Thirty Advanced Credit Experience (ACE) program students from three high schools in the Jane-Finch community recently celebrated the completion of the university courses they took in the fall semester at York U.
This past December, Grade 12 students from C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, Emery Collegiate Institute and James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School earned university credit after completing a university-level course in either the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies or the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.
They have also engaged in a co-op placement on campus.
Completion of the course with a passing grade earns the students bursaries ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 should they choose to apply and receive admission to York University.
Now in its 11th year, the ACE program comes out of the earlier Westview Partnership and participants now receive financial support from the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) Trust Fund and an anonymous donor that enables them to realize their educational aspirations and build on this university-community-school relationship.
The program was coordinated by Salima Kassam, a seconded faculty member in the Faculty of Education, and this year the program was supported by 10 first-year Faculty of Education teacher candidates who are completing their community placements with the program.
The placements have allowed teacher candidates to look at communities as sources of cultural wealth and capital in their roles as mentors. This learning has been invaluable to teacher candidates as they work towards being certified teachers.
The ACE students are completing the remainder of the year in their high schools.