“Summer program looks to the future”
27 at risk of quitting school get taste of what college is like
Karen Meany, The Journal News, August 2, 2002.

PURCHASE – New Rochelle middle schoolers Lester Daniels and Eric Newsome came to the Great Potential Program to try new things. This Week, that meant improvising a scene in which president Bush meets a hip-hop drug dealer on the way to a Christmastime parade in Chicago.

Lester’s first attempts to portray the president consisted of half hearted waves to an imaginary crowd that were more Queen Elizabeth II than “Dubya” but Nicco Annan, a Purchase college graduate and theater instructor for the program, jumped in to provide encouragement.

There is an endless list of things that can happen,” Annan told the boys. “Use your imagination; nothing you do here is wrong.”

The advice Annan gave the boys was meant to improve the skit, but also to be recommended when students return to school and face challenges there.

Twenty-seven middle school students from Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Ossining, Port Chester and White Plains are finishing up the program’s Summer Academy at Purchase College this week. The program’s Summer Academy at Purchase College this week. The Program’s goal is to provide academic support and enrichment for students for students identified as being at risk of dropping out of school.

“We want the students to see they can have a future,” said Gregorian Rollins, the program’s director. “The kids who come through try something new and change their outlook on life.”

The program is offered under the auspice of the Regional Partnership of Schools and College. The students receive academic instruction in the morning and enrichment experiences in theater, computer and leadership development in the afternoon. They have full use of the campus, including the pool, gym and basketball court, giving them a taste of what a future at college could be like.

Lester, 12, and Eric, 14, resumed their skit after taking Annan’s advice to use their imagination and concentrate more.

“Why don’t you work, instead of selling drugs on the street?” Lester-Bush challenged Eric.

“You’re the president,” Eric shot back.” Why don’t you get us off the streets?”
Annan asked the audience what they thought of the next section of the skit and all agreed it was better.

“You had more things put into it,” Annan said. “That’s what I’m telling you guys, when you put more into something, its better.”

Shanika Williams, who will be in eight-grade student at Anne M. Dorner Middle School in Ossining some fall, said the theater activities had helped her learn to express herself more confidently.

“Twenty years from now, I might be in a corporate office in front of a lot of people,” she said. “Now I know I have to speak up.”

“We went on rides we though we’d be too scared to go on,” 14 Year-old Arnasia Williams of Mount Vernon said. “we faced our fears.”