Minorities Get Boost in Math, Science

Five years ago, Juliet Salazar was a new immigrant who could barely speak or understand English. Now the 26-year-old Glendale Community College graduate teaches an intensive pre-calculus review class there to other minority students.

When Salazar emigrated from Ecuador after marrying a computer programmer from Los Angeles, she spent 10 hours a day learning English. After two years, she enrolled in the Alliance for Minority Participation, a national program for minority math and science students offered at Glendale Community College.

“I can’t tell you how much this means to me,” Salazar said.

She will graduate in two years from UCLA, where she transferred in 1999 to study applied mathematics. She then plans to get a master’s degree and teach math at a community college.

“I am amazed at all of this,” she said.

Salazar credits much of her success to the Alliance program, which was created by the National Science Foundation in 1991 to encourage ethnic diversity on college campuses in science, math, engineering and technology.

In 1990, a handful of universities that a year later were the first to join the program, reported only 3,900 minority students graduating in those fields. As of 1999, the number had grown to 21,000 graduates from 355 four-year colleges and universities.

“We are doing well,” national senior program director A. James Hicks said of the $26-million a year federally funded program. “But we need to do more.”

The goal is to graduate 50,000 students a year and bring more colleges and universities into the program, Hicks said. Participating university systems receive up to $1 million a year for meeting a quota of minority graduates in the four majors.

African American, Latino and Native American students are eligible to apply to Glendale Community College’s two-year Alliance program. Benefits include networking, mentoring from professors, internship opportunities, a top-of-the-line calculator and cash incentives for performing well in intensive supplemental math and science courses.

Hicks said that because many minority college students feel obligated to get jobs and help support their families, they forgo graduate study, which is mandatory for science and math careers.

And there are few role models.

“When these kids have a vision of a scientist, I’m not sure they see [people] of color,” he said. Many do not believe they have what it takes to succeed.

Students must maintain a C average. Some will have a good chance to transfer to the highly competitive UC system and all are guaranteed admission to the California State University system.

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Ed Espinosa, 20, of Tujunga, hopes to transfer to Cal State Northridge to study computer programming. He pulled a C last year in high school calculus, but figures the summer pre-calculus class for incoming Alliance students and others who want a review will give him a good head start.

“And [the Alliance] will look good on my resume,” he said.

Other students agree that the Alliance program has opened doors and will continue to do so.

“It’s not as big a deal anymore,” said Violet Barraza, 19, of Burbank. “More and more minorities are succeeding in math and science. But programs like this have helped.”

Barraza, who is of Mexican heritage, said she believes the Alliance program prepared her well for the competitiveness of UCLA, where she hopes to transfer to study pediatrics or child psychology.

“In [the program], you get to see that you can [succeed],” she said. “There’s a lot of students in here that are pretty smart.”

Davey Lopez, 20, of North Hills, said the Alliance will be his first step toward landing an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and becoming an astronaut.

“This is the best way of me getting to NASA,” said Lopez, who hopes to transfer to USC.

The Alliance also helps graduates like Salazar gain experience tutoring and teaching.

On a recent morning, 27 new Alliance students listened intently to her two-hour lecture on asymptotes--a mathematical concept that demonstrates limits. Half an hour later, Salazar had filled the board with equations and graphs in red, green and blue markers.

“It’s like math [boot] camp,” said Sid Kolpas, who co-teaches the four-week summer class that meets each weekday for six hours.

Kolpas is known on campus for antics such as using film clips, jokes and puzzles to demonstrate hard-to-grasp concepts. At one point during the lecture, Salazar yielded the floor to Kolpas, who burst into a dance to illustrate how two asymptotes behave on the same graph.

“He has given a great gift to me,” Salazar said of her mentor. “He is a great motivator.”

When the summer class ends, the students will have reviewed a semester’s worth of pre-calculus and will be ready to start classes again after a two-week break.

“I see the students [sitting out] there,” Salazar said. “I know they are here because they want to do better in their lives.”

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Students can apply to the Alliance for Minority Participation at Glendale Community College each spring. Overall grade point average, ethnicity and high school grades in math and science are evaluated, along with an autobiographical statement and a science or math teacher’s recommendation.

“Why go to foreign nations to get talent when our own talent is right here and being underserved and utilized?” Hicks asked. “This program is worth its weight in gold.”

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