As Rhode Island students packed their backpacks and got ready to start the school year, others had been learning all summer.
The Brown Collegiate Scholars Program, a college-readiness program for academically-motivated high schoolers, and Camp RYSE — which stands for Refugee Youth Solidarity through Education — a program targeted at refugees and multilingual learners, saw a combined over 100 total participants this summer.
BCSP welcomed its inaugural cohort in 2024 as part of the University’s pledge to provide more resources to the Providence Public School District. The program aims to provide Providence high school students with the tools they need to succeed in college through a fully-funded initiative. The program extends beyond the summer, giving students year-round advising, tutoring and financial literacy as they navigate the college application process, according to the program’s website.
“Students who wouldn’t necessarily have (the college application process) on their radar at this point in time are getting a head start now in their future planning,” Michael Citarella ’27, a civic engagement fellow with Brown Votes who worked with BCSP students this summer, said.
Citarella co-led a civic engagement course that emphasized the importance of voting and participating in the political process. The course featured a guest lecture from R.I. Secretary of State Gregg Amore.
Rosie Shultz ’27, also a Brown Votes civic engagement fellow, pointed to the progress many students in the cohort made throughout the program.
She recalled teaching a lesson about identifying and navigating artificial intelligence usage in political campaigns, as well as a student civic engagement project about mobilizing their neighbors to combat Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in their neighborhoods.
Shultz noted that BCSP seeks to encourage motivated students to become civically engaged, so that “when they run into problems or things that they want to change in their communities, they're equipped with the ability to do something about it.”
While BCSP and Camp RYSE were both founded by University-affiliates, the latter has now transitioned to operate entirely independently from Brown.
Camp RYSE completed its 15th year of summer programming this year, according to Executive Director of Camp RYSE Sunni Ryan. The program began as “20 youth in the basement of a church learning English” and now serves over 120 children each summer, Ryan wrote in an email to The Herald.
The camp grew out of Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, a club founded by two Brown students in 2006. Five years after its launch, the group began a summer camp for local refugee students. Camp RYSE’s mission is multifaceted, aiming to improve literacy, combat the summer learning loss and foster community for multilingual learners, Ryan wrote.
David Duan ’28, a Camp RYSE coordinator, detailed the literacy improvements he saw among many students in the program.
One student “quadrupled the amount of words that he was able to pronounce, just simply because he was so motivated to listen in class,” Duan said. “He even asked for books to be brought home.”
Duan’s role began well before the summer, helping to recruit new students to the camp with the Diocese of Providence and refugee assistance organizations, as well as coordinating home visits to encourage students to apply.
Changes to benefit eligibility for immigrants and national policy reform surrounding immigration has impacted the families served by Camp RYSE, according to Ryan, citing the “severe restriction of refugee resettlement in the U.S.”
Despite these difficulties, Camp RYSE has remained a space for community building and joy.
Literacy work, STEM-focused lessons and language support in the first block of the program give way to “afternoons of art, dance, soccer, swimming and field trips that provide an opportunity for joyful expression, collaboration and connection,” Ryan wrote.
“Campers feel confident and supported enough to try something new, connect with one another, or shed their anxieties and recognize their resilience,” she added.
