We're dedicated to finding ways to smooth the path for motivated and bright students so that they will be able to participate fully in an increasingly competitive global economy, one where a college degree and critical thinking skills are essential for success.

Cedric Brown
Former LPFI Director of Higher Education Programs

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD WITH IDEAL AND SMASH

by Laura Svienty

“The students do all of the hard work themselves. What we do is remove the boulders that shouldn’t have been placed there in the first place,” says Dr. Freada Kapor Klein, a leading expert in discrimination and diversity issues and founder of San Francisco’s Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI).

The Level Playing Field Institute is an innovative non-profit organization whose mission is to acknowledge and eliminate hidden barriers to fairness in both the classroom and the boardroom.

 “Fairness does not always mean that everyone gets the same treatment,” says Cedric Brown, LPFI Director of Higher Education Programs. “Fairness means that people are getting what they need in a given situation in order to succeed.”

In an effort to give the Bay Area’s underrepresented students of color what they need to succeed, LPFI has created two educational programs: the Summer Math & Science Honors Academy for high school students (SMASH) and the Initiative for Diversity in Education and Leadership at UC Berkeley (IDEAL).

SMASH

SMASH is a three-year program designed to inspire and prepare high-performing kids from Hispanic/Latino, African American and Native American communities to study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) at top universities and graduate schools.

 “We have 83 scholars coming from 40 different Bay Area schools—from as far as Fairfield and San Jose,” says SMASH Academy Director Irene St. Roseman. “We recruit high-achieving, low-income students from poorly-resourced schools—students who have completed the ninth grade.”

For five weeks each summer, the SMASH recruits who survive the rigorous nine-page application process live in dormitories on the UC Berkeley campus where they are immersed in math, technology and science courses that include cosmology, calculus and physics.

 “For many of them, it’s the first time they’ve set foot on a college campus. They’re with other students who look like them and with whom they don’t have to hide the fact they are indeed serious students, ” says St. Roseman.

SMASH students learn how to identify classes that will increase their potential for UC admission. “We teach them how to advocate for themselves and say, ‘I need to be in an AP class’ or ‘I need to take a language even though my school says I don’t need one to graduate,’” St. Roseman explains.

 “These students want to go to college and they are willing to do whatever they must to make that a reality,” says Sharon Cravanas, SMASH Director of College Counseling, who likens attending college to being a member of a private club. “Until recently, very few members looked like me or the SMASH scholars. I was born to hold a powerful membership drive.”

The members of SMASH’s inaugural class, which will graduate from high school this spring, have applied to a wide range of schools including the University of California, MIT, Stanford, Wellesley, Smith and California State University.

They have met movers and shakers from the math and science world, taken educational field trips (to places such as IBM, Microsoft and the Marin Headlands) and built a supportive community. They have studied public speaking, critical thinking, leadership, social responsibility, civic involvement, SAT prep and navigating a college campus as an underrepresented person of color.

 “SMASH has given me the opportunity to grow as a person and meet a lot of wonderful, successful people that have inspired me, “ says SMASH junior Xiomara Cortez. “I try to be a positive influence by helping anyone I can, and try to stress the importance of school to everyone. What keeps me going are my parents because they work very hard to give us everything we need and are wonderful parents to me and all my siblings.”

Families play an important role in the SMASH program, which works to dissolve barriers for parents as well as students by holding Saturday meetings during the academic year.

 “I came to this country from El Salvador to save my life,” says Gloria Ramirez, mother of SMASH senior Mauricio Ramirez. “My American dream is to see my children go to college. SMASH teaches students and parents step by step everything they need to know—and do—so they can get there.”

Stephen Anderson, father of SMASH sophomore Nediva Anderson, notes, “We lose our kids of color at this age because there aren’t more programs like this. There aren’t many peers of color let alone role models of color.” Anderson says his desire to give something back by fundraising for SMASH is akin to going to a restaurant and receiving a complimentary appetizer: “You want to tip heavily because you’re so gratified by what you have been given.”

SMASH students have been given the opportunity to express themselves internationally via their science and technology podcast. SMASHcast won a Best Educational Podcast Award for its “Bottlin’ It Up” report on the differences between bottled and tap water.

In addition to discourse on hybrid cars and cellular phone reviews, SMASHcast gives its listeners a glimpse of what underrepresented students of color must overcome on a daily basis at home, school and in their neighborhoods.

