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JU Upward Bound students take “Best of Contest” at national TRiO Quest Awards

High school students in Jacksonville University’s TRiO Upward Bound program took the top award “Best of Contest” in the “DigiMedia” category of the national 2012 TRiO Quest Awards.

The contest attracted about 600 entries; 9 DigiMedia, 6 DigiSites and 11 DigiText entries were award winners. The DigiMedia category is a multimedia activity for TRiO students in which students create and post their own individual or team video projects, according to contest organizers.

Each of the students on the JU Upward Bound team received a certificate, a medal and a $200 gift card to Amazon, said Cecilia L. Severin, JU Upward Bound Program Director. The participants, shown from left in the photo, were Michael Quwade Bretch, Tiffany Rivera, Demetrius Kale, D’angelo Demps, Kaj Henson, Laura Cruz Robinson (Team coach, Upward Bound Teacher and JU graduate class of ’94) and Ricky Anderson.

The winning video entry by the JU Upward Bound high school students was called “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover.” In its entry, the creators describe the video as follows:

“Things are not always as they seem. The purpose of this video is to show that stereotypes and judging people are a problem in today’s society. The intended audience is to young viewers as well as older people because they need to realize that judging people is a true problem. We want this video to impact people in a positive way and put an end to offensive stereotypes and racial profiling. Stereotypes and racial profiling turn into hate crimes, which is also a big problem. This video was made to show what matters to students in high school.”

Upward Bound is part of the TRiO national program designed to serve high school students who meet certain criteria.

Students must be first-generation college-bound students and/or meet federal income guidelines.

To view all awards, visit the TRiO Quest Award page at http://depts.washington.edu/trio/trioquest/awards/2012/dm_boc.php.

To view the JU Upward Bound winning entry, visit https://sites.google.com/a/trioquest.org/killerkatz/video.