People

The Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) seeks to increase enrollment and graduation of African American, American Indian, Asian American (especially Southeast Asian American), Latino/a, and disadvantaged students with strong academic potential from middle school through 12th grade.

It is a program designed for participation through four summers for students from Milwaukee, Racine, Ho-Chunk and Menominee Nations, and Madison (Madison students start as rising 7th graders and then must reapply for the high school component at the end of their freshman year). The College of Engineering participates by offering workshops in summers one and two (one-week and three-weeks, respectively), offering students the opportunity to participate in our seven-week Engineering Summer Program in summer three, and mandatory participation in our seven-week Program for Individuals Preparing for Engineering (PIPEline) in summer four.

Several studies have demonstrated that enrollment and graduation rates can be increased by pre-college programs that

  1. Encourage students to aspire to opportunities available through higher education, and
  2. Assist students in developing critical academic skills.

Those are the fundamental goals of the PEOPLE program.

For the first two summers, PEOPLE offers a 3-week residential program on the UW-Madison campus that includes math and writing skills development; daytime workshops in the biological sciences, physical sciences, engineering, biomedical research and health sciences; an evening curriculum in the fine and performance arts, and ACT preparation. The College of Engineering is involved with PEOPLE 9 and 10 by coordinating the engineering component of the science curriculum provided for the students.

The College of Engineering is involved in the first two levels of PEOPLE as a part of the science team. During summer 1, students are involved in a one-week module (of their 3 weeks) learning about engineering as a part of their science curriculum. For engineering, there are four "strands" available for the week: Biomedical Engineering, Civil/Environmental Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. During summer 2, students may elect to spend their entire three weeks in the engineering module for the science portion of the program. For engineering, there will be two "strands" available: Civil/Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Graduate engineering students are hired to design and implement these workshops. Graduate students interested in teaching opportunities in engineering with PEOPLE should contact Libby Lee at lalee@engr.wisc.edu.

Related link:

University of Wisconsin-Madison PEOPLE website