 “One of the reasons I got into SMASH is because my neighborhood is not the safest,” says SMASH senior Charly Uc. “I live two blocks away from a gang that claims the color blue. I was beaten up on the bus for wearing pants that had blue on them.  Someone from the gang that claims red thought I was from the gang that claims blue. I’ve never been in any gang. All I was doing was taking the bus.”

Last summer, Uc was in the SMASH dorm at Cal when he learned that his 21-year-old brother had been murdered. “We have no idea why,” says Uc. “He was outside the house talking to my cousin. My mom heard gunshots so she went outside and my brother was lying on the ground.”

Uc’s brother left behind a 3-month-old daughter. “I would give anything for my brother’s baby girl. None of my mom’s kids know their dad,” says Uc. “And now my niece won’t get to know her dad. I guess it’s just something that happens in our family.”

After spending a week at home with his family, Uc returned to SMASH. “The students created these teams to watch Charly and work with him or hug him. The teachers were amazed at how this resilient kid was able to rise from the ashes and work so diligently to catch up,” says St. Roseman.

Uc shrugs and says, “I guess what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but he acknowledges that he no longer feels safe on his own front steps. “My place is not a big place. I share my room with my mom. When my friends come over, I don’t go out on the steps with them anymore. We go to my room or my kitchen because I ’m afraid that something might happen.”

Uc’s dream is to move and go away to college. He and his mother attend all SMASH events having anything to do with the college admissions process. “SMASH has opened my eyes to how much is out there. There are so many opportunities. Just being on a UC campus lets me see how my life could be in six months,” says Uc. “Without SMASH, I wouldn’t have all of the help and information I have now. I’m really glad I’m part of it.”

You can help change the life of an aspiring young scientist, mathematician, doctor, engineer or programmer by donating to SMASH. Call 415.946.3030 or go to www.lpfi.org.

IDEAL

“My childhood was a constant struggle. Everything, every aspect of my life was set up for me to fail, but then there was IDEAL,” says UC Berkeley senior Jackie Hawkins, a biracial Social Welfare major who grew up in the Bay Area’s welfare system.

Neither of Hawkins’ parents graduated from high school. “I had no guidance at all. No support. At ten, I had to move in with my grandmother. My dad was addicted to drugs,” says Hawkins, who credits her teachers at James Logan High School for motivating her to do well in school. “I was really blunt about my history when I applied for IDEAL. They gave me a chance to live up to my full potential,” says Hawkins, who earned a 4.0 during her first two years at UC Berkeley. “I’m going into social work and without IDEAL, that wouldn’t have been possible. I’ve decided to dedicate my life to helping people through direct service and research. I’m a testament to how successful the Ideal Scholars program is.”

The IDEAL Scholars Fund was created by four UC Berkeley alumni to counteract the precipitous drop-off in enrollment of African American and Latino students that took place at UC Berkeley after Proposition 209, which abolished affirmative action, went into effect in 2001.

 “Prop 209 is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever cooked up,” says Freada Kapor Klein, one of IDEAL’ s founding four. “It has been unbelievably damaging.  We are so far away from a race-blind society that by pretending we’ve achieved it, we have actually stoked the flames of racism even more. We have to do something. One way we can do something is as a private, non-profit organization.”

UC Berkeley junior Mayra Canizales, an American Studies major (with an Urban Educational Policy concentration) praises IDEAL’ s founders for believing that “the university is a public institution that should look like the community it belongs to. Berkeley should look like the Bay Area.”

Canizales, whose parents are both janitors, is a first-generation college student, as are many IDEAL scholars. “I never had a savings bond and I didn’t know how I was going to pay for school. College wasn’t necessarily something that was supposed to happen for me, “ says Canizales, who was accepted by UC Berkeley on her own academic merit—as is every IDEAL Scholar—before being offered an IDEAL scholarship.

“I know a lot of students chose Berkeley over the other schools that accepted them because of IDEAL. When a program says they’ll be with you for four years and give you anything you need—from tutors to laptops to moral support to internships on Capitol Hill—there’s really no better option,” says Canizales, who deems IDEAL “a gift sent from heaven.”

