‘This Is About Hope’: High School Students Inspired By Visit To University Of Oklahoma Campus

For young men and women, the opportunity of going to college is not even a consideration. This week, some of them were given hope that attending college can be a reality. 

“Today, when they walk off this campus, they’re saying and seeing the potential that they have,” Believe Inc. founder Steven Davis said.

Davis, through his “Making of Men” and “Waking of Women” programs, took a group of high school students to the University of Oklahoma in Norman. 

“This is about hope. This is about planting the seeds of hope,” Davis said. “What better way to plant the seeds of hope than for a young person to see it for themselves?” 

Students were given acceptance and financial information about attending college. 

“How I can get scholarships and other very important information and just answering questions that I would need to know,” Harding Charter Preparatory School student Cortnie Morgan said.

“Knowing that I can have a coach with me when getting money or helping to get money,” Harding Charter Preparatory School student Ladell King, Jr. said.

Students got to tour the Switzer Center and the football field, but they all had to put in the work to attend. 

“Once they were able to stand up and give me Ralph Ellison, and Langston Hughes and William Hensley, give me those four core values and those six empirical skills, that was the qualification,” Davis said.

“I believe a higher education is the gift that keeps on giving,” University of Oklahoma senior associate vice president for outreach Dr. Belinda Basco said. “I think it is an awakening, and the whole experience becomes an awakening for students.”

“I’m hoping that when they walk off this campus today, regardless of what their financial situation is they’re dreaming about college,” Davis said.