New Foundation Started to Help Prepare Children for College
Edinburg - May 28, 2008 - 6:59 PM
Jennifer L. Berghom - The Monitor

EDINBURG - Some might think of the Rio Grande Valley as the back door to the United States.

But others see it as the doorway to magic.

"I don't see (the Valley) as the end of the country but the beginning of the American dream," said Patricia Loera, senior program officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which on Wednesday helped announce a new program to increase college enrollment.

The initiative - administered by Texas Valley Communities Foundation and funded with a $500,000 Gates grant - is just one more way to connect with students from a young age and provide them opportunities to succeed, said Roland Arriola, a retired vice president of the University of Texas-Pan American who now serves as president of Texas Valley Communities.

Arriola likened the new Engaging Communities for College Readiness (ENCORE) program to Hispanic Engineering, Science and Technology (HESTEC) Week at UTPA.

He credited HESTEC with growing the university's engineering program from 400 to 1,000 students in the past several years, and hopes ENCORE will soon encourage more students to attend college and study other areas.

"I know it works. I've seen it work through HESTEC," said Arriola, who helped establish ENCORE.

Arriola said ENCORE leaders will look for money from sources other than the Gates Foundation and hope to build an endowment of $100 million in the next decade.

Through the ENCORE program, the foundation plans to help community groups and other organizations find money for projects that prepare students for higher education. The foundation also plans to educate families about the importance of earning a college degree, Arriola said.

The Gates Foundation has given more than $20 million to the Rio Grande Valley over the past several years for various projects, including the Hidalgo school district's early college high school program and the high school redesign project taken on by the Weslaco, Zapata County and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo districts.

Loera said the foundation continues to give money to projects in the Valley because there is a great need for resources here and there are many leaders who are working to help improve education in the Valley.

PSJA student Cecilia Corral spoke at Wednesday's announcement at the Social Club Conference Center in Edinburg about how her school district's partnership with South Texas College allowed her to take dual enrollment classes and earn an associate degree in engineering as she worked toward her high school diploma.

Cecilia, who recently received a full-tuition Gates Millennium Scholarship, now plans to attend Stanford University in California in the fall. Arriola and other local educators said they hope to see more students taking dual enrollment and advanced-level courses in the coming years.

"We just don't want to see one Cecilia, we want to see thousands of Cecilias," Arriola said.

Already, schools are seeing more students take advantage of dual enrollment and college preparatory classes, said Jack Damron, executive director of Region One Education Service Center.

"I know attitudes are being changed for the better," he said.