by Andrew Kerr
From the CEISMC Gazette
http://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/gazette
The proceedings on the evening of Thursday, September 29 at Forsyth Central High School resembled, in many ways, those of a typical open house night. Parents and their children arrived at 7 PM to meet the teachers and guidance counselors, refreshments were provided, and speakers took the lectern to encourage parents and students alike to take advantage of the school's many resources.The difference was that the greetings, suggestions, and encouragements were offered not in English, but in Spanish. It was a Hispanic Student/Parent Night—the best-attended Evelyn Paerson, counselor at Forsyth Central High, had ever seen in her eight years with the school. And if current demographic trends continue, this record could be broken many times over in the years to come.
This reporter arrived with Mr. Jorge Breton to represent Georgia Tech. Mr. Breton is in his ninth month as the Program Manager of the Goizueta Foundation at Georgia Tech. The Foundation was established in 1992 by legendary Coca-Cola CEO Roberto C. Goizueta (he's the reason why there is Diet Coke) in order to provide financial aid and other support for Hispanic/Latino students and faculty. Of paramount importance to Mr. Breton is the need for Hispanic students to know that there are scholarships available to help them make their dreams of coming to Tech true.
"One of the biggest challenges is convincing parents of students in financial need that Georgia Tech is attainable," he says. "All too often they say, 'Georgia Tech is not for us. It's out of our league.' That's just not so."
The Goizueta Foundation currently sponsors 30 undergraduate scholars and 20 graduate students. Students must be accepted to Tech first and then apply for the Goizueta grant. Money is distributed based on merit and need. Amounts given out vary between $500 and $10,000. Recently, the program has been expanded to support "non-traditional," older students. Additionally, the program focuses on retaining those Hispanic students who come to Tech.
Mr. Breton says that about 600 Hispanic students currently attend Tech. "Georgia Tech has a very diverse student body," he notes. "Most of our Hispanic students are from Puerto Rican, Colombian, and Mexican backgrounds. But a large number of other Latin countries are represented at Georgia Tech." He notes that Georgia Tech has several Hispanic organizations, including the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Spanish Speaking Organization, and La Unidad Latina (Latin Unity). And Hispanic Business magazine consistently ranks Georgia Tech as a top engineering school for Hispanic students.
Back at Forsyth Central High, Norma Malone, Teacher on Special Assignment at the Hill Education Center (which handles the registration of all English for Speakers of Other Languages [ESOL] students in Forsyth County), spoke forcefully and passionately about the value of a good education to the over 100 assembled students and parents. "Don't become a statistic," she said, referring to the dropout rate. "Don't settle for eight dollars an hour." She encouraged students to go to college. She also said that the Hill Center would be offering computer classes for parents and students. She encouraged parents to be involved and both parents and students to take advantage of all the opportunities available to them. (Mr. Breton translated her Spanish gracefully for my benefit.)
As an illustration of how much times have changed, in 1991, Ms. Malone was given a mandate by Forsyth County Schools: enroll at least 17 students in that county's then-proposed ESOL program (fewer would have failed to justify the program's existence). She found ten students with relative ease, but the last seven did not come so easily. "I had to struggle looking for them because many of the families at the time were afraid to leave their trailers," she says. So Ms. Malone pounded on those trailer doors, got her 17 students, and became Forsyth County's first ESOL teacher.
A year later, Ms. Malone enrolled 37 students. 56 followed the year after that. Today's Hill Education Center now processes over 400 new ESOL applications every year.
Also present at the Forsyth gathering were various local outreach groups reaching out to the Hispanic community. Community centers, Catholic outreach services, and a handful of universities set-up brochures and posters on a semi-circle of cafeteria tables.
Forsyth's International Club was also represented; Luis Delgado, a senior at the high school who serves as president of the International Club discussed the various activities the club has engaged in. These ran the gamut from community service (teaching the residents of a retirement home how to salsa), to group trips to Stone Mountain.
While Spanish was the language of the night, this was largely for the benefit of the parents in attendance, Mr. Breton told me. The students I spoke with chatted easily in English; some even asked me specific questions about Tech's engineering programs.
Somebody who would have been better able to answer those students' questions about engineering than myself would have been Charlene Rincón, a Georgia Tech graduate student in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering who did her undergraduate work at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. An internship at Kimberly Clark introduced her to the city of Atlanta, which she loved, and now she is at Tech exploring how changing the properties of polymers affects cellular behavior.Perhaps the most surprising thing Charlene told me when I asked about what piqued her interest in the Goizueta Foundation was that she spoke predominantly about the social and networking advantages. "In graduate school you're basically very busy in the lab doing research and studying. So this is a good opportunity to meet other people," she said. "Graduate school can be very overwhelming, so this is a good way to get to know other professors who identify with your situation."
Mr. Breton agreed with this, emphasizing that there is more to Goizueta than scholarships. "The Goizueta Foundation's goals are not just to provide financial support for Hispanic students. Students are also encouraged to give back to the community through mentoring, participating in Habitat for Humanity, and other projects."