METAS
Motivate, Educate, Termina, Alcanza, y Suena | Motivate, Educate, Graduate, Achieve, & Dream
The METAS Partnership goal is to increase the number of Northwest Indiana Latino students who graduate with college degrees by strengthening the K-16 educational pipeline and providing special attention to Latino students in transition years. The lead educational institutions in the METAS Partnership are Purdue University Calumet, Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana University Northwest and Calumet College of St. Joseph. Together these institutions serve approximately 3500 Latino students who are seeking college degrees, which makes up 25 percent of all Latino students in the state of Indiana. According to the Lumina Foundation for Education report, 17 percent of Latino adults in Indiana had earned an associate degree or higher.
The Partnership also consists of a number of community based organizations. Current members include International Community Alliance Northwest Indiana, Communities in Schools of Lake County, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana, and Indiana Youth Institute. In addition, approximately 20 other CBOs have expressed interest in joining the Partnership. The United States Hispanic Leadership Institute is a partnering National Latino Organization.
Each year, with generous funding from the Lumina Foundation, the METAS partnership hosts a conference and invites Latino high school students and their parents to one of the participating campus for a day of inspirational messages and college preparedness workshops. This year the event will take place on March 4, 2016 at Indiana University Northwest. Local school counselors may register their students at the link (https://northwest.iu.edu/diversity/forms/metas-student-registration.htm) to reserve their spot at this exciting informational event.