Where Futures Begin

In 2025, Upward Bound welcomed 60 students to Central’s campus to attend college level courses, stay in the residence halls and see what life on a college campus could be. Photo by: Whitney Halder Wagner ’12, associate director of Upward Bound

On a warm summer morning in Pella, the sidewalks leading to Central College hum with nervous energy. Suitcases roll across brick paths and parents offer last-minute hugs as high school students from small rural towns and urban neighbor­hoods across Iowa step onto campus. For many, it is the farthest they have ever been from home. For most, it is the first time they have ever imagined themselves as college students.

For 60 years, that first step has changed lives.

BORN FROM A NATIONAL PROMISE

In 2026, Central’s TRIO Upward Bound program celebrates its 60th anniversary. Established in 1966 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Upward Bound was designed to make higher education accessible to students from low-income families and those who would be the first in their families to attend college. Central was among the first institu­tions in Iowa — and the nation — to receive federal TRIO funding.

Throughout the academic year, dedicated advisors visit students at their high schools twice a month, offering ACT prepa­ration, career exploration, college search guidance and financial aid support at no cost. The program serves first-generation college-goers and income-eligible students from designated high schools across Iowa.

When the first cohort of Upward Bound students graduated in 1971, Central’s program reported that roughly 75 percent continued their education beyond high school. Sixty years later, Kristin Lewis, director of pre-college programs, says 79 percent of participants now enroll in post-secondary education — a testament to the program’s remarkable staying power.

“Upward Bound at Central has given students the sup­port, motivation and confidence they need to succeed in post-secondary education for decades,” says Lewis. “The continuous funding affirms the excellence of our program and our commitment to build on the rich history of service and mission.”

Mary Jane and the late Edward Banfield led the Upward Bound program and influenced the lives of so many students. Mary Jane still remembers the great joy working with students of different ethnic and economic backgrounds. Photo provided by Ed Banfield ’85.

THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT IT

No one shaped Upward Bound at Central more profoundly than the late Edward Banfield, who led the program for 32 years alongside his wife, Mary Jane. Together they were instrumental in building the culture that has defined the program ever since.

Mary Jane Banfield still speaks with wonder about the families she came to know.

“I had the pleasure of meeting families I would never have met in my life,” she says. “This was a time of prejudice, racism, extreme poverty and skeptical parents. I always wel­comed them all. I love the kids and their families. I love the idea that we worked together so the child could do better.”

Matt Diehl ’87, now associate director of Student Sup­port Services, began as an Upward Bound tutor counselor in 1986. He recalls welcoming students who had fled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — young people carrying stories of extraordinary resilience.

“They talked about their families, how appreciative they were of having opportunities to get an education and to have a new life,” Diehl says. “I love seeing people’s light bulbs go on and their confidence grow. Upward Bound really helped develop people’s hope for the future. And that’s always been a big part of who I want to be.”

THE SUMMER THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

Each June, approximately 75 high school students arrive in Pella for the five-week residential experience. They take classes for college credit, meet with advisors, tour college campuses and learn the mechanics of college life — from managing time to communicating with professors. They eat in the cafeteria, sleep in the residence halls and discover, often for the first time, that the world of higher education is not a foreign country.

Joel Schutte ’92 almost didn’t stay to find out. “I was painfully shy,” he recalls. “The first day in Pella, I was ready to go home.” What kept him was a simple act of welcome: One of the counselors knocked on his residence hall door and invited him to the Howdy Picnic.

“After walking to the picnic and spending time with him and the other guys on my floor, I decided I could maybe spend the night,” Schutte says. “I experienced the greatest summer of my life. When it ended, I counted the days until the next summer. I cannot adequately express what Upward Bound meant to me.”

Schutte came from what he describes as “abject poverty” — a family with no high school diplomas and a history of addiction. On Central’s campus, he found positive role mod­els and a vision for his future. He went on to earn a master’s degree in education and spent his career as a principal at an alternative school.

