The University of Wisconsin-Madison celebrated the success of its PEOPLE Program Friday, Aug. 8, with a luncheon and reception honoring the 70 high school students and 20 incoming freshmen participating in the pre-college program for Wisconsin’s minority students.

PEOPLE, which stands for Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence, is a partnership between UW-Madison and public schools in Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Madison and the Ho-Chunk Nation.

The program, founded in 1999, is designed for African American, Native American, Asian American (with emphasis on Southeast Asian heritage), Hispanic/Latino and disadvantaged students. Its goal is to identify and assist minority students with strong academic potential while increasing diversity at UW.

PEOPLE high school students participate in the program year-round at their schools and in summer sessions at UW. The program introduces the students to the college academic atmosphere, majors and career options while offering them campus orientation and cultural-enrichment activities.

Students who complete the first three years of the program spend the summer after their junior year of high school completing a seven-week internship at UW-Madison. These internships are offered in a number of UW-Madison departments and a variety of public and private organizations in the Madison area. Those students who, upon high school graduation, are accepted at UW-Madison are then eligible for a five-year full tuition grant.

In 2002, the first group of PEOPLE students graduated high school; all of them went on to post-secondary institutions. Twenty-four, or 36 percent, of the original cohort enrolled at UW-Madison as the first PEOPLE undergraduates.

Vice Chancellor Paul W. Barrows congratulated the students for their achievements so far in the PEOPLE Program and encouraged them to enroll at UW.

“We know you will all make it to college,” Barrows said. “But we encourage you to come here.”

Chancellor John D. Wiley congratulated this year’s PEOPLE graduates, those who will be starting at UW-Madison this fall, and reminded them their first priority in college needs to be academics. However, he also encouraged them to get involved with extracurricular activities via the more than 600 student organizations currently active at the university.

“A good share of the college experience happens outside of the classroom,” Wiley said.

Wiley also thanked the parents, mentors and those individuals who provide internships for the third-year PEOPLE students.

“The PEOPLE program is one of the campus’s very highest priorities,” he said.

Dean Robin Douthitt of the School of Human Ecology welcomed and thanked all the luncheon’s attendees.

“These are the programs that make us the envy of private institutions across the nation,” Douthitt said.

Douthitt described the challenges faced by these students and remarked that they have and continue to make decisions demonstrating they are “wise beyond their years.”

Also in attendance Friday were representatives of the PEOPLE Program’s two major corporate sponsors, Paul LaSchiazza of SBC Foundation and Andy Smiltneek, a UW-Madison graduate, of Kimberly Clark Corporation. Both commended the students’ accomplishments and encouraged them to continue their hard work at UW.

Other highlights of the program included a traditional Hmong dance performed by sisters Mai Payia and Mai See Vang and a speech by Joshua Hargrove, a graduate of Riverside High School of Milwaukee graduate. Hargrove, whom the other PEOPLE students crowned “most likely to become a Supreme Court Justice,” delivered a reflective and powerful speech about the challenges and triumphs, including racism, faced by this group of students.

Hargrove thanked all of the individuals involved in the program — instructors, counselors, partners, sponsors — and added that the program works because the students believe these people are their friends. He also said he and his classmates are “glorious” in their success because it is apparent to the students that the program has been designed for them.

The luncheon brought many involved people together to celebrate the program’s success, as well as that of the 70 third-year students and the 20 incoming freshmen.

Currently, 300 Milwaukee, Racine and Madison high school students are involved in PEOPLE. In the Madison PEOPLE program alone, 293 middle-school students participate.

This fall, there will be 43 PEOPLE undergraduates enrolled at UW-Madison. At this point, UW-Madison is the only school in the UW System involved, but if success is any sort of indicator, the program could expand in the near future, program administrators said.