Carmen Román's "Outreach Program"
The week of April 7th the continuation program McKeldin Library and the Department of Spanish's Dr. Ana Patricia Rodríguez co-hosted several programs for the Latinos in our neighboring communities. The first program brought students from Richard Montgomery High School to the University to experience several days of campus life. First the students came to McKeldin library to do some research on Esmerald Santiago's novel When I Was Puerto Rican.
The students arrived in the afternoon and were greeted by Dr. Rodríguez, and six librarians. For two hours the students worked in the computer lab to get information to answer the hand out sheet prepared by Dr. Rodríguez on the questions that were going to be covered in class. One of the reason for having them do this preparatory work, Dr. Rodríguez commented, was so that they would have knowledge of important information about the author and her work that the college students would not have. This would allow them to "shine" during the class discussions.
The students returned to campus on Friday April 11 for a full afternoon of activities which began with a pizza lunch at the Language House. During the meal they enjoyed presentations by several Latino college seniors who talked about campus life, etc.
At 2 pm they were escorted to Dr. Rodríguez's class ready to participate in the the discussion about Santiago's novel. Once the class was over the students were treated to an "official" tour of the campus.
The second program was hosted on two consecutive Saturday mornings at the Nyumburu Center and the Computer Lab of McKeldin Library. This program was directed at the Latino parents. Parents were invited to the University to learn about admission requirements, the application process, and money resources such as scholarships and financial aid. The scope was expanded this year to include an instructional session for Latino parents on using Web resources. The first session resulted in the participation of sixteen Latino parents who were given a basic internet search skills session all in Spanish. A Web site was produced that continues to grow as we speak. The Web site can be viewed at: http://www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/latino.html
Everyone involved was amazed at the energy level of these parents and their eagerness to learn as much as they could about the Web and its valuable resources.
The second session was attended by 32 Latino parents. This part of the workshop included presentations on learning styles and techniques to help students succeed in school presented by Dr. Evelyn Canabal in Spanish. The last part of this workshop was a financial aid and scholarship presentation by Carmen Román.
