Enrichment Opportunities

From elementary school through undergraduate studies, these initiatives provide academic enrichment, leadership development, and service learning opportunities. Whether it's exploring potential careers, engaging in community research, or delving into historical legacies, the programs highlighted here offer diverse avenues for students to explore their interests and develop valuable skills.

SIUE Futures

SIUE Futures is a program designed for students who want to prepare for success in college and careers through curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular opportunities with a focus on academic readiness, leadership development, and service learning. In SIUE Futures, elementary, middle and high school students will have opportunities in the summer and during the school year through one of our programs to see themselves at SIUE as future students.

How to Get to SIUE, By Program and Grade

• SIUE Freedom School (Summer 2025) - for 1st-8th
• SIUE Futures Saturday Academy (Fall 2025) - for 9th-12th

SIUE Excel

SIUE Excel is a hub for co-curricular pathways for undergraduate students to gain high-impact experiences, including faculty-led community-engaged research, service learning, and student travel. Through SIUE Excel programming, undergraduate students continue learning outside of the classroom and broaden their academic, personal and professional perspectives through career exploration, leadership development, and mentorship networking. 

Communiversity Lab

The SIUE Communiversity Lab is a research, skill, and leadership development lab that provides academically enriching experiences for students. The lab offers students access to an array of experiential learning activities and high-impact practices to promote deep learning and prepare them to be changemakers through collaborations with community partners. Opportunities include research, workshops, service learning and travel study.   

Universities Studying Slavery

The Universities Studying Slavery (USS) Consortium is a group of over 100 universities focused on “sharing best practices and guiding principles as they engage in truth-telling educational projects focused on human bondage and the legacies of racism in their histories.” Member institutions “are all committed to research, acknowledgment, education, and atonement regarding institutional ties to the slave trade, to enslavement on campus or abroad, and to enduring racism in school history and practice.” Learn more about Universities Studying Slavery.

99 Career Pathways

99 Career Pathways is a knowledge-building program for the more than 300 students who enroll in African American literature courses at SIUE. The program presents information about humanities-related career paths through handouts, presentations, public exhibits, and a digital repository of resources, thus raising awareness about occupations available to literature and other humanities students.