The Mohawk Valley Community College Math Corps program is accepting applications for its 2019 Summer Camp, which will run Mondays through Thursdays, July 8 to Aug. 1. The program is free and open to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders attending Utica schools.

Math Corps is designed to enhance mentorship, enthusiasm for, and understanding of mathematics concepts, and includes classroom instruction and project-based learning activities.

The program seeks to create a self-perpetuating corps of students from middle school through college who excel academically, hold personal values that breed success in general, and who, through strong mentoring relationships, pass their knowledge and values on to younger students. As they grow, those younger students do the same. High school and college students will tutor and mentor the younger learners, and will receive professional development the week prior to the start of the camp.

“This program is designed to help kids develop a love for learning, and to do that in a learning-community family atmosphere,” said program coordinator Saingghech Ung.

Math Corps was originally developed 27 years ago by a team at Wayne State University in Detroit. The goal was to create a combined academic enrichment and mentoring program that could bring middle and high school students from urban centers together with college students to learn mathematics from each other, as well as to interact with professional mathematicians in a university setting. This is the third year of the Math Corps program at MVCC. In 2017, the National Science Foundation awarded a nearly $3 million grant to the program, a partnership that includes MVCC, Wayne State University, Cleveland State University, and a not-for-profit organization in Philadelphia.

MVCC Math Corps applications are available in Utica schools, at MVCC, and online at www.mvcc.edu/math-corps. For more information, contact Ung by phone at 315-792-5689 or 315-731-5827 or by email at sung@mvcc.edu.