WAA honors 2004 PEOPLE graduates

Students, alumni and educators will gather Monday, Feb. 16 in Milwaukee to honor the 2004 graduates of UW–Madison’s Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE).

Each year, the Wisconsin Alumni Association, in conjunction with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and the UW Foundation, hosts a reception to honor the current graduating high school class of PEOPLE students.

This year’s reception, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at the University Club, 924 East Wells St., will honor 71 PEOPLE students who will graduate from high school in June. Of those graduates, an estimated 90 percent are expected to attend college.

The PEOPLE program is a year-round learning adventure designed to help middle school and high school students focus on the academic skills and motivation necessary to succeed in college. Upon graduation from the program, each PEOPLE student admitted to the University of Wisconsin–Madison will be eligible for a tuition grant for up to five years.

The program, which started in 1999 with 66 students from Milwaukee, currently has 700 participants from Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Waukesha. Since 1999, two cohorts have graduated from high school. Of those two cohorts, 72 percent of the original participants have completed the high school portion of the PEOPLE program, 100 percent graduated from high school and 96 percent are currently enrolled in institutions of higher education. Forty-seven percent of the PEOPLE graduates are enrolled at UW–Madison.

For more information on PEOPLE and other campus diversity initiatives, visit
http://www.diversity.wisc.edu/.

For more information on the reception, visit http://www.uwalumni.com/people/ or contact Alicia Jackson at (888) 947-2586.