NCSSM summer programming is in demand by students throughout the state and nation. And since the summer of  2014, the school has been working to meet that demand in part through a diverse selection of fee-based STEM-based offerings collectively called Summer Accelerator.

Nearly 100 hundred students enrolled in Summer Accelerator’s courses that first summer. Twelve years later, that number has grown to more than 1,500 students who enrolled in courses delivered remotely and at NCSSM’s Residential campuses in Durham and Morganton.

Among Summer Accelerator’s participants were a number of children of NCSSM alumni. These campers represent something unique. Like the others, they, too, arrived on campus eagerly anticipating a unique academic experience. Dropping them off, however, were parents who once called NCSSM home for the last two years of high school. These parents already knew the value of the experience their kids would have at NCSSM. But for them, the opportunity available to their kids represented something even greater: a shared experience that would further strengthen family bonds through ties to NCSSM.

Natalie Hodges Roberts ’03 considers her time at NCSSM invaluable. “It was an incredible experience,” she said. “Being around people who were as motivated as I was and wanting to learn and just having access to all these enriching activities was incredible. I feel like I learned so much.”

That experience left her with zero anxiety about leaving her rising 7th grade daughter, Carys, in the care of NCSSM-Durham staff for a week. 

“I know that Science and Math is a sure thing,” Roberts said. “I know they are not going to lose her, and I know it will be an enriching experience.” 

Roberts said she hoped her daughter would experience some of the same joy she experienced at NCSSM. More than that, however, she hoped Carys would gain from NCSSM what she, herself, gained: the courage to face challenges unlike any she has faced before.

“I’m hopeful that some things are hard, and she gets to experience that with other people who are motivated to figure things out and work together in a safe environment and do something that’s difficult,” she said. “I think that will be a good thing.”

Michelle Shomo Pierce ’96 always made sure that her daughter, Megan, who is a rising sophomore, knew about her time as a student at NCSSM. But stories only conveyed so much, Pierce said.

“We can talk to our kids, but sometimes they don’t want to hear it from us. They have to hear it from somebody else, or they see it for themselves, and then they’re like, ‘Oh!’” 

Though Pierce graduated from NCSSM-Durham, and Megan had visited the Durham campus in the past, the Summer Accelerator programming at NCSSM-Morganton was more convenient to their home in Charlotte. “I knew that once Megan got there and saw the campus, she’d be hooked,” Pierce said.

And she was. “Now she’s super excited for Alumni Weekend this coming year. I’ll be celebrating my 30th graduation anniversary, and so Megan has asked to come so that she can re-explore the Durham campus.”

Pierce hoped that Megan’s brief experience with NCSSM through Summer Accelerator would prove to be transformative on an individual level, but she was also grateful for the additional opportunities the program had created for an enhanced understanding of each other. “Any time that our kids follow in our footsteps in any capacity, it does kind of create more of a bond,” Pierce said. “Megan has now gotten a little taste first-hand of the experience that I went through. She can relate a little bit now when I talk of my time at NCSSM. She knows a little bit of what that’s like.”

Lebbonee Price Kittredge ’96 summed up her NCSSM experience with certainty. “Science and Math was the best fun I think I’ve ever had in school,” she said. “I feel like when I went to Science and Math, I really met my people. I was so excited to be in a place where there were lots of people who all wanted to learn, experience new things, meet new people, and were willing to take the risk to come away from their home and comfort zone.”

Her last point was a significant part of the value found in an NCSSM experience. Her 10-year-old son, Weston, has now lived that himself. Originally from Chatham County, just south of Chapel Hill, Kittredge lives these days with her family just outside Oakland, California. Because Summer Accelerator is fee-based, that means any student from anywhere is eligible to apply. Kittredge was so keen on Weston’s opportunity to create his own measure of NCSSM memories through the program that the entire family hopped a flight to North Carolina.

Like other alumni families, Kittredge has shared her own NCSSM stories with her son. She’s not sure it ever really made much sense to him before. But it does now.

“Not much really registered except that I slept away from home for school,” Kittredge said. “And when we came back to visit my family, I’d always drive them by campus and talk about, ‘Well, that’s where I went to school, and that’s where I did all these neat things.’ But I don’t know if it really clicked with Weston that that was my school, like his school at home is his school, until we actually pulled up to drop him off for Summer Accelerator.”

The registration and drop off brought back a rush of memories for Kittredge. “For me, it was very exciting,”she said. “For Weston, I feel like it was the first day of school. But I am just incredibly proud of the school, and incredibly proud that Weston got to get even just a fraction of the experience that I had.”

While Kittredge’s family has lived their  life outside of North Carolina, she wants her children to feel, as she does, a strong kinship to North Carolina. Summer Accelerator has helped foster that. 

“We now have this shared experience of NCSSM,” she said. “When I dropped Weston off every day and picked him up, it made it feel like my child will have a tangible connection to the state. For me, that’s very fulfilling, and it certainly makes me feel like the spirit of Science and Math is really alive in me and my family.”

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