CSUN Rally Applies Science to Coax Pupils Into Staying in School

His parents quit school when they were young to help support their families in Mexico. But Jose Luis Arellano, a skinny, 11-year-old sixth-grader from San Fernando, promises his life will be different.

“I want to be an artist,” Luis said Friday. “I want to get a better job, and I want to learn.”

Luis said his resolve to meet that goal was strengthened by an inspirational program at Cal State Northridge on Friday, sponsored by the student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

About 400 fifth- and sixth-graders from eight elementary schools in Pacoima, Sylmar, San Fernando and Reseda attended the four-hour program, which included stirring speeches, tours of the campus and a magic show demonstrating basic scientific principles.

The program focused on science, but the message was universal: Stay in school.

“There is nothing prettier than a book,” said keynote speaker Manuel Escamilla, an assistant vice president of the University of Arizona. “A book is prettier than a Corvette because you can get a Corvette with a book.”

Escamilla then plucked three students from the huge audience and presented each with a thick college-level science book--a symbol, he said, of the promise the future holds for the enterprising student.

“Most of you will quit school,” Escamilla told the children, most of whom were Latino. He noted that the Latino and black dropout rate nationwide ranges from 50% to 80%.

“Some of you are going to get into trouble because you are going to commit a robbery.” Still others, perhaps, “are going to kill somebody,” he said.

But amid the warnings, Escamilla offered hope and support. When he gave a chemistry book to one student, he said: “If she gets a 3.5 grade-point average when she graduates from high school, I’ll give her a scholarship to California State University at Northridge.” The children cheered.

The program was a first-time effort for the CSUN students, who hope to repeat and enlarge the event next year, said Raul Garcia, a senior in electrical engineering and the student chapter president.

He said the group originally planned to invite 200 children, but the elementary schools wanted to send 900. They compromised and invited 400. Two classes each were sent from Cantara Street, Haddon Avenue, Herrick Avenue, Morningside, O’Melveny, Pacoima, San Fernando and Telfair Avenue elementary schools.

Lupita Montoya, another CSUN student, said the engineering group worked with high school students in the past but decided to invite elementary pupils to Friday’s program. Unless encouraged and supported while young, many students will lose interest in education before their freshman year in high school, she said.

It may already be too late for a 12-year-old girl from Telfair who attended the program. She isn’t planning to go to college, she said, after hearing Escamilla and others speak. Her mother and sister, she said, convinced her that it would be too difficult. Even junior high school, she said they told her, will be tough.

But Yesenia Ramirez, another Telfair sixth-grader, told a different story. “I’m nervous to go to junior high,” she acknowledged. But, she said: “I think I’m going to college.”