Minority Students Given ‘Survival Training’ at Cal State Long Beach

Eileen Klink was making a point about skunks.

“Learn to be one,” she told her listeners. Skunks, she said, survive by clearing their own paths in the woods, much like successful people in corporations working strategically within the system to get ahead.

“Your survival,” Klink said, “will depend on your skunk power.”

Klink, an English instructor at California State University, Long Beach, was advising a group of would-be freshmen. What she was saying, she explained later, could have value to anyone trying to make it through college. To these particular students, however, the advice was imperative.

They were members of minority groups that traditionally do not enter the university in numbers commensurate with their populations--and, if they do, often drop out early. But they were taking part in a special program to change all that.

“By the year 2,000, these groups will be the majority in the state,” said Juan Mestas, director of the Summer Bridge program. “Yet (they) are not being sufficiently educated. If this continues, what we will have is a progressively less-educated population.”

Now in its third year, the Summer Bridge program, designed to address those problems, is beginning to show progress, according to its organizers.

Funded entirely by the state, Summer Bridge was initiated by the university chancellor’s office in 1985 as part of a statewide effort to increase minority attendance and success at the CSU system’s 19 campuses. It costs about $290,000 a year to operate the CSULB program, said David Falcon, its administrative assistant.

The program exists in some form on most campuses, but each campus was encouraged to design a program suited to its particular needs, Mestas said. At CSULB, he said, that meant concentrating on blacks, Latinos, Asians and, to a lesser extent, American Indians, Pacific Islanders and Filipinos.

Members of these groups who apply for admission to the university are routinely invited the summer before their freshman year for four weeks of intensive preparation that includes classes and tutorials in math and English, sessions on how to succeed in college and activities aimed at cultural enrichment.

Although many have not yet been formally accepted by the university, the majority are expected to be admitted to fall classes.

The students live college dormitories. Room assignments expose them to a mix of ethnic groups and cultures. To partially compensate them for time when they could be working at summer jobs, they are paid $15 a week.

Of 7,000 minority applicants to CSULB this year, about 180 have enrolled in Summer Bridge, Falcon said.

Because most students’ scores on standardized pre-college tests are below normal admission requirements, the program emphasizes daily classes--followed by individual or group tutorial sessions--to help them pass these math and English exams.

Although students can be admitted on a probationary basis without having passed the standardized tests, Falcon said, they must pass before they take upper-division courses or graduate. Summer Bridge students generally take the tests immediately after completing the program.

Afternoon workshops focus on such topics as time management, study habits, proper attitudes, understanding what professors expect, using the university’s special services and generally surviving in what, for many, will be a new and alien environment.

Cultural, educational and recreational activities include field trips to Exposition Park and the beach; a multicultural day when parents are invited to a festival featuring ethnic costumes, foods and performances; an academic competition and talent show; workshops on everything from AIDS to physical disabilities, and screenings of popular movies.

Program organizers believe they are making a dent in the traditionally high minority dropout rate.

Success Story

Of last year’s Summer Bridge graduates, they say, about 95% of those admitted to the university actually enrolled for the fall semester with full academic loads, and 90% of those were still there in the spring. Comparable percentages for the targeted minority groups as a whole were 81% and 84%.

And pre- and post-testing of last year’s Summer Bridge students shows that their average scores improved 74% in English and 30% in math.

Before the program, their scores averaged several points below the minimum required for admission. After the program, they scored several points above it.

“What we’re doing is catching the students at a critical time,” Mestas said. “We are increasing their skills in key areas and boosting their self-confidence, so that when they have the shock of their first experience in the university they can have a head start.”

Lack of self-confidence can be a major obstacle. Before entering Summer Bridge, for example, Maricele Ortega, 18, a Bell Gardens High School graduate whose primary language is Spanish, had serious doubts about her ability to succeed at a four-year college.

‘Need More Time’

“I think I’m a slow learner,” Ortega said. “I need more time.”

Two weeks into the program, however, her view had changed. Although still somewhat apprehensive about life in academia, Ortega said she had more confidence.

“People will help,” she said. “I kind of know the campus and where the services are. I’ll have lots of support.”

Rachel Moore, 18, of Lynwood, said she valued the opportunity to meet and communicate with minority students who, like her, might otherwise feel lost among the 35,000 students expected on campus this fall.

“There aren’t a lot of minorities here,” said Moore, who is black. By getting to know one another beforehand, she said, minority members of the freshman class “won’t feel like we’re all alone in a box, walking around the campus like stray dogs.”