At the Texas Diversity Council Summer Youth Program, anyone can go to college

Luz Deleon remembers the first time she heard the word “valedictorian.” She was in second grade, attending an older sibling’s high school graduation. The youngest of eight had seen her sisters and brothers leave home to attend college — and she’d heard from her parents how expensive it was.

From left: Samantha Vela and Enrique Grimaldo are repeat campers at the TXDC Summer Youth Program, while college freshman Luz Deleon has returned as intern and mentor after four summers as a student. (Photo by Katharine Shilcutt)

“I knew I wanted to go to college too, but there was no way my parents could afford it,” said Deleon. Moreover, they didn’t want their baby leaving home. “They’re from Mexico and it’s a very different culture. They didn’t want me to go away.”

But Deleon was undeterred. After all, the budding doctoral student argued, you can’t get a Ph.D. from home. “So I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to become valedictorian so that I can get a lot of scholarships and go to college for free.’” And she did.

In high school, she received straight-A’s all four years, became valedictorian of her class at Houston’s Northside High School and received a full ride to Skidmore College, where she’s currently a rising sophomore. Deleon attributes her success in large part to her early exposure to the concept of college scholarships — both as a second-grader and later during high school at the Texas Diversity Council (TXDC) Summer Youth Program at Rice.

Deleon attended the weeklong camp four years in a row. This year she returned as an intern for the TXDC to help mentor younger students — many of whom, like her, are first-generation college-bound students from the Greater Houston area who were aiming to complete all four years of the Summer Youth Program themselves. Why?

In addition to reaping the benefits of the intense college-prep work that takes place each June, all students who attend the camp for four consecutive years receive a scholarship of $1,000. And one of the things they learn in the Summer Youth Program is that every penny counts when you’re saving for school.

“We want these kids to understand that anyone can go to college,” said Dennis Kennedy, founder and chairman of the National Diversity Council, which has helped to sponsor the camp since it was established. “And you don’t have to wait until you’re in 12th grade to talk about college.”

Kennedy was lucky enough to have college-educated parents and a knack for football, which netted him a full ride to the University of Houston. There, he realized the power of education throughout the process of obtaining five degrees and became resolute about finding a way to encourage college attendance for those who weren’t as fortunate.

Dennis Kennedy is the founder and chair of the National Diversity Council, which partnered with Rice to launch the camp in 2010.

“You can’t be what you can’t see, and very often they don’t see good role models in their lives,” said Kennedy. Partnering with Rice when developing and designing the summer camp nearly a decade ago was a goal for Kennedy, and that process meshed with one of the goals of Rice’s Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade (V2C2): to coordinate educational programs and engage with Houston as a strategic academic partner.

“It’s the best school in the state of Texas, unequivocally,” he said. “We wanted to bring them to a campus such as Rice and provide them those role models so they can see other people who look like them who are achieving.”

David Medina ’83, director of multicultural community relations in Rice’s Office of Public Affairs, first partnered with Kennedy and the National Diversity Council to launch the Summer Youth Program in 2010. “We started the program because we wanted to teach underserved high school students how to write well so that they could get into college and succeed in their careers,” said Medina of the writing-intensive camp. “I think that writing is one of the most important things that students can learn in high school.”

Eight years on, he’s seen the camp triple in size and watched with satisfaction as it’s already paid dividends to those who come back year after year. “I’m very proud of the students who stayed with the program for four years, went to college and returned to the summer camp as volunteers to help other students succeed,” he said.

This summer, 60 students from local middle and high schools have arrived on campus early each morning for days packed with writing workshops, practice exams for the SAT and ACT, presentations on financial aid and the admissions process, leadership activities, art exhibits and much more.

“Most of these gifted students come from lower-income households and, with a little guidance, have the potential to be the first in their families to attend college,” said Laura Alvarado, senior director of operations for the Texas Diversity Council. “The program is designed to provide lessons and activities that will equip these students for a successful transition into college and through to graduation.”

Enrique Grimaldo, a rising junior at Heights High School, said, “If you start doing programs like this after eighth grade, it’s going to be easier to apply this sort of stuff in your freshman and sophomore years, which I have. This definitely helped me.”

TXDC campers enjoyed lunch in the North Servery each afternoon. (Photo by Katharine Shilcutt)

Grimaldo admitted that his first year at the Summer Youth Program was a rush of new information that seemed overwhelming at the time. But realizing he was in the same boat as everyone around him helped him cope, he said. Asking questions wasn’t awkward; it was encouraged. Being confused about the plethora of forms and applications wasn’t abnormal, but a week spent in the program made the entire process less daunting and more accessible. Now in his third year, Grimaldo said he is “getting a better sense of how competitive everything is. I’m ready for this.”

For the past four years, Samantha Vela was ferried to and from campus by her grandmother for the weeklong summer camp, where Vela soaked up everything she could about securing funding for college.

Now heading into her senior year at the High School for Law and Justice, the oldest of four was determined to show her younger siblings that college is a possibility for all of the Vela sisters. She’d been busily applying for more scholarships and was recently nominated for a Posse Foundation scholarship, which provides four years of full tuition at the foundation’s partner universities. If it weren’t for the Summer Youth Program, Vela said, she’d have no idea such foundations even exist.

Like Grimaldo, Vela found her initial year in the program daunting — at first. “And then I saw how they were going to help me out here, how they were going to be able to answer all of my questions. And being a first-generation, I had somany questions,” she said with a laugh.

And while she arrived with no idea of what she wanted to do after college, Vela now knows she wants to be a mechanical engineer — a career she didn’t know existed until such an engineer came to speak at last year’s camp. The engineer and Vela met for coffee after camp was over, and this meeting sparked an interest that’s grown even more in the year since as the two have kept up.

Deleon saw her own experience at the Summer Youth Program come full circle from a green eighth-grader to a successful veteran of the college application process; now, she’s an intern and mentor with two semesters under her belt. The young woman who plans on returning to Houston after school to study neuroscience in the Texas Medical Center and start a nonprofit is thrilled to be giving back to the program that gave her so much.

“A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of the parents in the program and she was really worried because she and her husband didn’t go to college but they want their son to be able to,” Deleon said. “I felt a connection.”

Although it took a while for her own parents to come around to their youngest daughter going away for school, they ultimately realized how happy Deleon was, thriving on campus and pursuing her Ph.D. dreams, thanks to the Summer Youth Program. “They know that I work hard and I’m responsible and it’s really paying off,” said Deleon. “And seeing other parents learn more about college makes me really happy too.”