e-Newsletter: April 2007
SMASH Students Prepare for College
Like all college-bound seniors, our SMASH (Summer Math & Science Honors) Academy seniors have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of letters and emails from the admissions departments of the colleges and universities to which they have applied. For the SMASH students, however, the excitement and pride are even more intense, since most are the first in their families to attend college. They will also be our first group of seniors to graduate from the SMASH program.
At this time, 14 of the 18 SMASH seniors have received acceptance letters from a range of public and private schools in California and beyond (as far away as the University of Vermont). Two students were accepted at the University of California at Berkeley, which is widely considered to be one of the best schools in the world.
The process of preparing SMASH students for the transition from high school to college begins when they are still sophomores and juniors. The SMASH leadership organizes group tours of colleges and universities in several regions of California. "Beyond arranging the visits, we also teach our students the types of questions to ask about their prospective school so they can make an informed decision," said SMASH Director Irene St. Roseman. "That includes such topics as the ethnic breakdown of the student and faculty populations and the percentage of undergraduate classes taught by professors vs. graduate students," she said.
"Since many of the SMASH participants have spent little, if any, time outside of the Bay Area, the school visits also expose them to life in other towns and cities and prompt the students to ask themselves, ‘Could I live here?'" St. Roseman explained.
In addition to the school tours, SMASH students also have the opportunity to learn about college life by talking with their peers at Level Playing Field Institute's program for undergraduate students: IDEAL (Initiative for Diversity in Education and Leadership). A group of SMASH and IDEAL students--as well as a number of SMASH parents--met at the Institute's office in March.
SMASH senior Charly Uc felt that he could identify with the IDEAL Scholars. "They are close to my age, and I can relate to them," he said. Charly's main areas of concern were time management, communicating with other new freshmen on campus, and social life.
IDEAL Scholar Hilda Morales was moved by the number of SMASH parents who accompanied their children to the meeting. "I particularly remember that one of the mothers expressed her gratitude to us for answering the students' questions, and she got a little choked up because she said that if it wasn't for the help that many people have provided to her daughter, she wouldn't be where she was," she said.
IDEAL Scholar Ronald Page reflected on the various lessons that the SMASH students took away from the meeting. "I am sure that the SMASH students learned from our presentations that everyone will go through hardships, and that they will get through them. Perseverance, persistence, and power of faith keep us going--as well as trying to be role models to those coming after us," he said.
SMASH encourages students from underrepresented communities (Hispanic/Latino, African American and Native American) to pursue studies and excel in science, technology, engineering, or math at top colleges and graduate schools. Beginning in the summer after ninth grade, SMASH participants spend five weeks on the UC Berkeley campus attending science, math, and English classes taught by experienced high school teachers. In addition to having a first-time UC experience by living on campus, students also conduct lab experiments, meet math and science professionals, take educational and recreational field trips, and build a supportive community which remains in contact year round.
Click here for more information about Level Playing Field Institute's higher education programs.
SMASH Receives $80,000 Grant from the Fitzpatrick Foundation
Level Playing Field Institute's Summer Math & Science Honors (SMASH) Academy has received a two-year grant totaling $80,000 from the Fitzpatrick Foundation, a local family foundation which has supported SMASH since 2005. One of the Fitzpatrick Foundation's primary interests is supporting programs for secondary school students, with a particular emphasis on serving low-income youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Last summer, Foundation representatives visited SMASH students during their five-week summer residential program at UC Berkeley, and "…really enjoyed seeing the program ‘live.'" The visitors spent time with our third-year students in their physics and calculus classes, as well as our second-year students in their chemistry lab.
Level Playing Field Institute is grateful for the ongoing support of the Fitzpatrick Foundation. Click here to learn more about the Foundation and its work.
