Willamette Academy Annual Report - Academic Year 2021-22

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

CELEB R ATING20 YE ARS

Whenyou visit Willamette Academy, you’ll notice a wall with two rows of almost perfectly aligned picture frames. As you move through each frame you’ll get a flashback to early 2000’s fashion, awkward smiles, and the introduction of our famous burgundy Academy blazers. Each frame captures another graduating class of Academy students.

As a graduate from the Academy, I often find myself in the hallway looking through each class photo. Many were my role models, peers, and friends or, for the most recent classes, my students. Behind each photo there are many things unseen: the time and commitment over five years, summer camps, workshops, Saturday sessions, mentor meetings, parent sessions and a lot of community building activities.

Since 2001, we’ve seen hundreds of applications from seventh-graders across the Salem-Keizer School District. Each year, about 32 students say “yes” to Willamette Academy and entrust us to do what we do best — to support students and their families with resources and guidance on their path toward higher education and to develop leaders.

Over the last 20 years, the Academy has grown greatly. We have moved to a centralized location on campus with sufficient space for all our activities, we’ve strengthened our mentorship and programmatic curriculum, restructured our parent sessions, and further integrated ourselves into the community at Willamette University.

In preparation for our 20th anniversary celebra tion, we created a video where we interviewed alumni from the first graduating classes. Many of them spoke to the resources, mentorship, information and support they received through the Academy. However, the biggest theme was around community — a community with shared goals, one where all voices matter, and where one could step into leadership. In re-watching the video, I was reminded of Maya Angelou’s quote: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

It is with this sentiment that I want to thank everyone who has been involved with the Academy over the last 20 years. Our goal is to get students to college and each of you share with us in that success. Most importantly, you have allowed our students to feel seen as individuals worth being invested in. Getting to college is one thing, but having a community that is rooting for you is priceless.

With gratitude, Delia Olmos-García ’14 Executive Director

View the 20th anniversary celebration video at: willamette.edu/ community/academy and click on the 20th Anniversary Video link under Celebrating 20 years of WA.

— Delia Olmos-García ’14, WA’10 Executive Director

“Getting to college is one thing, but having a community that is rooting for you is priceless.”

Severalyears ago, Rebeca Lopez-Figueroa ’15 witnessed her parents’ fraught legal process immigrating from Mexico.

From the outside, it seemed so mysterious — an arduous, costly undertaking with no guarantees — but the lawyers they encountered were helpful.

“I very much saw them as a resource in situations that a lot of families are quiet about,” she said. “I understood them as being the people who held the keys to that information.”

Lopez-Figueroa vowed to do the same for others. She just had to go to college first.

Deeply involved in activities at North Salem High School, she wasn’t sure she could afford another time commitment. But she’s so glad she did — the Academy guided the first generation student through the college admissions process and connected her with a community who let her be herself.

“I could express my fears about not knowing what college I was going to, or if I was even going to make it,” she said. “It was really important for me to feel like I was making a wise decision where to go.”

The answer soon became clear. Lopez-Figueroa wanted to be a lawyer who has a strong sense of community, so staying in Oregon was a must, especially if she chose later to build a private practice.

Attending Willamette University meant she could be at a college she was already acquainted with and remain involved with the Academy — this time as an academic mentor. She mentored high school students for three years.

“I really wanted to stay connected to that community,” she said. “Their support was the reason I stayed so close to home, and I could always count on them.”

After earning a degree in sociology, Lopez-Figueroa attended the University of Oregon School of Law in Eugene and graduated last spring. This fall, after she takes the bar exam, she will represent the state’s migrant and seasonal farmworkers at the Oregon Law Center in Woodburn, focusing on employment and civil rights issues.

The Academy is still a meaningful part of her life. Lopez-Figueroa, who joined its advisory board more than a year ago, said the Academy and its motto will be relevant for years to come.

“The Academy has evolved with the needs of the community and I’m grateful to have been part of the program,” she said. “I genuinely believe it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.”

Empowered by the Academy community, alumna pays it forward

“I could express my fears about not knowing what college I was going to, or if I was even going to make it.”

Rebeca Lopez-Figueroa ’15 Staff Attorney, Oregon Law Center

Academy students who are students of color

84%

Students who reported that the Academy improved and/ or strengthened their attitude toward school

Academy students receiving free or reducedcost school lunches

84% Academy alumni who’ve either graduated from or are currently enrolled at a two- or four-year college

HIGHLIGHTS 2022

Students had the opportunity to attend in person and virtual college info sessions, including Pomona College, Bowdoin College, Colorado College, Mudd College, Occidental College, George Fox University, Oregon State University, Western Oregon University and University of Oregon.

