Opening Eyes
Outreach / Summer Scholars

Last April, Chioma Enweasor ’10 and Kevin Delucio had to make a difficult decision.

Enweasor had to choose among Columbia University, Williams College and Pomona College, while Delucio debated among Pomona, Williams, Amherst College and Swarthmore College.

You’d never guess that these students were once considered “at risk” of not attending college at all. Now, as members of the first graduating class of Pomona’s Summer Scholars Enrichment Program, they are walking testaments to the success of the four-week residential program.

Other SSEP graduates enrolled at UCLA, UC Berkeley and Harvey Mudd. “They did really well in the application process,” said Maria Tucker, director of Pomona’s Office of Community and Multicultural Programs and SSEP director.

“To think that these are students who at the beginning of their high school careers are thought to be at risk for not going to college because most of them are first-generation and low-income.”

The free program serving students from Los Angeles and Inland Valley high schools—such as Ontario’s Colony High School where Delucio and Enweasor both graduated—gives rising 10th- through 12th-graders an opportunity to experience college life. The goal is to prepare them for admission to highly selective institutions in an effort to enlarge the pool of qualified students of color, from low-income families or who are first in their family to attend college.

“This program really opened my eyes to different college options,” said Delucio, who enrolled at Williams. “I didn’t even know there was small school versus big school. It was a really beneficial experience.”

Enweasor’s exposure to a liberal arts education through SSEP determined which college she would attend. “I don’t even know how to measure what we got out of it,” she said. “It was … wow.”

Pomona received a $250,000 grant from the California Educational Facilities Authority to continue the program, which was launched with funding from the James Irvine Foundation and is supported also by funding from the Draper family. The 90 students who are accepted into
the program each year are encouraged to attend for three consecutive summers, giving
them the unique opportunity to work closely with Pomona professors in core writing and math classes. Students also take two electives, taught by Pomona students serving as teaching assistants.

(Seventy Pomona students applied for the 12 TA positions last summer.) During their third summer, SSEP students participate in a professor’s research project. Enweasor and Delucio participated in a research class titled The Medieval Dance of Death with Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance Arthur Horowitz. The five-student class met for two hours a day.

“(Professor Horowitz) thought everything we did was interesting. It was so cool,” Delucio said, as he smiled. “He got us a bunch of different materials and suggested books.

“Every day he would come, he’d say, ‘I have something for you,’” Enweasor added. “He was really supportive throughout the whole thing.”

The professor’s laid-back nature came as a surprise to the students. “One of our friends was playing with a brush, and (Horowitz) stopped the class,” Enweasor said. “We were thinking, ‘Oh, he’s in trouble’ because we’re used to that. Teachers tend to be hostile. He was like,
‘What are you playing with? Can I see that? What is that?’”

It was this combination of discipline and relaxation that allowed the scholars to thrive.

“When I came into the program, I had no voice, but by last year I did. The professors
allow you to put things in your own language …” Enweasor said. “We took that back with us to school, and our English teacher said our writing is better than those who didn’t have the program. These classes were a big step from high school classes.”
—Molly Berman ’07