Canizales has bestowed a few gifts herself through her Latina mentorship program, “Tu eres mi otro yo” (“You are my other me”). By posting fliers and holding meetings in her co-op, she recruited 30 Cal Latinas willing to mentor junior high school Latinas in Hayward. “I had no money. It just came together,” she says. “Now it’s sponsored by Stiles Hall, who heard about our program and took us onboard.”

IDEAL plays an active role in keeping underrepresented students of color onboard at Cal.  “IDEAL allows us the freedom to take educational risks knowing that we that we have people who believe in us to back us up,” explains Canizales.  “And because we don’t have to work or worry about money, we can really just focus on school. IDEAL scholars are some of the most community-oriented and brilliant people I’ve met at Cal, maybe because we’ve had to go through so much just to get here.”

Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, IDEAL’s Student Services Coordinator, says that IDEAL Scholars “define success beyond their own individual success. They’re really passionate about their education and giving back to the community.”

Negron-Gonzales, a beneficiary of affirmative action who entered UC Berkeley with the last class to be admitted under affirmative action, observes, “Higher education can sometimes separate people from where they come from and from the realities of other people like them. That’s not something I ever see in the IDEAL scholars. They see their success as being tied in to a responsibility to their community and a responsibility to help others succeed as well.”

Anthony Muiru, IDEAL’s Student Services Associate and a former IDEAL scholar himself, backs up Negron-Gonzales’ assertion. “Ultimately, I want to go back to Kenya and serve the people there and, if not Kenya, I want to serve a lot of communities here that are somewhat forgotten in a lot of areas. I feel like being a doctor is one of the few ways—no matter where you go—you’ll be able to serve people,” says Miuru, who earned his BS in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley last year.

Muiru and Negron-Gonzales are the on-campus “frontline people” for the IDEAL scholars. “We supply academic support, mentorship and guidance. We connect students to services, on-campus and off,” says Negron-Gonzales, who derives great joy from “seeing students set goals and reach them despite the doubts of other people saying, ‘You can’t do that sort of thing.’”

Something that irks Negron-Gonzales to no end is “the university’s unwillingness to make the drastic decrease of underrepresented students a priority. Of course, that’s connected to all of the structural inequities in K-12 schooling that make this an issue in the first place.”

Currently enrolled in the PhD program at UC Berkeley’s School of Education, Negron-Gonzales bemoans the fact that “it’s pretty close to impossible for large numbers of people in this state to be able to afford a California State University.  Another layer is that undocumented students, no matter how well they do in school, can’t even apply for federal loan money. IDEAL makes it a point to support undocumented students.”

Negron-Gonzales contends that Californians must fight for legislative changes and a reinstatement of affirmative action policies and practices but that in the meantime, “we need to make sure that high-caliber, underrepresented students of color still have a way into Berkeley. The vast majority of our students wouldn’t even be at Berkeley were it not for the IDEAL Scholars Program.”

Canizales concurs: “We’re at the number one public university in the world but without IDEAL, a lot of us wouldn’t have been able to afford it. Helping one of us is helping the whole community we came from as we represent our friends who didn’t make it here. I think people who give to IDEAL are making a substantial investment in future leaders, by helping minorities achieve a voice and get a college education.”

Cedric Brown, the Level Playing Field Institute’s Director of Higher Education Services, says that IDEAL is intent on making that college education as beneficial as possible by  “making sure we’re playing a part in attracting underrepresented students to UC Berkeley, keeping them there and allowing them to really capitalize on their own skills and talents so that they can springboard into bigger leadership opportunities once they’ve moved through Cal and out into the world.”

According to Brown, IDEAL strives to enable its scholars to compete with fellow students from better high schools and wealthier families by “providing IDEAL scholars with the resources they need in order to level out the playing field between them and their academic peers.”

Hawkins, who hopes that her IDEAL success will open doors for other underrepresented students of color, says that one of her favorite compliments was given to her by Brown. “All he said was that he trusts me, he trusts my opinion and my ability to make the right decisions for myself,” says Hawkins. “That gives me confidence whenever I think about it. There’s someone out there who truly believes in me!”

IDEAL STAIRcase TO SUCCESS

S--SCHOLARSHIPS. Without financial support, most IDEAL scholars accepted to UC Berkeley would be unable to attend.  In 2005, the majority of IDEAL scholars received $8,000 or more in scholarships. Start a Scholar Sponsorship Campaign at your work or in your community by calling 415. 946.3062.