“Spending my summers on a college campus and inter­acting with wonderful, caring and positive people changed my outlook and my future,” he says. “It pushed me toward a career in public education working with troubled and chal­lenged students.”

Peng Her ‘94 says his experience at Upward Bound is what made him who he is today. It’s why he co-founded The Hmong Institute, Inc., so that he could advocate for the needs of the community.

MAKING COLLEGE REAL

For Peng Her ’94, a refugee and first-generation college student, Upward Bound transformed something abstract into something attainable.

“My parents and siblings did not have experience attend­ing college, let alone know how to apply,” Her says. “At­tending Upward Bound opened up what college was like. It allowed me to meet other students who were first generation, low income and scared. It taught me that I can make it.”

He went on to earn a master’s degree in physics and co-founded The Hmong Institute, a nonprofit based in Madison, Wisconsin focused on education, health, and cultural preservation that has earned statewide and national recognition. “This was all possible only because of Upward Bound,” he says.

Billy Kirby ’00, now North High School program man­ager at the By Degrees Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa, was a participant from 1993–96 before returning as a tutor counselor. He credits Ed Banfield with opening an entirely new world.

“He showed us this miraculous world, where you could get college credit and live in a residence hall to have a real college experience,” Kirby says. “We felt inclusion and acceptance — no matter who you are, where you’re from, what your background is. We were all in this together.”

Esveidy Soto-Soto ’26 was a first-generation college student and didn’t have siblings to help navigate college. She says she appreciated the Upward Bound program and living the college experience before actually attending college.

A COMMUNITY THAT LASTS

While academic preparation is central to the program, alumni speak first about belonging. The bonds formed during those five summer weeks have a way of enduring.

Esveidy Soto-Soto ’26 navigated a particularly disorienting version of the program — the COVID summer, when residency moved online. Even so, the experience reignited something in her.

“I felt like my education had died down,” she remembers. “Even online, I could not wait to open my books and get reading. I still have my books from that summer in my room, with all my notes and scribbles. That summer helped get the spark back.”

Soto-Soto had never toured Central before arriving the following summer for the residential program, but she fell in love with the campus — and with the students around her. When the transition to college proved difficult in her first semester, she didn’t suffer alone. She leaned into her Upward Bound friends to assure her.

“We became a family after spending a month together,” she says. “We all have that shared experience of being first generation. We’re all trying to figure this out together. We realized we were not alone.”

Soto-Soto graduated in December 2025 with a degree in business management and now works as a billing specialist for Access Systems.

Jon Sexton ’04, now senior vice president of culture and leadership development for Vibrant Credit Union and founder of Sexton Leadership, traces his passion for supporting others directly to his Upward Bound years.

“I remember having no idea where to begin when it came to choosing a college,” he says. “Touring campuses with the program helped make the process feel manageable. But attending Upward Bound also made me fall in love with Central’s campus. I believe my passion for supporting others was rooted in my experiences there.”

SIXTY YEARS, AND COUNTING

The alumni of Upward Bound have become teachers, counselors, nonprofit leaders, healthcare professionals and administrators. Many are now the first in their families to hold advanced degrees. Their children will grow up in households where college is not a dream but a given.

In summer 2026, Central’s Upward Bound will celebrate its 60th anniversary with a reunion for former participants, tutor counselors and staff. They will swap stories about talent shows and late-night study sessions, memories of fears overcome and futures imagined. They will celebrate a pro­gram born from a moment of national urgency that contin­ues to evolve while holding fast to its founding promise.

On any given summer afternoon at Central, you might see a group of teenagers laughing on the lawn or heading toward the science building with backpacks. They may not yet know the careers they will pursue or the paths they will forge.

But if the past 60 years are any indication, many of them will look back on this moment as the one when college shifted from a distant dream to a lived possibility — and when a campus in Pella became the place where their futures began.