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Oxford and Beyond

Camp Excel Introduces Middle Schoolers to College Life at Miami University

a collage of four pictures. The top left picture shows a faculty member in a room with multiple large tables with chairs around each table. The picture on the top right shows the group of middle schoolers with volunteers from Middletown City Schools. The picture on the bottom left shows a volunteer all dressed in aprons and hair nets teaching students how to cook. The picture on the bottom right shows the group of middle schoolers with volunteers from Cincinnati Public Schools.
Oxford and Beyond

Camp Excel Introduces Middle Schoolers to College Life at Miami University

Camp Excel, directed by Rodney Coates, professor of global and intercultural studies, hosted around 100 students from Cincinnati Public Schools and Middletown City Schools at Miami University from June 4-6. The four-day residential program aimed to show that "learning is fun" by offering a glimpse of college life. Faculty and departments donated their time and resources to inspire and motivate the students, showing them what the future can look like.

EHS volunteers, including Adam Beissel, Tom Poetter, Cheryl Birkenhauer, Emily Davie, Helaine Alessio, Matthew Bennett, and Nancy Parkinson, led various sessions. Kinesiology, Nutrition, and Health presentations on "Sportsmedicine in Action" by Emily Davie and Helaine Alessio and "Nutrition for Health & Performance" by Nancy Parkinson and Matthew Bennett were packed with hands-on learning. Cheryl Birkenhauer led a station in the Sportsmedicine session, while Nancy Parkinson and Matthew Bennett engaged students in making mango smoothies and power protein balls.

(AI tools Grammarly and ChatGPT 4.0, a language model developed by OpenAI, assisted in writing this article.)