UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program garners Regents Diversity Award

Initiative lauded for helping first-generation, low-income students continue education past high school

Feb. 6, 2023 -- Each time Bee Vang sees expressions of wonder on her students’ faces when they have a new experience, she feels hopeful for their future. 

“When I see that look in my students’ eyes, when they get to experience something they’ve never done before, I feel like we’re doing our job,” said Vang, director of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls Upward Bound Program she has been involved with since 2010. “That’s when I feel like we’re really making a difference, giving these students opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have.” 

UWRF’s Upward Bound Program has been named a recipient of the prestigious Regents Diversity Award. It is one of just three award designees among UW System schools this year. The program will be recognized at the February 10 Board of Regents meeting at UW-Madison. Started in 1999, the program serves students who attend Washington Technology Magnet School in St. Paul. 

Other Regents Diversity Award winners honored include Rickie-Ann Legleitner at UW-Stout and Lori Kido Lopez at UW-Madison. Regents awards recognize individuals and programs that foster success for students who are members of historically underrepresented populations. Each award winner is granted $7,500 for professional development or to further those programs. 

Upward Bound is overseen by the U.S. Department of Education and serves students age 14-18 who would be first-generation college students and whose families have limited income. The program offers participants opportunities and teaches study skills, how to access scholarships, and other abilities in an effort to allow them to attend post-high school education. 

The UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program has garnered accolades because of its success in providing students with opportunities, instruction and mentoring that enables them to find success after high school. UWRF Chancellor Maria Gallo praised the work of Upward Bound and the important role it plays in its participants’ lives. 

“The UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program does the important work of preparing students for a post-high school education, an opportunity many of them likely wouldn’t otherwise have,” Gallo said. “Our university community is proud of this program and honored to receive this award.”

When Vang – who was named a Regents Diversity Award recipient in 2018 – received a recent email message notifying her that Upward Bound had won the award, she felt both gratification and validation. Maintaining student success during the coronavirus pandemic was “a very real challenge,” Vang said, “and this award shows that we were able to meet our students where they were at and then get them to a better place.”

Mai Tao Yang, who operates the UWRF Upward Bound Program along with Vang, expressed a similar sentiment. As program coordinator, Yang and Vang work diligently to provide quality opportunities and mentoring to program participants, she said, noting she is “super honored” to see the program recognized as an award winner. The program focuses on helping students build positive peer support networks as well as leadership and career development and interaction with people with varying life experiences.  
 
“We view what we are doing as really unique,” she said. “To be recognized for that, it’s amazing … The award isn’t why we do this every day. But it does amplify our program, and that is exciting.”

Vang and Yang work with 73 students each year, a heavy workload for the duo, Yang said. Challenges they face are numerous, she said, and include convincing students who come from backgrounds that are limited in some ways that more is possible for them. In addition to a lack of money, Upward Bound students deal with such issues as cultural and language barriers as well as various forms of family trauma, Yang said. They also often lack opportunities available to their more affluent peers, she said. 

“A big part of our job is convincing our students that they can overcome the limits they face,” Yang said. “A lot of times, because of circumstances, they don’t realize the possibilities that are out there for them.” 

To help students realize their potential, Yang and Vang arrange opportunities and experiences they most likely otherwise wouldn’t have. Students attend everything from a circus to a monster truck rally, to horseback riding, to a trip to Disney World. Those opportunities are intended to expose students to new ways of thinking and new possibilities, Vang said. 

“We focus on positive learning experiences for our students,” Vang said. “You want to see these students have new experiences and to see their minds open up to what might be available to them in their future lives.”

‘I am them’

To connect with their students, Vang and Yang work closely with them on academic and life issues. The need for such support became especially evident during the pandemic, they said. 

“A lot of the success we have is about building relationships with our students,” Yang said. “We don’t just talk about academics. We discuss other things in their lives. We can be that mentor that they need.”

Making those connections comes naturally to Yang and Vang. They know firsthand about many of the challenges their students face because they were once in a similar situation. 

Like many of the students they work with, Yang and Vang are Hmong. They were born in refugee camps in Thailand, and their families fled for their lives from Laos after the war in Vietnam. 

They both grew up in the Twin Cities after their families relocated there, and each was a part of an Upward Bound program during their high school years. They know what it's like to feel the odds were stacked against them, like they didn’t fit in, like they would not have opportunities. 

As Vang and Yang work, they often see themselves in their students. 

“The person these kids see today in front of them, that wasn’t me in high school,” Vang recalled. “I didn’t really stick out at all. I just tried to get through my day and didn’t speak up much. I was just like these kids, facing the same kinds of challenges they face.”

Their backgrounds give them credibility with their students, they said. They tell students how being a part of Upward Bound helped them deal with difficulties and find success. 

“We understand many of the challenges our students face because we lived that life,” Yang said. “When I look at my students, I am them.”

Finding Success

As a Hmong child growing up in the Twin Cities, Pather Zong Lao didn’t have a goal of attending college and working as a professional one day. One of six children in a family with few financial resources, Lao’s reality simply didn’t include those ideas. 

Then, when she started high school, Lao was recruited to Upward Bound, and she decided to join. During her freshman year, an Upward Bound trip to Chicago opened Lao’s eyes to future possibilities. Her work with program mentors furthered not only her commitment to academic success but helped build self confidence, along with skills such as time management and networking. 

Lao attended the University of Minnesota, where she became a student mentor. After graduating in 2021, Lao returned to Upward Bound as an instructor and currently works with students at North High School in North St. Paul. She credits her Upward Bound experience as a teen with her finding success as an adult. 

“Without me being in Upward Bound, I don’t think I would have gone to college. I wouldn’t have the job I have now,” Lao said. “Upward Bound was really the starting point for me to have success, to see that more was possible.”

UW-River Falls Continuing Education Director Randy Zimmermann said the program helps students like Lao to build skills and awareness that enable them to gain an education after high school.  

“The Upward Bound Program has built cultural bridges and paths of academic opportunity for countless urban youth that would not otherwise have confidence to consider continuing their education beyond the secondary level,” Zimmermann said. 

Lao’s story and other similar successes she hears from students are a reward for the effort she and others put into Upward Bound, Vang said. She frequently receives messages from former students who have gone on to graduate from college and find success in their careers, such as a recent note from one of Vang’s former Upward Bound students who is now in medical school at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

“When you see these kids go on to have successful lives after they’ve been with us, that is the most heartwarming part of this job,” Vang said.

Yang agreed, saying students’ successes amid many challenges makes her work with Upward Bound worthwhile.  

“To be one of the people who helps these students, and to see them go on to college, and find success and see them on their way, it’s an honor to be a part of that,” Yang said. “It’s humbling to know that the work we do matters. And it motivates us to keep doing it.”
 

Photo 1:
Bee Vang, UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program director, works with Angel Molina Flores, an 11th-grade student in the Upward Bound Program at Washington Technology Magnet School, St. Paul. The program recently received a UW System Regents Diversity Award. Photo courtesy of Bee Vang.

Photo 2:
Mai Tao Yang, coordinator of the UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program.

Photo 3: 
Mai Tao Yang, fourth from left, age 3, and her family in a refugee camp in Thailand, where they lived while they waited to be resettled in the U.S. Yang, UW-River Falls Upward Bound Program coordinator, said her experience growing up in this country as a first-generation Hmong woman allows her to relate to the challenges her Upward Bound students face. Photo courtesy of Mai Tao Yang.