Martha Kim Reflects on Chief Diversity Officers Forum
Martha Kim attended the The 4th Annual Johnetta B. Cole Institute's Chief Diversity Officers Forum in North Carolina in late March, and wrote about understanding diversity:
Being in the Business of Epiphanies
"I always thought I was a progressive and liberal thinker, until one day I realized I had never worked for a person of color. In thirty plus years, I could not remember ever having worked with a woman of color as a peer." – CEO at event
The Chief Diversity Officers Forum began with four heterosexual, Caucasian male CEOs who spoke honestly about climbing the corporate ladder without truly understanding the issues surrounding diversity and inclusive workplaces. Sure, they had reviewed the turnover reports and spoken with in-house counsel about employment laws, but none of them thought of diversity beyond donating a few hundred thousand dollars to community organizations and requiring all employees to attend a generic, mandatory training. So what motivated these CEOs of highly profitable companies to finally take meaningful action? [read full story]
During a shopping trip, similar to many before, one CEO noticed that every salesperson addressed him and never his wife. Another CEO spoke at a LGBT event he had unknowingly committed to and after his speech, 10 people came up to him and pledged that their members would purchase his company's products and not his competitors'. The final CEO spoke of an international business trip where he suddenly was the "minority" and was completely excluded by the others.
It seems that epiphanies about diversity do not come in fancy boardrooms during carefully crafted PowerPoint presentations. Epiphanies come when we assume a different perspective; when we look at something from a different angle than our own. Stepping outside of his own upward career path and looking at those around him helped one CEO realize certain people were excluded from the climb. Seeing the bias against his wife on a shopping trip led one CEO to critically assess bias against women in his company. Interacting with the LGBT community made one CEO realize his company's missed business opportunity. And being excluded during an international business trip convinced one CEO that no one should feel similarly at his own company.
As advocates of diversity and inclusiveness, we must be in the business of helping others take different perspectives and step into one another's shoes. We must be the facilitators of discussion among diverse groups of people who would not otherwise interact in an honest and meaningful way. Drawing upon other fields, like neuroscience and psychology, and through innovative media like Second Life, we can create tools which will help people do so, and perhaps they, too, will come to their epiphany.
Innovation Blog and Exploring Second Life
We at Level Playing Field Institute hold innovation as a principle value, and aim to be innovative in the ways we approach our programs and the issues we address. We understand the importance of technology and recently launched a blog at www.thelevelers.org to talk about our experiences with technology and how we are using it in our programs to level the playing field in education and the workplace. The Levelers covers a variety of relevant topics including SMASH podcasting; technology-related conferences; and last, but not least, our presence in the rapidly growing virtual world of Second Life.
Second Life (SL) is a three-dimensional, virtual world accessed via the Internet by over five million people (and counting) from all over the world. Users create characters, called "avatars," which they use to explore this world and interact with other users. We've been exploring SL with a few different avatars and blogging about our observations and experiences. One example is Devid Igaly, an avatar who is black and obese. He has learned some interesting things about how race and size are perceived in the virtual world, and blogs about how that relates to the real world. SL is a great tool to examine these issues because you can essentially be any color, size, and sex, allowing you to virtually walk in someone else's shoes. Level Playing Field Institute will continue to explore possibilities in SL to best utilize this unique tool.
Another main topic of www.thelevelers.org is the group of students from our Summer Math & Science Honors (SMASH) Academy who are podcasting. The group is called Smashcast and they have their own blog, www.smashcast.org, where they podcast about science and technology and how it affects their lives as youth and urban students of color. Smashcast does a lot more than podcasting, and at The Levelers, we blog about many of the interesting and exciting things they do. One post talks about their recent visit to the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum. The Exploratorium saw Smashcast featured on the cover of the Oakland Tribune and requested their participation in a collaborative media project on environmental awareness.
www.thelevelers.org is a place where people can stay in the loop about technology as it relates to Level Playing Field Institute's programs, as well as learn from our explorations.
Tidbits
- SMASH featured on front page of Oakland Tribune and in San Jose Mercury News on February 25th (article: "SMASH Targets Young Minorities with Keen Interest in Math, Science")
- Lakiba Pittman and Freada Kapor Klein quoted in April Essence (article: "Battling Bias: It's Still about Race. But It's Not in Your Face.")
- Freada Kapor Klein quoted in March 19th Chicago Tribune (article: "Diversity Goals, Bias Can Collide")
- Freada Kapor Klein invited to give Distinguished Management Lecture at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management in Waltham, MA
- Mini Kahlon spoke at South by Southwest Conference in Austin, TX
- Freada Kapor Klein spoke at Wells Fargo Diversity Leadership Council in San Francisco
Events
- May 5th – SMASH Senior Celebrations
- May 18th – IDEAL Graduation