D.C. students learn from CU urban planners

Niurca Soriano, right, a 10th-grader from Cesar Chavez High School in Washington, D.C., works on creating a computer map with the help of Karina Ricks, M.R.P. '98. Robert Barker/University Photography 5

By Linda Myers

In one short year, Irasema Salcido has done the near impossible. She has taken 60 young people, most of them black and Hispanic, from the most ravaged neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., and turned them into a dedicated group of college-bound students.

Salcido selected the students for her newly founded Cesar Chavez Charter High School for Public Policy not for their previous academic achievements but for their determination to buckle down and study harder than they ever had before, including taking part in Saturday college-preparatory classes. Their parents also needed to make a commitment to helping them go on to college.

Salcido's ambitious long-range vision is "to develop young people who will make our country a better place by influencing public policies that affect their communities." As a first step, she recruited people who make public policy in Washington to serve as one-on-one volunteer tutors for all 60 students two hours each school day after class. One of the places she recruited was the Environmental Protection Agency office next to the school, where Cornell alumna Karina Ricks works as a program analyst. Ricks, who earned a master's degree in regional planning from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning in 1998, not only signed up as a tutor but brought Salcido to Cornell last spring and introduced her to urban planning students and professors. Salcido proposed to them that they host a group of Cesar Chavez students this summer and show them that university-level studies are both attainable and relevant to their lives. "We want our students to see that there's a place for them in higher education," Salcido said.

Thirteen of the Cesar Chavez students and a few of their parents spent four days on campus last week attending special classes on topics related to public policy and planning, including a workshop led by education student Kieran Killeen in which the high school students used computers to create their own custom maps, and a special session led by college admissions officer Reginald Ryder on what it takes to get into college and what the financial aid possibilities are. The high schoolers and the urban planning students and professors discovered they had a lot to learn from each other, and from all accounts, the visit heralded the start of what promises to be a beautiful friendship.

"It's important for Cornell urban planning students to learn how these young urban residents envision their neighborhoods," said Ricks, who accompanied the high schoolers to Cornell and brought with her portfolios produced by another group of Cesar Chavez students, who had spent three weeks this summer carefully observing where they live, cataloging signs of urban decay and proposing ways to improve the picture.

"It was gratifying to see how everybody really clicked," said Kate Carpenter, a second-year city and regional planning graduate student who helped organize the visit. "It was evident just by looking at the faces of the [urban planning] students and faculty that they have been thirsting for this kind of contact for so long."

"This is one of the many sorts of connections that universities and city neighborhoods should be making constantly," said Professor William Goldsmith, who directs the undergraduate program in urban studies in the Department of City and Regional Planning. "These young people need financial aid to go to college, but they also need to be invited and welcomed, shown how things work and told that the privilege of college education belongs to them, too."

The students also gave a presentation on Cesar Chavez Charter School, with assistance from Kevin Thompson, M.R.P. '83, an environmental health and safety administrator with Cornell whose wife, Michelle, M.R.P. '84, another volunteer, is a Ph.D. student in the program. The high schoolers answered the planning students' and professors' questions about their lives. When asked how friends and family reacted to their commitment to a heavy study load, Monique Jackson, said: "My family is supportive, and my friends think I'm crazy." Jackson hopes to go on to study public policy.

Tiah Suggs commented: "When my friends hear about our trips they say, 'Girl, you're lucky. I wanna go to that school,' but when they see the pile of books I come home with every day, they say, 'Girl, you're doin' too much work. You gotta go to a regular public school.'"

Suggs' aunt, Wendy Price, a certified nurse, said of her daughter, Tiffany Green, another Cesar Chavez student: "I want Tiffany to have the opportunity that I never had to go to college, and I want her to know what she needs to do to get there. I tell her, 'You have to give up something to get something, but it will be worth it in the long run." Green hopes to become a marine biologist.

When asked if they planned to carry their success story to the Washington, D.C., school board, the Cesar Chavez students agreed they had a story to tell but doubted they'd be listened to. LaZema Brown, who worked for a public official this summer, said she learned that many public office holders use their school board membership to further their careers and are disinterested in effecting real change.

The visit included activities that gave the urban students a taste of the rural outdoors in Tompkins County, a tour of the Latino Studies residence hall and a chance to talk with Cornell students living at Telluride House, where the high schoolers and parents were guests. Telluride donated four days of room and board for the visitors. Nicole Blumner, a graduate student in the CRP and MBA programs, and undergraduate Raven Hall, both residents of Telluride House, helped facilitate the gift and were among 20 student volunteers who assisted the visitors during their stay. Regional science student Mark Kimura created a web site for the visit, at http://www.crp.cornell.edu/pub/chavez/.

And what did the Cesar Chavez students think of Ithaca and Cornell? "It really helped me see what college is like," said Chessie Moquete of her visit. "It's a long hike up that hill," said Salvador Baruca, "but it's quieter and cooler than D.C. -- and it smells better."