Palouse Pathways’ “Path to College Night,” an annual event meant to help students prepare for high school, will return at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
Peggy Jenkins, Palouse Pathways director and founder, said the organization has been around for about 10 years. It is a nonprofit that mostly serves students in Latah and Whitman counties.
“Our mission is to provide college and career information and inspiration to local high schoolers. We do it all for free,” Jenkins said. “We have a career exploration class, a college class. We have sort of a college orientation even though we’re happy to help students discover all sorts of careers, not all necessarily involving college.”
Jenkins said Path to College Night is held at the 1912 Center in Moscow. The event aims to introduce Palouse Pathways and the idea of college preparation to families of younger high schoolers.
“The goal is to say ‘hey you don’t have to worry about anything now, but here’s a timeline. Here are some of the goals you will be encountering during high school and when to expect them.’” Jenkins said. “It is a yearly event that has been going on for at least eight years.”
Jenkins said they invite teachers from local middle and high schools to come and give advice to students about details related to college and answer their questions. Jenkins also provides a timeline for preparing for college and good steps to take.
Palouse Pathways is run on a volunteer basis, Jenkins said. She founded it when she was a parent of a high school student and was involved with a parent group at Moscow High School
“[I] was kind of feeling like the whole process of preparing for college was hard and there was a lot of information that families needed. The counselors worked more with the students and didn’t work so much with the families,” she said. “It was sort of a question about educating parents and others about the different ways that you can get prepared.”
Stacey Hust, Murrow College professor and associate dean, said she has some prior knowledge of the Palouse Pathways service.
“I have a daughter who’s going to participate,” Hust said. “My daughter joined Palouse Pathways this summer because she’s college-bound and interested in learning more about colleges, and one of her friends recommended this program. As part of Palouse Pathways, they told her about this particular night.”
Hust said her daughter is now starting in the ninth grade and she will be attending the event with her. She said the program is a good opportunity for any student in the area who is interested in college and may be particularly useful those who are first-generation students.
“I was a first-generation college student and I think there’s a large number of people in our area who are also first gen and I think this program helps people like us think through and ask questions you don’t even know to ask,” Hust said.
As a professor, Hust said college is a great opportunity for everybody, so this particular event is important for students to be introduced to the idea of going to college and provides an opportunity for them to ask questions they might have.
“I would encourage students to take their going to college and use some of their freshman classes to figure out what they want to do. They should talk to people who’ve been there,” she said. “When I was younger that wasn’t really an option, I didn’t really know a lot of people who had gone to college.”
Last year had a particularly good turnout, with about 90–100 people attending, she said. Word of the event is spread in part through their Facebook page.
“We definitely ask our current families to tell people they know,” Jenkins said. “We ask our teacher panelists to tell their students with which we still have contact. We want to encourage people with barriers to college, either because they’re first gen or low income because we have a lot of resources that they can take advantage of.”
