Bridge Year Program

First-Generation Bridge Year Program Participants

Promise-eligible, first-generation students who would like to attend Western Michigan University are welcome to apply to our new Bridge Year Program. Our program offers you the opportunity to start your college career (or restart it) in a comfortable off-campus classroom where you will learn about the humanities and engage in ideas in a small community of your peers and members of the community.

The advantage of our Bridge Year Program is that you can focus on the academic demands of the college without additional pressures of being a full-time student on campus. We believe that the best introduction to college is created when passionate teachers meet with a small number of students to collectively work through a rich and challenging curriculum. Our relational approach and emphasis on conversation creates a supportive environment for all our students (no matter what their skills may be) in which to gain confidence in themselves, take intellectual risks, explore issues in depth, develop new academic skills and habits of mind, and ask for help when needed.

Another advantage of our program is the inter-generational class makeup. Students in our program will benefit from our strong sense of community; student strengths and life experiences will be acknowledged by their instructors, peer group of first-generation college students, and other community participants. Our community of learners encourages each student to become responsible for their own learning. 

Eligibility

To participate in our program you must be:

• Kalamazoo-Promise eligible.
• Accepted into Western Michigan University.
  • If you have not yet been accepted, we can help you with your application.
• The first person in your immediate family who has completed a college degree.
  • Exceptions can be made in some cases.

Outcome

In addition to earning eight college credits, and receiving free books, snacks, and bus tokens for transportation to and from our Westnedge classroom, students can also expect to receive:

• Passionate professors who care about your success.
• Small class sizes with your peers and members of the community.
• Mentorship from experienced college students.
• Community support from a diversity of Kalamazoo residents.
• Intellectual engagement with people and ideas.
• Improvement in your reading, writing and public speaking skills.

2018-19 Bridge Year schedule

Courses

Course I–Sept. 4 to Oct. 18
ES 2800–"Human Flourishing and the Pursuit of Happiness" taught by Dr. Dini Metro-Roland at our off-campus Westnedge site

Course II–Oct. 23 to Dec. 6
"First Year Experience" with college writing emphasis taught by Lauren Carney and Ron Dillard at our Western Michigan University site in the Trimpe building

Course III–Jan. 8 to Feb. 21
AFS 3010–"The Black Experience from 1866 to the Present" taught by Dr. Mariam Konaté at our off-campus Westnedge site

Days/times

Classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. either at our off-campus or on-campus locations

Location

Our off-campus Westnedge classroom is located in the white building right across the street from Fourth Coast Café:

811 S Westnedge Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA

Course Descriptions

ES 2800-Human Flourishing and the Pursuit of Happiness is an invitation to explore the rich and multifaceted question “What is human flourishing?” Drawing from philosophy, literature and the social sciences, students will be introduced to conceptions, visions, and conditions of human flourishing, its changing nature across many periods of Western history, its manifold expressions in contemporary life, and its pursuit in the local community. This is a three credit-hour course that fulfills the Area II general education requirement. Course flier

Some questions we are likely to entertain in this class are:

• Is happiness the same as human flourishing?
• What role does pain and pleasure play in our conceptions and experiences of human flourishing?
• Are there ways to measure happiness?
• Is flourishing and happiness a question of feelings, judgment or objective conditions?
• What is the relationship between virtue and human flourishing?
• How do experience, purpose, narrative, and service contribute to human flourishing?
• What is it to flourish in terms of work and leisure, love and care?
• What is the relationship between flourishing and morality?
• What does community contribute to human flourishing?

AFS 3010-The Black Experience from 1866 to the Present aims to provide an analytical, critical, interpretative and chronological perspective of the major roles played by Africans and their descendants in the social, economic, cultural, political, and other institutional developments of the Americas, especially of British America from the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century. Special attention will be paid to ancient African civilizations; West African and European relations to 1510; the transatlantic slave trade, and its causes and legacies; the Africans in British colonial North America; Americanization of the Africans and the Africanization of America; the cultural survival argument; African Americans’ reactions to the American Revolutionary War and their experiences in the new nation to1865; and their new encounters and accomplishments from 1865-1877 will be examined. These issues will be examined from the perspective/standpoint of African-Americans. This is a three credit-hour course that fulfills the Area III general education requirement.

Course Objectives:

• Apply race theories and concepts to the history of slavery in America.
• Apply intersecting racial, gender, sexuality and class identities to Africans’ experiences
• To know Africa’s contribution to world history.
• Explain how intersecting identities have shaped not only the experiences, but also the everyday strategies of resistance and theoretical/creative writings, of Black people in America.
• Recognize and articulate the correlation between slavery and race in the U.S.
  
• Navigate through the myths and misconceptions about race and be able to recognize the function of the stories that we tell about race.
• Identify the key players and events in African-American history and assess the struggles and accomplishments of African-Americans.
• Understand how Blacks’ experiences and responses force us to rethink basic concepts about U.S. society (including ideas such as race, gender, equality, liberty, freedom)
• Scrutinize some of the assumptions and notions we hold about race.

Interested in our program?

If you are interested in participating in our Bridge Year Program, please see H4E Contact Form.