FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 12, 2008

MUW hosts various camps this summer

By Jill D. O’Bryant

COLUMBUS, Miss. -- In addition to college-aged students continuing
their studies this summer at Mississippi University for Women, the
campus also is buzzing with younger students participating in summer
camps and programs.

Currently, 106 scholars representing 97 Mississippi high schools are
participating in the 28th annual Mississippi Governor’s School. With
the theme this year of “The Power of Courage: Putting Ideas into
Action to Create a Brighter Future,” the three-week residential honors
program ends June 20.

Governor’s School is designed to provide academic, creative and
leadership experiences for a select number of rising high school juniors
and seniors who have demonstrated exceptional ability and achievement in
their studies and who show high intellectual, creative and leadership
potential.

“The Governor’s School experience brings outstanding faculty and
staff together with talented students to create a one-of-a-kind
experience that challenges us all to grow as scholars, as leaders and as
human beings,” said Kate Brown, director of Governor’s School.
“Leaving behind the familiar to face the unknown can be
intimidating, but this group of students is taking full advantage of the
opportunity afforded them by this university and the state of
Mississippi.”

Major courses of study for the Governor’s School scholars range from
music, literature and creative writing to bioethics, social problems and
the impact of the media. There are many interest area courses too, such
as teen voting, social conformity, service learning and pop culture.

One of the highlights of the program will be the Saturday of Service on
June 14. Scholars and staffers will volunteer at four area charities
(RIDES, Operation Ukraine, Habitat for Humanity and Palmer Home for
Children). An estimated 375 man hours of service will be provided to
these local charities that day.

“I am amazed by the talent and motivation I’ve seen in the 2008
scholars,” Brown said. “They are committed to using their gifts to
truly make a difference in the world around them.”
For more information about Mississippi Governor’s School, call
662-241-6096 or visit www.muw.edu/govschool.

Another summer program at MUW for gifted students is Summer Discovery,
which is a unique educational program that goes beyond fact finding
toward providing opportunities for gifted students to discover their own
areas of interest and potential, to think critically and creatively
about different concepts, problems and issues and to create new and
original ideas and products.

Scheduled for July 7-11, Summer Discovery is for gifted students who
have completed grades K-6 and have participated in their school’s
gifted program.

Applications for Summer Discovery, which has limited spaces, are
available at www.muw.edu/summerdiscovery. You can also contact Christina Freyder, a graduate assistant in the College of Education and Human Sciences, at 662-241-6772 or cmf3@muw.edu.

The university is assisting with the HEARTS tutoring program again this
summer. The program is for struggling readers in K-8 grades. Faculty and
interns from both MUW’s Reading Literacy Program and the Department of
Speech-Language Pathology are working together with these students to
provide language rich reading activities through the end of June.

For more information about the HEARTS tutoring program, please contact
Dr. Monica Riley, associate professor of education and coordinator of
graduate education, at mriley@muw.edu.

The Culinary Arts Institute is hosting Culinary Camp for Kids each week
during the month of June. Although all sessions are full at this time,
for more information about MUW’s Culinary Programs, contact them at
662-241-7472 or visit www.muw.edu/culinary.

The Culinary Camp for Kids begins with instruction in food
safety/proper sanitation and kitchen safety. The campers will use
practical techniques to produce the recipes of the day and will gain
skills in the correct use of appliances, healthy meal planning and
etiquette. They also will learn to develop their flavor memory palate by
enjoying the experience of new foods.

In addition, the Culinary Arts Institute held a Culinary Kids Camp the
first week of June for the students participating in MUW’s Crossroads
program.

Crossroads is a comprehensive support program targeting a group of
students from the Columbus Municipal School District. This summer, 30
students from Lee Middle School and Columbus High School are
participating.

The goal of the Crossroads project is to provide a safe and enriching
environment for students outside of regular school hours. In addition to
the programming that takes place during the academic year, Crossroads
offers a four-week summer program for participants in June.

