on the cover / By Japhet Weeks

Upward Bound No More

After 33 years, Humboldt vets lose college prep program

(Sept. 6, 2007)  When the noon whistle goes off in Arcata, most people just think it’s time for lunch. But for James Frasche-Russell, a 26-year-old army veteran majoring in computer science and math at Humboldt State University, the whistle brings back bad memories.

“It really freaked me out, because that was the get-into-your-bunkers-we’re-being-bombed alarm in Iraq,” he says.

Humboldt’s VUB program has been operating since 1973. Photo by Yulia Weeks.

GALLERY >

Frasche-Russell, a native of Eureka, enlisted in the army when he was 21 after having worked a string of odd jobs and taken a few classes at College of the Redwoods. He joined because of the educational benefits the military offered, he says. When he was discharged from the Army in 2005, he enrolled in the Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) program at Humboldt State University, the only university-affiliated VUB on the West Coast.

VUB offers vets of all ages free, not-for-credit college prep courses in math and English. Last year, Humboldt’s VUB served 208 veterans, as well as providing services to their families. VUB is different from other veterans’ educational benefits, such as the GI Bill, in that it targets those who would not otherwise be prepared to go straight into college — either they need additional academic preparation, or they’re looking for a vet-friendly environment to help ease their transition.

But programs like VUB, a part of the Federal Trio Program, which also includes regular Upward Bound, a program that helps underprivileged high school students succeed at college, are few and far between. Last year, there were only 39 VUB programs in the United States. And funding is discretionary, which means that every four years Humboldt’s VUB director Cai Williams has had to worry whether or not the grant money would be there.

Finally, after 33 years, her fears have proven true. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Humboldt State’s VUB had lost its funding. Reached Tuesday, Williams was stunned. She said that she still didn’t know how much money the program has left over from its previous grant. She wasn’t sure what would become of the veterans currently at Humboldt’s VUB. And she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to appeal the department’s decision.

Even before last week’s news, some local veterans questioned the government’s commitment to its vets and their post-military careers. “Funding for any program like that shouldn’t be discretionary but mandatory, and we should be doing that at all college campuses across the country,” said Carl Young, the president of the Humboldt Memorial chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America,

David Ortega Shaw, a veteran of Vietnam, who has served as Humboldt VUB’s academic advisor for decades, said essentially the same thing to the San Francisco Chronicle a couple of months ago.

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