By Vic Cox

Eva Pagaling's fingers played the computer keyboard with the dexterity of a concert pianist. Images of surf grass, sea animals, and distribution maps flashed on the screen above her and co-researcher Laura Herrera as they took turns reporting project results to their Bren Hall audience.

On the last day of the UCSB Summer Sessions’ 2007 Research Mentorship Program (RMP), the audience heard about the importance of a marine plant, called surf grass, to the coastal ecology of the Santa Barbara region. Pagaling, 16, is the first member of the Santa Inez Band of Chumash Indians to have participated in the mentor-guided, six-week-long science research projects for high school students since RMP was formed in 1995.

“I feel honored to be in this program,” said Pagaling, who is a Santa Ynez High School senior this year. “But I want to see more Native Americans participating, not only Chumash.”

She plans to go on to college, but not just any university. “I will be accepted at UCSB,” she confidently predicts. If that happens this fall, she will join the smallest among UCSB’s underrepresented minority groups—traditionally 1 percent of the total student population. (UC reports that between 1997 through 2007 the system’s American Indian admits fell from 0.9 percent to 0.6 percent of the freshman population.)

Wherever Pagaling attends college, some of the credit for having qualified will go to UCSB’s Chumash Scholars Program (CSP), in which she and her family are active participants. A new K-12 academic preparation program, CSP is an ambitious effort to unite students, parents, schools, tribal government agencies, and community groups in encouraging more Indian students to strive for a post-secondary education.

“CSP is open to all American Indian students. Other students who want to be involved are welcome, but our primary focus is on the American Indian community,” says Leslie Koda, CSP director. The initial outreach has been to Santa Ynez Valley high schools, and the UCSB undergraduates who serve as CSP mentors have piggybacked their efforts on a local tutoring program established in 2002 by the reservation’s education director, Frederick Loveys.

In line with education goals enunciated by Loveys and the tribe’s elected Education Committee, CSP also conducts field trips from Santa Ynez to UCSB and elsewhere to enhance the cultural and recreational sides of academic preparation. Some CSP members went to the Stanford University campus for a week on a Great Books reading program.

Parents and family members are also counseled about higher education processes, “demystifying the system and informing them of their rights,” says Koda.

Partly funded by a Chumash Foundation grant and partly by UC sources, including Koda’s home Office of Academic Preparation, the CSP is now two years old. It grew from nine to 17 Indian students in the second year and has identified a potential pool of 90 students, according to Koda. It has also held Town Hall meetings to explain the project’s goals, expand parental support, and seek feedback on academic needs.

Chumash Education Committee Chair Sarah Moses endorses the program. She says her group was “very impressed by UCSB’s commitment to launching the CSP in 2006, and we are pleased with the progress Leslie Koda has made this year (2007).” The next step is to take mentors into the elementary schools, something CSP plans to begin in February.

Koda has a full-time assistant now, and 14 undergrads to support the expanded mentoring element. When mentors become frustrated at unreturned phone calls or e-mails, she reminds them that the students “expect us to go away, like others who came with promises to help. We’re not going away.”

This is what students, families, and tribal leaders need to hear. As Moses said, “Developing pathways to colleges and universities is an important feature of the Chumash vision for tribal education. Our partnership with UCSB is strengthened significantly by the innovation and energy of the mentoring provided to our college-bound students by the CSP leadership and team.”