In addition to participating in the Culinary Kids Camp, Crossroads
participants had art classes and worked on personal development through
song, dance and drama during their first week. The second week features
recreation and fitness at MUW Campus Recreation while during week three
MUW reading literacy students will do their internship hours with the
Crossroads participants and an artist will lead the participants in
creating a wall mural at Cook. Week four is a leadership/basketball
clinic called Camp of Champs.

For more information about the Crossroads program, which is made
possible through a $1 million grant from the Mississippi Department of
Education Office of Innovation and School improvement, please contact
Ivey Ivy, project manager at MUW’s Center for Creative Learning, at
(662) 329.7159 or visit www.muw.edu/ccl/crossroads.

MUW annually hosts the Summer Bridge Institute, which is a five-week
residential program held during the second summer session of summer
school. The program assists minority students in "bridging the gap"
between high school and their freshman year in college.

Summer Bridge Institute is an intensive program consisting of both
academic and life skills activities. Full support is provided for books,
housing, meals, and tuition. Student will receive 4 college credit hours
and many other life skills in which they can utilize in their upcoming
college careers.

For more information about MUW’s Bridge Institute, please contact
Phillip Cockrell, director of the Summer Bridge Institute and assistant
director of diversity education and programs, at 662-329-7350 or visit
www.muw.edu/student/diversity/summerbridge.

The Department of Sciences and Mathematics is offering a weeklong
workshop for middle school teachers July 14-18 and a weeklong workshop
for middle school students July 21-25 called MUW Science Enrichment
Program.

Workshops will be held at Plymouth Bluff Educational Center and will be
taught by MUW faculty members. Hands-on science activities, data
collection and data analysis will occur both outdoors and on the MUW
Explorer, which is a pontoon boat equipped as a floating laboratory.

These workshops are funded by the Plymouth Bluff Center for Scientific
and Historical Enrichment project, a congressionally funded grant
through the U.S. Department of Education.

For more information, please contact Dr. Dorothy Kerzel, chair of the
Department of Sciences and Mathematics, at 662-329-7376 or
dkerzel@muw.edu or visit www.muw.edu/sci_math/sep.

Fifteen mathematics teachers are currently participating in a four-week
summer institute at MUW called TEAM AIMS (Technology Education and
Mathematics Advancement in Middle School) under a $78,000 No Child Left Behind grant through IHL and the Department of Education.

Participants are studying the new Mississippi Curriculum Frameworks
which emphasizes greater depth of knowledge and conceptual
understanding. Participants also are practicing research-based teaching
and learning strategies designed to motivate students to learn
mathematics. Among these are the TI-84 Plus graphing calculators,
Everyday Math (real world applications), graphic novels and storytelling
with technology (teacher and student created mathematics word problems)
and Singapore Math (emphasizing the brain as a human computer).

Each participant receives an Interactive Mimio portable electronic
whiteboard device and other material as well as a daily stipend and 10
CEU credits. They also receive technology training on how to use the
Mimio, how to use the TI-84 Plus calculators and how to develop and
publish a class web page and a PowerPoint presentation on the computer.

“Since the TEAM AIMS institute has already begun, we cannot take any
more applicants,” said Dr. Richard Holden, TEAM AIMS project director
and associate professor of education. “However, we hope to conduct a
similar, or possibly expanded, institute again in the summer of 2009, so
look for opportunities again next year.”

In addition to these summer camps and programs sponsored by the MUW,
the university also rents campus facilities to organizations for summer
programs. Those planned for this summer are Brigham Young University
Especially for Youth, a program that encourages youth to grow
spiritually; Marching Auxiliaries Dance Camp and Civil Air Patrol
National Cadet Special Activity, an encampment that simulates U.S. Air
Force undergraduate pilot training.

For more information about scheduling MUW’s facilities for programs,
please contact MUW’s Office of Resources Management at 662-329-7126.