PROMISE: PROGRAM FOR UNDERREPRESENTED INCOMING STEM-INTERESTED STUDENTS
In partnership with Students for Equity and Advocacy in STEM
Background
During the Fall 2020 semester and in partnership with Professor of Biology at Occidental College John McCormack, a cohort of Oxy students from Students for Equity and Advocacy in STEM began drafting the creation of PROMISE: a five-week summer immersive and residential program intended to engage incoming junior and senior high school students from Los Angeles in STEM.
Mission
To increase engagement in and raise accessibility to STEM education and opportunities for historically underrepresented high school students in STEM.
Objectives
- Immerse students from underrepresented backgrounds in a variety of STEM fields and opportunities, including research, education, community and civic engagement, and advocacy.
- Utilize an interdisciplinary approach to elucidate the multifaceted nature of STEM and empower students to pursue their educational goals.
- Foster a diverse and inclusive community in STEM and equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed and thrive in STEM.
- Curate supportive systems for students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM by providing mentorship opportunities and collaborating with a variety of campus offices and departments.
- Create mutually beneficial partnerships (as outlined in the Principles for Occidental College-Community Neighborhood Development) between Occidental College and surrounding high schools in the Los Angeles community, with an emphasis on Northeast LA.
Why students from Northeast Los Angeles (NELA)?
Occidental College is positioned in a vibrant and diverse community. PROMISE offers an opportunity for Oxy to create new partnerships with local high schools in Los Angeles and to connect with the community through new means. PROMISE will fulfill Oxy’s four cornerstones: excellence, equity, community, and service by providing an avenue for local high school students from underrepresented backgrounds to explore the fields of STEM in a novel and innovative way. Our goal is to not only uplift these students to pursue their educational goals through higher education, but to help diversify science, technology, engineering, and mathematics–fields that historically have failed to be inclusive spaces for marginalized communities. PROMISE centers giving back to the LA community and building mutually beneficial relationships with community partners; working collaboratively with our neighbors to encourage and build a more diverse–and therefore stronger–future STEM workforce.
According to recently released data by the California Department of Education (CDE), 148 of the 781 lowest performing schools in California are in Los Angeles County. Of the top 10 lowest performing schools, five are in Los Angeles County: Eastside High (Antelope Valley), Antelope Valley High (Antelope Valley), City of Angels (Los Angeles), Littlerock High (Antelope Valley), and Manual Arts Senior High (Los Angeles). According to this data, L.A. Unified (LAUSD) has 110 schools that require assistance, with 56 of these schools being in the bottom 5 percent of schools in LAUSD. Furthermore, according to the U.S. News, there are no ranked public schools in LAUSD for STEM education. Results from the 2018-2019 California Science Test (CAST), administered to students in Grades 5 and 8, and in Grades 10, 11 or 12, demonstrate wide disparities among students from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds in STEM. Notably, these results show that “across all grades statewide, 9.94 percent of disadvantaged black students and 15.64 percent of disadvantaged Latino students met or exceeded the science standards on…CAST, compared to 44 percent of non-disadvantaged white students and nearly 60 percent of Asian students.”4 Statewide results for CAST are compared below with those from LAUSD. More detailed results are available on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress website.
View results for the English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics assessment here.
As an undergraduate institution with a multitude of STEM departments; all dedicated to supporting students from diverse backgrounds, we feel that Oxy has the capacity and passion to support marginalized high school students in the community who are interested in pursuing STEM. Being an institution that has benefited immensely from the dynamic culture and richness of the city of LA; a community built by hardworking people of color, we believe that Oxy has a moral obligation to give back to the community.