Minorities in Science Program Announced : Education: A UCI professor is a principal planner of $5-million statewide plan to attract 12,000 students each year. Funding is by the National Science Foundation.

An unprecedented, $5-million statewide plan designed to attract 12,000 minority college students to science each year was unveiled Wednesday by a coalition of officials from the University of California, California State University and state community colleges.

The program, the first of its kind in the nation, will be funded by the National Science Foundation. Dubbed California Alliance for Minority Participation in the Sciences, or CAMP, it will be geared toward attracting so-called “underrepresented” minorities--African-Americans, Latinos, American Indians and Pacific Islanders--to biology, engineering and the physical sciences. About 80% of the funds will go directly to students for tutoring, research, summer guidance and other needs, with the rest for administrative purposes.

“I will never forget how hard it was for me when I was a student struggling for support,” said Eloy Rodriguez, a professor of developmental and cell biology at UC Irvine and one of CAMP’s principal planners. “This is seed money for these students. It is a way for them to discover that science is great and wonderful and that they can indeed find a future in it. It’s a way for them to feel encouraged.”

CAMP will operate out of four regional centers on UC campuses. The southern region headquarters will be at UCI; UCLA will be the headquarters for south central California, UC Santa Cruz will cover the San Joaquin Valley region, and the Northern California center will be at UC Davis. The program will include all nine UC campuses, along with 20 branches of the Cal State system, more than 40 California community colleges, and several private colleges.

At a news briefing at UCI Wednesday, Chancellor Jack Peltason called the program “unprecedented” in its goals to graduate 3,500 baccalaureate, 500 masters and 150 doctoral students annually by the year 2000--nearly triple the current annual average.

“It is the first (such program) in the state and the first of its kind in the country,” Peltason said in a joint press conference Wednesday morning to announce the grant. He also noted that such a collaborative effort by the three college systems and private colleges statewide also is rare.

Indeed, other educators on Wednesday said the joint effort is essential at a time when the state college system has been buckling under budget pressures and cutting back on faculty and programs. They also expressed hope that CAMP will reach back into elementary and high schools to spark interest among students who might otherwise have been diverted away from science.

“It is a good incentive especially for those who don’t have the financial capacity to pursue what they want in higher education,” said Joel Montes, co-chairman of MEChA, a Cal State Fullerton student group whose Spanish acronym means Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan. “A lot of students get discouraged once they enter college and don’t pursue the harder disciplines. They are not trained or encouraged to choose science majors.”

CAMP is modeled after a successful UCI program, Howard Hughes Undergraduate Biological Sciences Minority Research and Training, which has more than 200 undergraduates participating in science classes. Like that program, CAMP will aim to nurture and mentor students.

“There has never been a science pipeline for these students,” said Manuel N. Gomez, UCI’s vice chancellor of academic affairs. “This will not only expand the number of minority students in the field, it will give them a chance like never before.”

CAMP officials will identify students with potential in elementary and high schools and track them as they continue onto college. Those already in college will receive mentoring and grants for travel and research at national laboratories and industrial research sites, organizers of the program said.

College students will have to apply for the grants, which will be awarded on a competitive basis. Students can begin applying for CAMP money in January.

During summer months, CAMP is to have classes and extracurricular activities tied to increasing student interest in the sciences. The program will also start a partnership with national laboratories and companies to develop further financial support for the future. “It is a given that we are not successful in granting baccalaureates in sciences to a large number of underrepresented groups,” said David Mertes, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “This is a national phenomenon. Here in California, the most diverse state in nation, we have an opportunity to change that.”

Ultimately, the program is hoped to increase minority faculty members in the sciences, said Herbert Carter, executive vice chancellor of the California State University system. In the meantime, he said, the program will be geared to fostering a nurturing relationship to better encourage students to make the transition to teaching.

“Those of us in education have been struggling with the issues of how to best engage the minds of young people who have lots of things tugging them into different directions,” Carter said. “It is clear that education best occurs between teachers and students. That’s where it all happens, on a one-to-one basis. The students will be able to relate to some of the best faculty in the world.”

Minority Science Graduates

Number of minority graduates in science statewide, class of 1990:

African- American Degree Total American Latino Indian Baccalaureates 1,366 311 949 106 Masters 122 38 74 10 Doctorates 45 12 31 2

Goals for number of minority science graduates by 2000: Baccalaureates: 3,500 Masters: 500 Doctorates: 150 Source: California Alliance for Minority Participation in the Sciences.