Eastern Oregon University’s Genesis Meaderds and Sam McCumber were on-island earlier this month to make early admission and application easy and seamless for students. Admissions Counselor Meaderds offered financial aid counseling while McCumber, an academic advisor, assisted with academic issues. Until this visit, there was a gap between admissions and getting to the campus in La Grande, Oregon.
In the US, the university has what is called a “Mountaineer registration day,” where the focus shifts to new potential students, whereas in Pacific countries such as the Marshalls and Palau, students have to go through admissions, application, registration, and financial aid without the same resources — until now. Also, according to the EOU team, no other school is doing the same thing. Marshallese students like EOU because the university has many Marshallese students and many Marshallese families live in La Grande.
Most local students have expressed interest in nursing and teaching.
From the Upward Bound program at CMI, the EOU team was able to talk to all freshman to senior students, with 11 who have taken the placement test and another 11 who plan to register. They have admitted at least 40 students for this coming school year, after seeing a high number of registrations last year for the school year now finishing.
Read more about this in the May 31, 2019 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.