May 20, 2002

Contact: Teresa Hendrix 
(805) 756-7266
Bret Harrison
MESA Director
(805) 756-7319
  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

Cal Poly Launches New Summer Carver College Program for High School Students

Cal Poly's College of Agriculture will offer a new program this summer for high-achieving 
students from across California who show promise in technology and science-based careers in
agriculture and ag-related industries.

The first Carver College program at Cal Poly will bring 24 California
high school students - 12 boys and 12 girls - to live on campus for
four days of classes and workshops taught by university faculty June
23-27.

Cal Poly's Carver College program, named in honor of African-American
agriculture researcher, professor and pioneer George Washington Carver,
is free to the 24 students thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Cacique
Foundation, the charitable arm of Mexican cheese company Cacique Inc.
While at the university, students will take courses in food science and
nutrition, earth and soil sciences, bioresource and agricultural
engineering, animal science, horticulture and crop science, dairy
science, and forestry and natural resource management.

The university hopes to expose students to the changing face of
agriculture, explained Carver College Director Bret Harrison, who is
also the director of the university's MESA (Mathematics, Engineering,
Science Achievement) agricultural outreach initiative.

"Agriculture needs managers up to date on the latest developments in
processing, packaging and marketing food commodities. Agriculture needs
students who are very savvy with math and science and have the
technical skills to program a computer or a GPS unit in a tractor to
tell it how to lay the proper pattern of drip irrigation line, or apply
pesticides or fertilizers using satellite coordinates from a GPS
system, and people who know the chemical characteristics of their
soils, how they percolate, hold water or hold nutrients," Harrison said.

Giving promising students a look at the high-tech side of modern
agriculture and its financially rewarding careers is what Carver
College is about. Cal Poly modeled the program on one at Tuskegee
University in Alabama as well as outreach programs already used by
other California college MESA programs.

Naming the new Cal Poly summer program in honor of pioneering
agriculturalist Carver was a natural choice, said Harrison. Carver,
born a slave in Missouri about 1864, went on to study botany at what is
now Iowa State University and became the first black faculty member
there. He later taught at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, doing
pioneering research in agriculture that gave Southern farmers
profitable crop alternatives to cotton.

"George Washington Carver is a symbol of agricultural initiative. He
was born a slave, but he had a passion for agriculture and agricultural
science. He wound up revolutionizing farming practice in the United
States, and in essence saved the Southern agriculture industry with the
practices he developed," said Harrison.

It's that kind of passion Cal Poly's Carver College program hopes to
stir, Harrison said. With continuing support from industry, Cal Poly's
College of Agriculture hopes to make Carver College an annual event,
and expand the program to include a summer Carver Academy for middle
school students.

The university hopes to use the summer programs to reach out to bright
students in some of the state's most economically disadvantaged areas
and encourage them toward college, Harrison said.

Cal Poly is currently among the leading schools in the nation in
awarding bachelor's degrees to Hispanic students. "We are proud of
that, but we intend to improve on our record by getting the word out
about careers available to those who graduate from Cal Poly," said
College of Agriculture Dean David Wehner. "Our graduates from the
College of Agriculture - including minority graduates - are already in
the legislature, in law offices, in biotechnology companies and
research and quality assurance laboratories. They're helping lead some
of the most remarkable technological changes America has ever
experienced."

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