Building confidence and skills: Growing The Citadel's Summer Bridge Program to support incoming cadets

Building confidence and skills: Growing The Citadel’s Summer Bridge Program to support incoming cadets

Through its Summer Bridge Program, the Zucker Family School of Education will help incoming cadets from the Class of 2028 get ready for their first year at The Citadel. Building on the success of last year’s program, the CSI Summer Bridge initiative has increased in size to 86 students—a large jump from the 46 participants who completed the program in 2023.

The mission of the Summer Bridge Program is to support students’ transition from high school to college by providing them with campus resources, physical fitness training, counseling and academic success skills. The program’s goal is that incoming students who complete the Summer Bridge Program will enter their fall term with confidence, a network of support and a strong foundation for success in college, career and life.

“We had strong matriculation and retention numbers, statistically significant academic gains in reading and math, and overwhelmingly positive feedback from participating students and families,” said Andrew Zutell, Ph.D., program manager of the Summer Bridge Program and professor at The Citadel. “I believe there is a lot of excitement for the work we are doing in supporting students — financially, academically and socially — as they transition to college life.”

As part of The Citadel Success Institute, or CSI, which began on July 6, the Summer Bridge Program kicked off for the second year in a row. Future cadets involved in the program — especially those with financial needs or who are first-generation college students — were eligible for full tuition coverage for CSI. These scholarships were made possible from a grant from the SC-CHE, or South Carolina Commission on Higher Education.

“Last year, I was one of many students who received a scholarship for the Summer Bridge Program at The Citadel Success Institute. From start to finish, I can confidently say that the Summer Bridge Program helped me prepare for my first year at The Citadel. It adjusted me to the academics of college life and helped me get a head start on my GPA for the year,” said Cadet Janeya Cox, a sophomore at The Citadel. “The staff was fantastic and helped me stay on track of my work despite having a tight schedule from the military side of CSI.”

Cox has returned to this year’s program to work as a full-time peer tutor and mentor.

Students in the Summer Bridge Program are automatically enrolled in EDUC 201, College Core Essentials, a three-credit general elective course focused on college readiness skills such as critical reading and research, academic writing, mathematics and public speaking. The benefits that students in EDUC 201 will receive are a personalized summer learning experience, preparation for academic life at The Citadel, small group learning, peer tutoring and mentorship.

After evaluating the success of last year’s CSI Summer Bridge Program, several statistics stood out. 91% of students who completed the program matriculated into The Citadel and made significant growth in the areas of algebra, geometry, number and quantity, and statistics and probability. An exit survey was done to gauge students’ perceptions on the effectiveness of the Summer Bridge Program in terms of preparing them for college both academically and socially — the average score was 4.5 out of 5, with 5 being “highly effective.”

At the end of the Summer Bridge Program, top students will be selected to give a presentation on a topic related to their intended major. This year’s event will take place on Tuesday, July 30, from 8-11 a.m. in Capers Hall auditorium.