. I wasn't sure how to get to college,” Chaparro said.
“I'm a first-generation college student. My parents immigrated here from Chihuahua, Mexico, wanting to provide us with more opportunities, specifically education opportunities. And my parents were always really good at saying, like, ‘we're here to support you’, but they just didn't know how to support me. And so when I found BUENO CAMP, they were the ones that kind of like showed me the ropes and told me, ‘this is what you do next. This is what FAFSA means. This is what advising looks like.’ And so I was completely lost. And being the oldest of three daughters, I was then able to help my sisters navigate higher education as well.”
Chaparro said the cohort of students helped her find a sense of belonging.
“Students that came from similar backgrounds, having the staff look like me, speak the same language as me, share the similar culture. So like, that was really meaningful to me, like just being in a space where everyone was so welcoming…I came from a background that wasn't very accepting,” Chaparro said.
Chaparro said her high school administrators never encouraged her to seek higher education. As an administrator of CAMP, she wants to make sure every student feels encouraged.
“I went to community college, and then from there, I transferred to the four-year university at CSU in Fort Collins, and now I'm working for CU Boulder, and I'm currently getting my masters,” Chaparro said. “This job is really rewarding for me, in a sense, to where I see a lot of the students, like myself...I want to be able to open the doors for them that were oftentimes closed for me.”
Gisela Cardenas, BUENO CAMP recruiter and retention specialist also participated in the CAMP before stepping into an administrative role.
“When I was a CAMP student myself, I remember telling, like, the other cohort workers that work there. I was like, ‘you guys have a cool job, how can I get this job?’ And they're like, ‘I don't know, you really want this?’. And because I saw them, and all they would do is have fun. And I was like, ‘you get paid to have fun’. I want that kind of job to get paid and have fun. And that's what we get to do now,” Cardenas said. “In reality, my job is to keep them in school, right? Well, part of that is to make sure that we have, like, a very homey environment, so, yeah, that does mean we get to play with them. That does mean we get to spend and create quality time together to create those bonds.”
Cardenas said she wasn’t the best student in high school but BUENO CAMP changed that.
“I think the motivation of seeing other people wanting to do school, I was surrounded by people who didn't necessarily want to be in school…and then all of a sudden, I was hanging around with people that, for fun, we would stay up late to do homework, and eat ice cream like that just isn't normal, I guess, from my point of view, growing up,” Cardenas said. “I also started at community college, and then I transferred eventually to UNC, where I graduated with a double major in psychology and Mexican American studies.”
Cardenas said college isn’t all fun and games, but she wants her students to know it’s worth the hard work.
“Sí, se puede, you can do it. It might feel like it's a long shot, it's going to be hard. It's not going to be easy, but the second that you walk through the door, it allows you to see other doors and other opportunities,” Cardenas said.
BUENO CAMP applications are based on a combination of academic, financial and social need and only 30 applicants will be admitted each academic year.
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