From a Riverside native who handwrote her high school essays because she did not own a computer to a woman who is one of only 96 black students in her year, Campbell Hall bustles with students from myriad backgrounds who all say they benefit from the Academic Advancement Program.
It’s the organization’s mission to provide these students with access to educational resources. Serving as the nation’s largest university-based student diversity program, the program today celebrates 35 years as a support base for low-income, first generation and underrepresented students by honoring five leaders with the first Academic Advancement Program Leadership Awards.
The celebration, which will also honor 35 UCLA graduates with Distinguished Alumni Awards, will take place in Royce Hall at 7 p.m.
Director Charles Alexander said AAP was founded with the goals of both diversifying the student body and then retaining diverse students.
“In the early days, there was always an effort to recruit a diverse student population, but nothing (was) there to help them stay in school,” Alexander said. “The whole design of (the project) was … to make sure you’re getting academic support.”
To increase retention for groups that may not initially feel at home on campus, the organization implemented transfer services, tutoring and summer programs to orient students to the campus.
The program operates under the assumption that these programs provide support where it is most needed.
Tutor Supervisor Hector Pacheco, a fourth-year communication studies student, said the program motivates students who did not have guidance as high school students.
“If you didn’t have a strong background telling you to do your homework and to do well on tests so that you can go to college, you might not have that support now,” Pacheco said. “The program wants to fill in for any gaps in support or encouragement.”
As AAP evolved, it remained focused on providing these resources while expanding to emphasize further education after graduation.
By offering services such as workshops, information sessions, reviews of admissions essays and one-on-one mentoring with UCLA graduate students, the mentoring programs seek to increase the number of low-income and underrepresented students in graduate or professional schools.
Countless AAP students move on to pursue graduate degrees at top University of California campuses and Ivy League universities such as Columbia and Harvard.
For some students, the work of AAP transcends academics alone and has shaped the social and emotional lives of students through support networks.
Elvira Rodriguez, the Riverside native, is a fourth-year Chicana and Chicano studies student who credits the organization with keeping her at UCLA.
“I did not like it here. I felt alone in all of my classes, like I was the only person from my background in my classes. UCLA was a very isolating place for me,” Rodriguez said, describing her first quarter at UCLA.
The turning point came when Rodriguez attended a workshop for a program within the organization, where she met La’Tonya Rease Miles, the associate director of the mentoring programs. Getting involved in the program, Rodriguez built a meaningful relationship with the faculty member she came to know as “LT.”
“Rarely will you ever find anyone who will look out for you the way that LT has looked out for me,” Rodriguez said. “The program created the infrastructure for me to have these personal relationships.”
She said the organization has also impacted her attitude toward the institution of higher education.
“It makes you feel not only lucky to be here, but entitled to be here. You learn to take ownership of these academic spaces,” Rodriguez said.
Dionna Chambers, a second-year sociology and world arts and cultures student, said the program gave her the sense of community that she needed as one of 96 black students enrolled in the class of 2010.
“It was a small little community and really made me comfortable here,” Chambers said. “If I didn’t do that I would probably feel really isolated and lonely because I’m a minority, and there are not very many of us here.”
In 1996, the passage of California Proposition 209, which prohibits public institutions from taking race, sex or ethnicity into account when considering admissions, led to a redefinition of the program’s eligibility criteria.
Rather than considering race as one of the criteria, the program began looking at life challenges, income and first-generation status, Alexander said.
He added that the proposition also indirectly influenced the organization by changing criteria for admission to UCLA. Because the program cannot recruit students until they are admitted to the university, the change in diversity of entering classes eventually affected the program’s student composition.
Today’s 35th anniversary marks a milestone in AAP’s history, illustrating a longevity that is rare for diversity programs. Alexander proudly cites this endurance as one of the organization’s greatest achievements.
“Programs like this don’t last at many universities; they get de-funded or lose their status,” Alexander said. “Twenty-three thousand students have gone through this at one point or another, not to mention those who have worked in the program. To me that is a great accomplishment.”