National program offers summer CU research for visiting undergrads

Guest speaker Nick Salvatore, right, Cornell professor of American studies, discusses the nature of research and his own work at a weekly luncheon with 10 visiting students participating in the National Leadership Alliance summer program at Cornell. Seated at left are Miguella Mark-Carew, of Dartmouth University, and Julia Clarke, of the University of South Florida. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

Barlow Flores is in the right place at the right time. The University of California at Irvine senior is completing a thesis on affirmative action titled "Progress or Regress? Recent Supreme Court Cases and Reactions of Interest Groups."

Flores is among a small group of minority undergraduate students from schools across the country who participate in the National Leadership Alliance (NLA) program during the summer at Cornell. Cornell is among a consortium of 30 universities that sponsor such programs.

NLA students spend their summers working one-on-one with top scholars. At the end of July, they will present their research at a national symposium titled "Building a Community of Excellence" in Chantilly, Va. In addition to academic research, students take road trips to New York City, Niagara Falls and prepare for GRE (Graduate Record Examination) courses through the Kaplan program.

"The Leadership Alliance has encouraged more than a thousand underrepresented students over the past decade to enter doctoral programs and to increase the number of scholars prepared for research and teaching careers," said Robert Harris, Cornell vice provost for diversity and faculty development and associate professor of African American history.

Flores' project investigates the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action involving undergraduate and law school admissions criteria at the University of Michigan. His research tracks the chronological positions of various interest groups on both sides of the case, as well as how these groups responded to the issue of affirmative action within the context of the Michigan cases.

"My work isn't a position paper or an argument on the pros or cons of affirmative action," said Flores. "Before I arrived, my faculty mentor (Stephen Morgan) and I discussed the project. I had no idea then that President (Jeff) Lehman was gong to be here."

The former dean of the University of Michigan Law School, Lehman, who assumed the presidency of Cornell July 1, was a defendant in the Supreme Court case involving the Michigan law school's use of race in the admissions process.

Morgan said Flores is doing the kind of research you'd expect from graduates.

"Cornell is fortunate to have Barlow in town for the summer," Morgan said. "He certainly shows the talent that suggests he can become a scholar of distinction, and I am hopeful that this summer will help him to decide whether or not the academy should be his occupational destination."

Most alliance students here this summer are majors in science and technology. Flores, a social sciences major, is one of three exceptions. Zully Rivera Ramos, also a social science major, is a senior at the University of Puerto Rico. And senior Kim Green is an English and education major at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C.

Rivera Ramos arrived uncertain what exactly was in store concerning her research. She had to ramp up quickly when her mentor, Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of developmental and clinical psychology, had her take on a substantial task: a survey of perceptions of masculinity and sexuality among young men between the ages of 18 and 25.

Rivera Ramos said her study "focuses on the differences and similarities that exist between the views of homosexuals, heterosexuals and bisexuals." With help from Savin-Williams, she developed a literature review, a questionnaire and an interview survey. The study's purpose is to help demonstrate increased or decreased social tolerance toward sexual minorities, while assessing perceptions of social support networks by sexual minorities and how those perceptions compared with perceptions by heterosexuals.

"Even though I didn't get as many surveys completed as I would have liked [she was shooting for 50 responses, but time was a limiting factor], I was surprised by the diversity at Cornell. I expected almost all the students I would interview to be young white males," she said.

The next step was the toughest -- quantifying her results.

"I've never done data analysis before, and there is some number crunching involved," said Rivera Ramos, who eventually plans to pursue a Ph.D. in social psychology.

Savin-Williams said he was impressed with Rivera Ramos' academic savvy.

"Zully has been able to transform an idea into a workable proposal and now a survey in a matter of weeks, primarily because she is bright, highly motivated and committed to her research," he said. "She has started writing the literature review and was able to get human subjects approval for her questionnaire, which we developed together in a week's time.

"I believe it is imperative that we give students with Zully's credentials the opportunity to explore social science research, and Cornell does this through the support and foresight of the Leadership Alliance program," Savin-Williams added.

Green is working one-to-one with Suzette Spencer, a postdoctoral research fellow in Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center. Green's project is a study titled "Bronze Muses," a comparative analysis of the social protest poetry of 19th century black writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and 20th century writer Sonia Sanchez. The paper is designed to show connections between these two authors' poetry as well to demonstrate their influences on their respective societies. Although Harper's novel about the Reconstructed South, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (1892), was one of the first books ever published by a black American, she remains obscure. In her thesis paper, Green argues for the importance of considering the poetry of Harper and Sanchez as social activism.

Green's summer studies serendipitously coincided with Cornell Kroch Library's abolition exhibit read the story). The exhibit features writings of 19th-century abolitionists and peers of Harper. And, said Green, Spencer has provided her with excellent guidance and instruction. The respect is mutual.

"Kim Green's innovative project situates her in the vanguard of scholarship being done by scholars of African American letters, and I am delighted to be working with her," said Spencer. "I'm confident that given the opportunity and mentorship, she will make a strong graduate school candidate. We will continue to work together in the future to make plans for her graduate study."