C2 Pipeline is branching off.

Once strictly focused on STEM-centered education, the highly lauded learning community based in the Wayne State University College of Nursing has in recent years undergone a quiet evolution, one that has seen the initiative take on new partners, develop fresh programming and extend its work into numerous non-STEM fields. The change, according to C2 Pipeline leaders, is designed to attract contemporary high schoolers and to surmount a new crop of academic and social issues that have developed among students in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“Post-COVID, a lot of the interest in high school kids for STEM has dwindled a little bit, for whatever reason,” said Donald Neal, project director and project investigator for C2 Pipeline, “so we were looking at ways to engage students and give them other opportunities.

That could be entrepreneurship, business, engineering, technology, health or law. For instance, we’ve established a stronger partnership with the Law School. This fall, each of our sites has established mock trial clubs at schools, and they will compete against each other. Bringing law on is super exciting.”

Along with the mock trial clubs, C2 Pipeline recently partnered with the Law School, the College of Engineering and the Mike Ilitch School of Business to launch Make48, a program that gives participating students 48 hours to create and design a product, and then prepare to bring it to market. Make48 requires students to create prototypes and marketing plans for their product and to check copyrights and patents to ensure that they aren’t infringing on anyone else’s idea.

“The C2 Pipeline program remains a sterling example of Wayne State’s ongoing mission to engage our communities’ youth and to widen access to higher education for everyone,” said Ramona Benkert, Ph.D., ANP-BC, FAANP, the dean of the College of Nursing. “We applaud the program’s efforts to continue to find innovative ways to inspire students and pave new pathways to college and career.”

C2 Pipeline, which has served more than 20,000 students since its inception in 2012, has also added to the rolls at WSU. Over the fall semesters from 2020 to 2023 combined, more than 1,750 students from schools with a C2 Pipeline presence have been admitted to WSU, including more than 500 who were admitted to the university in Fall 2023.

For students who may not have an immediate interest in attending college, C2 Pipeline also has broadened its menu to include “career tech education” programming.

Meagan Brooks, an interim site coordinator at Southfield A&T High School, said that many of the school’s students struggled during the pandemic and that these challenges have compelled C2 Pipeline administrators to expand their focus.

“Social and emotional learning has been structured into our lesson planning more than it was before because there is more awareness about the mental health issues that our students are facing,” Brooks said. “We going into a situation where students are facing double and triple negatives as far as their ability to be resilient, take the initiative and be motivated in their academic endeavors.”

Students who have been part of C2 Pipeline praised the program for adapting to meet their needs in the classroom and beyond. 

“We have had the opportunity to see for ourselves some of the options available, and it’s been helpful,” said Mariah Holmes, 18, who will begin at Wayne State in the winter 2025 semester.

A Farmington resident who plans to pursue a major in mortuary science, Holmes spent her junior and senior years participating in C2 Pipeline and said the program introduced her to an array of careers.

“We did things like attend Apple Days at Wayne State [a program sponsored by the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences] and talked with professors and students about careers,” she said. “We got opportunities to see the medical and science fields, but we also did emotional learning. I encourage people to join C2 Pipeline all the time. School will be about 50% less fun if you don’t experience it.”