T--TUTORING. Tutoring is provided for IDEAL scholars who want extra academic focus or have small group work they want to do in a particular discipline.

A--ADVISING. IDEAL’s on-campus student advisors are two distinguished Cal alumni of color. Genevieve Negron-Gonzales is in the PhD program at the School of Education. Anthony Miuru graduated with honors in molecular and cell biology last spring. A former IDEAL scholar himself, Miuru opted to take a year off between his undergraduate education and medical school in order to give something back to IDEAL.

I--INTERNSHPS. IDEAL provides summer internship placements that give students practical work experience in their fields of interest.  Past internships have included Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco General Hospital/UCSF, Centro Legal de la Raza and the office of U.S. Representative Barbara Lee.

R--RESOURCES. Resources include a laptop loaner program, leadership training, a supportive community of other scholars and staff, regular meetings, social events, workshops and mentors. Says Brown, “We pair students up with connections in the community so that they can learn what they need to do to create a path for themselves. “

$2 MILLION DOLLAR FUNDING CHALLENGE

Thanks to a $1 million dollar donation from philanthropist and entrepreneur, Mitch Kapor, IDEAL is expanding to serve more students. IDEAL is challenging potential donors to match Mitch’s mil with another million dollars and bring 50% more students into the program by 2010.

So far, IDEAL has received funds from individual donors and a grant from The Education Financing Foundation of California (TEFFC). TEFFC president Caroline O. Boitano says, “TEFFC is thrilled to support the Level Playing Field Institute’s work in connecting bright and talented young people to the educational resource they need to be competitive in today’s global market.”

You can help IDEAL reach its two million-dollar mark by calling 415.946.3030 or visiting http://lpfi.org/aboutus/growing_ideal.shtml.

UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS

Without private scholarships, undocumented immigrants must often give up their dream of attending a four-year university. At this time, undocumented students whose academic excellence has garnered them college acceptance letters are ineligible to apply for state or federal loan money.

 “I don’t understand the supposed wisdom of this. These students are here because of the choices their parents made. They are unwitting victims and beneficiaries of their parents’ courage,” says Freada Kapor Klein. “By denying these students loans and financial aid, in what direction are we pointing them?”

 “Being undocumented in this country means that a lot of the doors I thought were open are, in reality, closed,” says Jorge Chavez (pseudonym), a SMASH student whose family immigrated to the Bay Area from Mexico a decade ago. “That really frustrates me in terms of getting money for college. Being undocumented and a minority is like a double wall.”

PROPOSITION 209

Proposition 209, a California ballot proposition that abolished affirmative action by prohibiting public institutions to discriminate on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity, was voted into law with 54% of the vote in 1996.

The IDEAL Scholars Fund was created in response to the dramatic decrease in enrollment of African-American and Latino students that took place at UC Berkeley after Prop 209 went into effect in 2001.

 “One of my worries about California is that there are groups that seem to be becoming progressively more disenfranchised, not less. We need Berkeley to be educating the people who will provide leadership in those communities to bring them back economically and otherwise into the mainstream. Current law severely constrains our ability to do that.”  --Robert Birgeneau, UC Berkeley Chancellor.

 “We could either sit around and lament the fact that a really important program is no longer used at the university and shake our heads at how terrible that is or we could be involved proactively in trying to make sure that high-caliber, deserving, underrepresented students of color are able to attend the university. Giving to IDEAL makes that possible.” --Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, IDEAL Student Services Coordinator

IDEAL INTERNSHIP WISH LIST SUMMER ‘08

This year’s IDEAL scholars are seeking internships in the following fields:

--Teaching (primary & secondary school)

--Event planning

--Arts activism

--Sustainable development & natural resource conservation

--Social work (youth development, probation, immigrant services)

--Business (banking, accounting, marketing, entrepreneurialism)

--Communications (broadcast journalism, filmmaking, theatrical production, stage management)

--Policy (international relations, city planning, universal healthcare)

--Law (general, international, immigration, civil rights)

--Healthcare (research, pharmacy, clinical work, shadowing doctors)

If you would like to provide an internship for an IDEAL scholar this summer, please contact Angel-Max Guerrero at 415-946-3030, angelmax@lpfi.org