“College Track” sessions provided Academy seniors with workshops on financial aid, college and scholarship applications, matricu lation and how to transition into college.

Over 15 Academy students and alumni were individually assisted in filling out and submit ting the FAFSA or ORSAA.

Academy staff participated in the MLK book club, where they read and discussed “College Belonging: How First Year and First-Genera tion Students Navigate Campus Life.”

Paul Quach ’22 earned the Gates Scholarship, a highly selective, last-dollar scholar ship for outstanding minority high school seniors from low-income households. Each year, the scholarship is awarded to 300 student leaders with the intent of helping them realize their maximum potential.

In October, juniors took a trip to Tacoma to visit the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University.

Staff collaborated with retired faculty member Linda Heuser to capture and archive the Academy’s history, including interviews with former staff, founders, and community partners. Heuser also helped create a process to preserve and archive Academy student applications for each graduating class.

In November, students participated in a two-part workshop on environmental justice with Assistant Professor of Civic Communi cation and Media Catalina de Onís. Students created their own zines to highlight environmental issues in their community.

Students attended over 70 virtual and in-person workshops including Hallie Ford Art Museum, campus lectures and events, journalism, student-led session on Native history, SAT practice, gardening and career exploration.

In May, the Academy reviewed over 80 applications, conducted 53 virtual student interviews and welcomed 32 rising eighth-graders to the program.

On May 13, we celebrated our 21 senior graduates. This fall, three graduates will attend Willamette University while the rest will head to Chemeketa Community College, Western Oregon University, Oregon State University, Linfield University, Portland State University, Stanford University, Montana State University, Swarthmore College, Wesleyan College and the University of New Mexico.

In the spring, students participated in a three part workshop series with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Cooper Battle and his students in which students explored forces and fluorescence, oxidation and reduction, and thermochemistry.

Over 120 students, families, alumni and supporters joined us for our 20th anniversary celebration.

A ‘lifeline’ for a nursing career

For one crucial year, Rachal Meza Rojas ’14 couldn’t rely on her family.

A first generation student raised in Salem, she had moved into a friend’s house at age 16. She wanted to avoid returning to a home she previously left with her mother. But despite the disruption, she maintained her grades, stayed active in school and focused on earning her International Bacca laureate diploma. She also found solace in Willamette Academy.

Bonding with students in class or while staying overnight at the university created profound connections for her. She saw herself reflected in the student body, which hails from Salem and Keizer, and the chance to grow with that community became one of her most powerful experiences.

“Having that community of people going through the same thing you were growing up is something you can’t buy,” she said. “Willamette Academy was my lifeline.”

Joshua Bilbrew, program director at the time, was an especially pivotal person in her life. He wrote letters of recommendation, helped her edit essays and work through the financial aid paperwork. Above all, he became the active listener she needed.

“He kept me accountable, he challenged me and harnessed the energy I had to do good,” she said, growing emotional. “His guidance and mentorship helped craft who I am today.”

Bilbrew was the one who pushed her to visit Seattle University, despite her reluctance from application fatigue. The moment she arrived on campus for a visit, she said, “This is it.”

The first year of college was no problem for Meza Rojas, who felt confident staying in the dorms, heading to the cafeteria and meeting professors. She joined the U.S. Army ROTC and earned placement in a nursing program, and always made time for visiting Academy students. One year, she gave a tour of campus and led a Q&A session in one of the classrooms.

In 2018, she graduated from college. Since then, she’s lived in Hawaii and Texas, gained experience in critical care, medical surgical and forensic nursing and became promoted to first lieutenant. She’s currently stationed in Fort Hood, where she is assigned to the 11th Field Hospital as an emergency nurse.

Meza-Rojas (clockwise from far left) as U.S. Army first lieutenant emergency nurse, at an Academy Summer Camp (center, in yellow) in 2009, directing a tour for Academy visitors at Seattle University in 2017, posing by the Pacific shore in Hawai’i

And now she’s become a student again. This fall, she started her online master’s of science in nursing education at Duke University.

The Academy played a role in that decision, too. A workshop she’d taken years ago featured a panelist who discussed balancing a full time job and a degree, and she’s certain she can do the same.

“The workshops provided students the time and space to learn from others and dream big,” she said. “I am so excited to see what the future holds.”

“(Joshua Bilbrew, program director at the time), kept me accountable, he challenged me and harnessed the energy I had to do good.”

Rachal Meza Rojas WA’14 First Lieutenant Emergency Nurse, U.S. Army

WILLAMETTE ACADEMY CLASS OF 2022

ATING

Our mission is to educate, inspire and empower students from historically underrepresented communities who have the desire to advance to and achieve higher education. To learn how you can support our mission, visit willamette.edu/community/academy.

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