Engaging scholars, opening doors

Grasping Crayola markers yesterday, three College Park Scholars freshmen and three Nicholas Orem Middle School students were asked to draw a picture that best represented home.

The university students drew their high rise dorm or their two-story, double-car garage suburban home. But Enry Cruz, 12, drew from memory the huge flag of El Salvador that now hangs in his living room.

"I might not know what [the symbols] mean, but it means a lot to me," Cruz said.

Cruz is just one of thousands of students in underpriveleged Prince George's County schools that university officials hope will connect with about 75 scholars who are required and scores of other students who are paid to participate in The Engaged University - a program that hopes to inspire younger students to follow a path toward college.

Sophomore Bradley Abt and his fellow students never had to struggle through a teenage pregnancy or the difficult choice of whether they should join a gang or stay in school, much as do the students they are likely to come in contact with over the next few semesters. Abt acknowledged the reality check he faced when he first began volunteering at Orem last year.

"We're in this sheltered environment where everyone has something good going for them. They don't have those luxuries," Abt said during a phone interview while driving to his first day as a volunteer tutor for Washington middle school students. "We're really, really lucky being on campus. It was eye-opening."

Although Engaged has existed on the campus since 2002, a large increase in funding this summer is opening the door to several new program initiatives in hopes of inspiring struggling area youth to become the next generation of doctors, lawyers or teachers.

"We're particularly interested in young people because we want them to have a future," said Margaret Morgan-Hubbard, director of Engaged University. "The tensions, antagonism and fear, there's no need for that. They're kids."

Beginning in January, the Provost's office will grant Engaged University another boost: $100,000 each year for the next five years, half of which goes toward other organizations' community service projects.

"I've been very, very enthusiastic about the efforts of this program," Provost Bill Destler said. "To get members of student, faculty and staff to improve the areas around the university, I've been doing what I can to support those programs."

Since the summer, Engaged University has coordinated after-school programs that teach organic gardening, graffiti art classes, photography, chess clubs, tutoring, bike repair and DJ lessons.

Organizers say the program has brought together faculty, alumni and other university community members to lead these after-school programs, but Engaged still needs more university students to enhance the project, Morgan-Hubbard said.

"It's a learning experience for both ... a mutually beneficial relationship," said Nina Harris, director of the Public Leadership program. Yesterday began the program that sends 50 Public Leadership freshman to Orem and 25 students to William Wirt Middle School.

In Prince George's County, the need to inspire students is increasing. The high school dropout rate has almost doubled during the past three years across the county, especially among Latino students, who had a 7.35 percent dropout rate this year. The satisfactory statewide standard is 3 percent or less.

Morgan-Hubbard first approached officials at Orem to get involved with the program because she thought the school was "a pretty funky place." She teamed up with the school's new principal and has since created an "extreme school make-over."

As visitors first approach the middle school, the student's graffiti art is on display. A defiant falcon, the school's mascot, is perched on a branch with its chest proudly puffed. The school's halls are also lined with student-painted murals, and around back, a student gardening club has been maintaining tomatoes, carrots, radishes and several other vegetables and herbs.

Orem is one of several underfunded schools in Prince George's County, which ranks second only to Baltimore City for the largest portion of low-income students in the state. The $8,600 the county spent per pupil in 2005 ranked last in the Washington area, and just half of Prince George's County students passed the High School Assessment tests last year, according to the county's Board of Education.

"If we truly want [the school] to be the center of the community, the community needs to get involved. I can't teach by myself," said Kenneth Calvin, Orem's principal. "We have to tap into all the resources or we'll be destined to fail. I don't have the resources, I don't have the manpower."

In addition to assisting the area youth, Engaged is also reaching out to parents. Parenting classes, often taught in Spanish, are held at the participating schools. At Northwestern High School, efforts are underway to create a credit union because many of the students' parents do not trust traditional banks or are denied accounts because they are not U.S. citizens, Morgan-Hubbard said.

Alumni Mazi Mutafa realized hip-hop's ability to bring communities together when he organized the university's first hip-hop conference as the Black Student Union's president. Now he's working alongside Engaged University to lead the poetry and DJ classes.

"We want young people who don't see themselves as learning to have a paradigm shift," said Mutafa, who does similar work in Washington with his organization Words Beats and Life. "We don't teach for the curriculum, but we teach them to get excitement in the curriculum."

Contact reporter Ben Block at blockdbk@gmail.com.