The College Access Challenge Grant Program has allocated $35,000 in federal grant money to the Portland State-sponsored Math, Engineering, Science Achievement program, which helps underrepresented and minority students achieve post-secondary success in the fields of math, engineering and science.
MESA is a national program that reached Oregon in 1989. David Coronado, executive director of Oregon MESA, said that the main goals of the program are to get students excited about college, educate parents and families about the college process and act as a support system for underrepresented students interested in pursuing higher education in the fields of science and technology.
According to Coronado, 60 percent of the students in the MESA program are the first in their family to attend college.
MESA works with 18 different middle and high schools around the state of Oregon, providing hands-on after school workshops that are focused on math and science. PSU undergraduate and graduate students work as mentors during these sessions.
Coronado said that mentors of a variety of ethnic, cultural and economic backgrounds are encouraged to participate so that younger students can see that someone similar to themselves has achieved what they hope to accomplish.
The MESA program is successful because of something Coronado calls “the pipeline,” a streamlined path to a post-secondary education. Essentially, a student can be in the MESA program starting from middle school, through high school and all the way to community college or a four-year university.
According to Coronado, MESA benefits PSU in several different ways. MESA acts as “a living laboratory,” from which actual innovations are produced. This year, for instance, the students are experimenting with the concept of wind energy.
MESA also benefits PSU by giving future teachers the opportunity to experience teaching and mentoring students in science and math, Coronado said. Additionally, MESA often works with PSU’s senior capstone community projects.
Coronado said that MESA benefits the city of Portland as well.
“The more education [students receive], the more money they make and the more they can contribute to the community,” he said.
Coronado believes that MESA is responsible for breaking cycles of poverty, and creates a locally educated, highly-skilled and diverse labor force, which will keep future jobs in Portland.
The grant money, which was matched by the Lemelson Foundation, will be used to expand the program to three new middle schools in the Portland metro area: Parkrose Middle School, Cesar Chavez School and Harriet Tubman Young Women’s Academy.
Grant funds will also go toward the creation of the MESA Community College Program. MCCP will be a two-year program that gives community college students the academic support they need to transition to a four-year university.
According to Carnahan, director of College Access Programs for the Oregon University System, what sets MESA apart from other educational programs is “its history of excellence, the number of schools and students that [MESA] works with and its emphasis on the fields of science, technology and math.”
Carnahan said that this grant is part of $1.5 million given to the state of Oregon by the federal government for the 2010–11 year. Of this $1.5 million, the CACGP originally allocated $607,000 to Oregon educational programs, from which MESA was excluded.
“MESA was one of the last groups cut from funding consideration when the grant money was originally allocated,” Carnahan said.
However, a previous federal grant—which expires this August—had leftover funds that were redirected toward programs originally rejected for funding. Carnahan said that MESA was chosen to receive this redistributed grant money because it was the organization most able to get its activities off the ground, given the short timeframe in which the money had to be spent. ?