As the campus and local communities gathered last week to commemorate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dedication to hope, change and equality, a special group of visiting students got the chance to see what a college experience could be like.

“I like everything here — the buildings, the campus,” says Demetreius Russell, one of three students visiting from Urban Prep Academy for Young Men in Chicago. “People want us to come here. They tell us they want us to be here with them. That’s family, right there. They treat us like family.”

George Dong, a U-M alumnus and Teach for America educator who instructs at Urban Prep, brought three of his students to U-M to get a taste of college life.

“I intend that all of my students will not only graduate from high school, but will also succeed in college,” Dong says.

Urban Prep, the first all-boys charter school in the United States, is primarily geared toward educating African-American men. Most of the students in Urban Prep’s Chicago neighborhood struggle with their education, Dong says, and more than half of the African-American men in the city drop out of high school.

With support from Vice President for Student Affairs Royster Harper and Center for Educational Outreach (CEO), the three students from Urban Prep visited the campus over the holiday weekend. CEO provided information and coordination for their visit by working with other university offices such as Admissions and the Division of Student Affairs, says William Collins, director of CEO.

“It is important to work with U-M alumni who have direct contact with students in distant locations. We facilitate and support these alumni efforts,” Collins says. “It helps students to get first-hand knowledge about U-M and puts the university on their radar screen of colleges to attend. These students will return to their communities and share their experience with their families and friends, thus raising U-M’s visibility.

“It also allows us to have early contact with the kinds of students we want to attract to U-M.”

The visiting students —Russell, Lawrence Mead and Steven May — all are freshman students at Urban Prep, and were chosen from 14 applicants to accompany Dong on the U-M visit. After seeing what the campus was like, they all say they are fond of the idea of someday becoming Wolverines.

“It is inspiring,” May says of his visit to U-M. “The atmosphere is really encouraging.”

Dong and his students took a tour of campus, visited residence halls, attended Gwen Ifill’s keynote lecture for the MLK Symposium and attended the U-M basketball game against the University of Connecticut. “We went to the game,” Mead remembers. “We rushed the court. It was crazy.”

While they say they like the excitement of U-M’s atmosphere, the students also understand the importance of a Michigan education.

“I want to be an anesthesiologist,” May says. “Where I come from, if I told someone that, they would say, ‘Quit playing.’ Here, everyone supports you. You feel like you can succeed.”

“What is most important,” Mead says, “is the vibe at this school. Everyone is always looking for that when they look at colleges. That is what makes everyone love Michigan — its vibe.”

Dong says that he considers the U-M visit to be a success. “I hope my students will set higher goals after this visit,” he says. “The goal is that they will commit to excellence and extend beyond the boundaries of their high school. They should be motivated by the limitless possibilities that the University of Michigan has to offer in the future.”