CMU faculty member's past inspires the future of young students

As a child, Central Michigan University associate professor Paul Hernandez was brought up by a single working mother in a poverty stricken lifestyle that tied him into the gang culture of Los Angeles. As an adult, he has managed to earn his doctorate degree and is determined to help students with backgrounds like his find success.

 

Hernandez’s innovative teaching methods used to help at-risk students in Michigan schools near Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing have been nationally recognized. His teaching methods have inspired a course for at-risk students to discover the value of education, which has been featured by the National Education Association.

 

The College 101 program, created and run by Hernandez with the help of CMU student volunteers, teaches high school and middle school students who are at risk of dropping out of school “to connect their passion with education in a manner they didn’t know existed.”

 

He says his childhood circumstances led people to look at him as though he was “destined to fail.”

 

“I asked why I was treated this way and there were no answers,” Hernandez said. “I kept hearing ‘It is what it is.’ That was infuriating to me. It isn’t ‘It is what it is.’ It is that way because someone made it that way.”

 

In his inaugural College 101 tour, Hernandez reported that 89 percent of participating students felt an astonishing boost in confidence about their potential to attend college.

 

“It helps them debunk the idea that they’re not college material,” Hernandez said. “Regardless of anything you’ve gone through, you can use education to empower yourself.”

 

Dean of the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences Pam Gates says Hernandez has a passion for the College 101 program that is “unparalleled.”

 

“He brings his own life experiences and he’s willing to share it,” Gates said. “When you have that story and you’re willing to share it, it makes all the difference in the world.”

 

CMU 2011 alumna Erin Thomsen of Cadillac agrees. She says volunteering in the College 101 program to help at-risk students helped lay the path for her future.

 

“It’s really opened my eyes and prepared me for what’s to come,” Thomsen said. “Moving forward, I will always be proud to say I worked with Dr. Hernandez in College 101.”