College Receives $1.7 Million to Increase Minority Enrollment

Two grants totaling nearly $1.7 million have been awarded to Cal State Dominguez Hills to increase minority enrollment at colleges and to attract more minority students to teaching careers.

The School of Education has received $975,987 to recruit 1,000 junior high and high school students to pre-college programs this year. The grant was awarded by the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education and is aimed at luring more minorities to teaching.

In addition, 1,000 seventh- through 12th-graders at four high schools and 12 intermediate schools in Los Angeles will be part of a $700,000 talent search project designed to increase the enrollment of minority students in colleges nationwide.

“We want to place students in an environment where they feel higher education is attainable,” said James Hartman, associate vice president and dean of Student Enrollment Services at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The talent search program will target about 170 students at each grade level and provide college preparatory seminars, home clinics and remedial workshops. Students will get help with college admissions and financial aid. They will also go on field trips to various colleges and universities.

“Trying to tell students in the 11th and 12th grades about college is too late,” said Gayle Ball, assessment coordinator for the university’s Educational Opportunity Program.

The schools targeted by the project are Crenshaw, Leuzinger, Los Angeles Jordan and Washington Preparatory high schools, along with Audubon, Horace Mann, Foshay, Markham, South Gate, Drew Magnet, Will Rogers, Lennox, Yukon, Jane Addams, Clay and Bret Harte intermediate schools.

Students will be selected based on recommendations by school administrators, faculty members and counselors. Dominguez Hills joins several colleges in California that have already adopted this outreach program.

The college has also developed a model pre-college program called Project PORT, for Pool of Recruitable Teachers.

Project PORT is the beginning of a 10-year plan of the Consortium for Minorities in Teaching Careers, which is made up of 10 universities across the country. As the lead university, Dominguez Hills has outlined a 10-year plan to increase minority teachers in the classrooms.

School administrators say these projects are necessary because of the high dropout rates in Los Angeles high schools and the pressing need for minority teachers who can serve as role models for the students.

“If improvement in the education of minority groups is to take place, attention must be turned to ensuring the diversity of the nation’s teaching force,” said Judson H. Taylor, dean of the university’s School of Education.