October 15, 1999
UCNEWS SERVICE
Española, NM — Chances are, the kids at McCurdy Elementary School do not know the book they are about to write will change lives. However, chances are that it will.
For the next two-years, third and fourth graders at McCurdy Elementary will research and write a bilingual book about college life at two- and four-year colleges. The book will be published in 2001 and distributed to local school districts.
The content of the book will be based on interviews the kids will conduct with students, faculty and staff at Northern New Mexico Community College and the University of New Mexico. Amy Miller, the fourth grade teacher at McCurdy states, "The book has potential to make a difference in a child's life." Miller adds, "Replicating this initiative in northern New Mexico has definite benefits—one which may include expanding local elementary school curriculums to include a unit on higher education."
The idea for Kids Around the University/Niños Alrededor de la Universidad came from fourth graders from the Pajaro Valley near Santa Cruz, California. When teachers and students were planning a field trip to UC Santa Cruz, they were unable to find a book about college appropriate for the fourth grade level. When they learned there were no books available, the children decided to write their own.
National statistics on Hispanic and Native American student populations indicate that they are the lowest achieving, the least likely to go to college and the lowest in obtaining post-secondary degrees. UC Santa Cruz has adopted Kids Around the University in an effort to open the door to more students of these and other underrepresented groups to assure a student body more representative of the general population. UC Santa Cruz also produced a 40-page teacher's guide to help other teachers replicate the project with their own students. Kids Around the University is a 32-page, full-color book written in English and Spanish by the children and is part of the fourth grade curriculum in over 200 classrooms with over 5,000 students in Central California.
The project is initiated by the University of California Northern New Mexico Office, University of California, Santa Cruz, Day & Zimmermann, Inc., McCurdy School Foundation, University of New Mexico and Northern New Mexico Community College. The individuals involved in making this pilot project a reality, also known as the Leadership Team, stress that the book will represent a powerful outreach tool that will expose young schoolchildren to the academic and social value of attending college—giving kids hands-on information about how to prepare for college. Funding for the pilot project will come from in-kind and foundation support.
The University established the University of California Northern New Mexico Office in 1996, to better cooperate as a good corporate citizen with communities and to support strategies in stimulating economic diversification within the region and enhancing quality of life initiatives. By bringing UC system-wide support to the region -- such as UC Irvine's health care management consultation, UC Davis' land use planning models and expertise, a UC Santa Cruz bilingual book project for elementary students to encourage college attendance at an early age, UC San Francisco collaborations with Rio Arriba County to address substance abuse treatment needs -- the Office has proven to be a stable force in contributing toward regional communities' needs. The Office has a direct reporting relationship to the UC Office of the President, Laboratory Administration Office in Oakland, California.
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