Hi Robert,
Below is an article I was asked to write for the upcoming Project Forward Leap newsletter and in connection with PFL’s 25th Anniversary. I thought you might find it of interest. Hope all is well. Best,
Mel
REFLECTIONS ON PROJECT FORWARD LEAP SUMMER COLLEGE 1989
I was asked to reflect on Project Forward Leap’s first Summer College in 1989 (then referred to as the residential summer institute). That was not hard to recollect. The favorite song of the first group was rap artist MC Hammer’s, “You Can’t Touch This.” It was sung and danced to by the students everywhere on campus all summer. I can still hear and see them…
Leading up to that summer there was much anticipation that had built up from the months of brainstorming with fellow co-founders Robert Field and Leon Miller about the mission and design of PFL. Next there was the recruiting of Buddy Glover, Kirk Fisher, Jim Sheridan and Sylvia Shriner to assume positions on our original board of directors and various roles to get PFL operations off the ground.
An admissions process was set up with the Lancaster Advisory Board under Buddy’s leadership. Then Sandy Brown agreed to serve as our residential director; and teachers and other staff were appointed. Behind the scenes was the invaluable Linda Sheets who handled all logistics. Ultimately PFL’s first summer college commenced with a class of 37 students, rising 6th graders from the school districts of Lancaster City, Columbia Borough and Solanco.
I vividly recall the first day and evening of the 1989 Summer College. It was a hot humid Sunday. The dorm was not air-conditioned and would not be for our first nine years at Millersville University. But families were proud and excited and the staff shined that opening day. After registration, move-in and the opening ceremony on the dormitory lawn, families departed campus about 4:30. Students went to the college dining hall for dinner shortly afterward.
In the early evening I noticed that a few cars were circling the parking lot adjacent to the dorm. So I went outside to see if folks were trying to find an event on campus and perhaps needed directions. It turned out that they were PFL parents who were already missing their children. They were looking futilely into the dorm windows hoping to get a glimpse of their child or of what might be going on inside the building. After a short chat and laugh with them they departed for home.
Later the students would stall about going to bed. They were groggy the next morning when they had to be awakened at 6:00 am or so for showers and breakfast in order to get to classes on the other side of campus by 8:00 am. The problem of getting the students to go to bed on time quickly passed.
By Monday evening I noticed that the students, especially the girls, would rotate from one room to another to gather. I was to learn that these gatherings resulted whenever word spread that one of their classmates had “broken down” from homesickness and needed to be comforted. There also was an occasional false alarm that first summer.
One that stands out is when I was summoned by a group of girls who were told by a classmate that she’d seen a bloody knife in the stairwell of the library fire escape. I dashed over to the library with them. The report would turn out to be false of course. But it certainly garnered a lot of wanted and unwanted attention for Nicole. She later entered the military but is still reminded of this story whenever she is present for a PFL function.
I also remember the early adventures of weekly laundry detail. Students would wash their own clothes for the first time as part of their introduction to college life. So many laughs…
Fairly quickly the general academic prowess of the students became evident, and the leaders of the group would emerge. Jabreel, Jevelle, Danielle and Iris immediately come to mind. By the end of the summer institute the bonds between students and their peers and with staff would be so strong as to cause tearful separations on the part of almost everyone including the boys. The days of homesickness had long passed.
Similar scenes have played out throughout the history of PFL’s Summer College. I have had the privilege of being there for all of PFL’s summers, but I remember more students from the first group that entered twenty-five years ago than any entering group since.
Melvin Allen
President & Co- Founder
PROJECT FORWARD LEAP FOUNDATION
Two Logan Square
100 N. 18th Street
Suite 300
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Office – 215 568-2344 Ext. 101
Mobile 215-696-3849
Facsimile – 215-568-2443
www.projectforwardleap.org
A strategy that works: A gifted education for every child!
