COUNTYWIDE : U.S. Sen. Campbell Named to UCI Board

Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), the only American Indian in the U.S. Senate, has been named to the advisory board of UC Irvine’s American Indian Summer Institute in Computer Science.

The eight-week residential program that starts June 25 is designed to increase representation of American Indian students in computer science and encourage their transfer to four-year programs in that field.

Campbell--who is also on the board of the American Indian College Fund--said that quality education is his highest priority for American Indians.

“Giving talented students the opportunity to participate in the summer computer science program will provide greater opportunity for students to succeed,” he said.

About 60 students--from 27 tribal and community colleges and representing 20 tribes--will participate in the program, which is funded by Southern California corporations and the National Science Foundation, said administrative director Essie Lev.

Participants spend the first four weeks taking courses and the last four weeks in internships at 15 corporate sponsors, including Xerox Corp., Hewlett Packard and Western Digital Corp.

“This is the first program of its kind,” Lev said. “Many of these students have historically been tracked into vocational fields. We’re trying to turn that around.”

The institute was spawned by a 1991 two-day UC Irvine visit of students from Navajo Community College on the Navajo Reservation in Tsaile, Ariz. “We realized that two days just wasn’t enough to expose students to this vast field and encourage transfer into four-year programs,” Lev said. “So we developed the notion of a summer institute and expanded it.”

In 1992, a six-week pilot program included 11 students and four corporate sponsors.

Lev said that this year’s program, which costs about $6,000 per student, will serve as a model for expansion into other scientific disciplines and geographic regions with large American Indian populations.