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Working Together to
Encourage and Support Berkeley Youth
New campus outreach programs -- and the ongoing
commitment of UC students -- are helping school children
throughout the East Bay. Cal volunteers' caring, personal
attention also encourages self-confidence among the students
they tutor and mentor.
The Berkeley Alliance
The often-cited expression, "it takes a village…,"
is exactly what UC Berkeley, the City of Berkeley and the
Berkeley Unified School District had in mind when they
joined forces last November to form a new partnership called
the "Berkeley Alliance."
The campus, city and school district have been working to
develop community projects using resources of the three
institutions, including academic and technical resources on
campus. In April, the university hosted a workshop attended
by more than 100 community members and school district, city
and campus leaders, who met to develop partnership ideas.
Potential Berkeley Alliance projects now being explored
include prenatal-to-kindergarten programs to prepare
children for school success, adolescent and pre-adolescent
programs to support healthy kids and families, after-school
enrichment programs, and "school-to-career" programs linking
Berkeley High School students to the work world.
Berkeley young people will offer additional ideas at a
youth forum to be held this fall.
The Berkeley Pledge
In his February "State of Education" address, U.S.
Education Secretary Richard Riley hailed the Berkeley Pledge
as a national model.
Launched by former chancellor Chang-Lin Tien in 1995, the
Pledge is a university program committed to sustaining
campus diversity by providing early outreach, support and
recruitment to local public schools. It particularly
emphasizes students most disadvantaged and underrepresented
in higher education in California.
In 1996-97, the Pledge adopted "pipeline schools" in four
Bay Area school districts -- Berkeley, Oakland, West Contra
Costa and San Francisco. It offers academic support programs
for K&endash;12 students, professional development for
teachers, and help in strengthening the K&endash;12
curriculum. In Berkeley, the pipeline schools are
Cragmont-Thousand Oaks, Malcolm X and Columbus elementary
schools; Longfellow, King and Willard middle schools, and
Berkeley High School.
After one year, K&endash;12 students served in Pledge
pipeline schools have shown marked progress in mathematics,
demonstrating that even in underserved neighborhoods,
children can achieve if the schools have the appropriate
resources.
"All children are capable of excelling," says Berkeley
Pledge coordinator Anita Madrid. "We have to find a way to
replicate what is happening in some of our excellent
outreach programs so that the entire school district
benefits."
In the next two years the Pledge will explore ways to
replicate in other subject areas the improvements it has
helped students achieve in math. It will also work for the
adoption of a model that partners universities with
K&endash;12 schools and hopes to encourage school
stakeholders to fund effective outreach programs and provide
needed resources and support.
Cal Students Making a Difference
Though it's impossible to determine the exact number of
UC Berkeley students who volunteer in the community, a
recent campus survey indicated that approximately two-thirds
of Cal's 21,000 undergraduates do volunteer work during
their four-year college career.
"The community has a reputation for being very active and
I think students come to Cal expecting to have volunteer
opportunities available to them," says Alex Lonne, program
director at Cal Corps Public Service Center, which pairs
student volunteers with community projects.
Many campus students choose to focus their efforts on
Berkeley, their hometown for at least four years. Recent Cal
graduate Jocelyn de Guia is one of them.
As an undergraduate, de Guia volunteered to mentor and
tutor at an Oakland junior high school and then joined
Americorps, the national service program pioneered by
President Clinton, to work in Berkeley schools.
Along with nine other Americorps members, de Guia
recruited and managed approximately 100 volunteer tutors
over the academic year. This team provided one-to-one
reading and writing assistance for several hours a week at
Martin Luther King and Willard middle schools and at the
James Kenney Recreation Center in west Berkeley.
"When I started mentoring my freshman year, my eyes were
really opened to a lot of services that students were
lacking," said de Guia. "It made me look at my background
and see how privileged I have been. It made me want to give
back."
According to Barbara Bowman, director of the Berkeley
School Volunteers program, about 1,000 Cal students
volunteer in Berkeley schools each year. "The commitment and
caring that they bring really makes a difference. And the
children love them," she added. 
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