Spring 2001 Participant - Pitzer College

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14 Pitzer College Participant
Back to School Pitzer faculty, staff and students have been working since the College’s inception to manifest a common vision: a cross-pollination that takes Pitzer into the community in organic ways while bringing youngsters from the local communities to campus, exposing them to role models and showing them how a college education can unlock doors to the wider world. This vision has been put into practice through more than a dozen innovative programs that reach deep into local schools, homeless shelters and service agencies throughout the Inland Empire to strengthen ties between town and gown. By Denise Hamilton Pitzer senior Trifari White recalls the surprise on her high-school guidance counselor’s face when she asked for an application to a private college. “She tried to steer me to a Cal State, she wasn’t that interested in me,” White says. “If you’re not taking AP classes, if you don’t fall into a certain academic standard that they think is college-bound, the counselors won’t keep on top of things. They expect you to go to a junior college. I didn’t know how to write the essays. I didn’t know about financial aid. I missed a lot of deadlines.” But White persevered, enrolled in AP classes and managed to get into Pitzer. Then, realizing that many younger students today face the same obstacles she once did, White joined Pitzer’s Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP), which motivates youths from lower socio-economic backgrounds and under-represented groups to develop the skills necessary to increase their chances of admission to four-year colleges. For several years now, White has given campus tours to youths from local schools. She answers questions about class offerings, social activities and campus life. She takes her young charges to eat in the cafeteria, brings them to admission and financial aid workshops and even hosts a “sleepover” in her dorm so students can get a taste for university life. This January, White caught up with a Pomona High School student who had shared her dorm room two years ago during such a sleepover. She is Nataly Buenrostro, 18, now a freshman at Pitzer. Despite living only a few miles away, “I had never even heard of The Claremont Colleges,” Buenrostro explains. “Private school never crossed my mind, I thought it would be too expensive. But that whole experience of visiting Pitzer made me love it. The girls [from EAOP] were really nice. They offered to talk to my parents about letting me live on campus. If not for early outreach, I wouldn’t be here.” The program that brought Buenrostro to campus is one of many that Pitzer has developed in recent years as part of its wide-ranging efforts to better connect the campus with the world around it. Since its inception, Pitzer has stressed academic learning in a hands-on environment coupled with a strong commitment to community service. But Pitzer faculty and administrators also realized they wanted to do more than the established norm of sending students out into the surrounding communities for limited Illustrations by Elaine Dalton Spring 2001 15
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Spring 2001 Participant - Pitzer College

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