NASA Awards $1 Million To Hispanic Student Initiative
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - NASA awarded $1 million to the nation's top Hispanic higher education association for an innovative project that has encouraged thousands of minority students to pursue a college education.
The $1 million grant to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) will be used to support Proyecto Access, a summer program for middle and high school students interested in pursuing a college degree in engineering, science, information technology and mathematics fields.
Last summer, Oxnard College was one of the educational institutions that partnered with NASA to offer the program to county high school- and middle school students. In its second year of the innovative program, the college will receive a grant of about $88,400 to continue and expand the program.
"This generous gift from the world's best known space agency represents the fifth $1 million grant in five years from NASA to HACU in support of a model program that is dedicated to reversing the historic shortage of minorities in science, engineering, technology and mathematics fields," HACU President and CEO Antonio Flores said.
"Increasing the number of Hispanic and other minority students pursuing those fields of study will benefit all of us as a nation and as part of an increasingly technology-minded global economy," Flores said. "NASA's leadership in this long-term commitment to the future college hopes and success of our nation's young people is an inspiration to all of us in the higher education arena."
With the renewed funding from NASA, HACU this summer will oversee a program focusing on logic and problem-solving classes for selected minority middle school and highs school students interested in pursuing a college degree in engineering, science, information technology and mathematics fields.
Proyecto Access is the national replication of the successful TexPREP (Texas Prefreshman Engineering Program) initiative started in 1979 by Manuel Berriozabal, an award-winning professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio - a HACU member campus. Berriozabal also serves as principal investigator for Proyecto Access.
This year's Proyecto Access program will take place at nine HACU member college campuses in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York. Proyecto Access graduated more than 900 middle and high school students from its eight-week program in the summer of 2000.
"The importance of receiving an adequate preparation in logic, critical thinking, math, science and problem solving cannot be over-emphasized," said Rene Gonzalez, HACU Director of Program Collaboratives. "This program provides these young students the encouragement, skills, support and confidence that can propel them to college and career success in critical disciplines."
Proyecto Access this summer will be in place at the following HACU member campuses:
*Pima Community College, Tucson, Arizona
*Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles, California
*Oxnard College, Oxnard, California
*Community College of Denver, Denver, Colorado
*Florida International University, Miami, Florida
*Richard Daley College, Chicago, Illinois
*Jersey City State University, Jersey City, New Jersey
*New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
*Hostos Community College, Bronx, New York
HACU represents more than 270 colleges and universities with high Hispanic student enrollment rates in the United States, Puerto Rico and abroad, and also is a national leader in pre-collegiate and community initiatives designed to increase the ranks of Hispanic college graduates.
For information on the Oxnard College program, contact coordinator Mark Bates at 805 986-5800, ext. 2044, and Dr. Ramiro Sanchez, Dean of Liberal Education, 986-5804. For information on the HACU initiative, contact Rene A. Gonzalez, HACU Director of Program Collaboratives, at HACU's national headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, at (210) 692-3805. Ext. 3223.
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