For a second summer, students from local middle and high schools will have the opportunity to attend a College of Creative Studies-organized Summer Arts Institute.

With a Faculty Outreach Grant (FOG) of $28,000, CCS instructors Robyn Bell and Caroline Allen plan to recruit between 40 and 50 participants in the five-week-long institute. The students will choose how they divide their time among faculty and undergraduate student-led workshops in writing, painting, photography, and sculpture.

Other FOG-supported projects this year include a Mesoamerican-themed project that mixes science, technology, and cultural anthropology to get first generation, college-bound students to write and perform street theater and to create a human-powered vehicle inspired by the jaguar jungle cat. That project is from Gerardo Aldana of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department and Walter Yuen and Marisela Marquez of the Academic Senate’s Center for Faculty Outreach. It received $20,000 in FOG monies.

Five other academic preparation projects received FOG support for a combined total of $150,000 this year, reports Claudia Martinez, associate director of the Office of Academic Preparation and Equal Opportunity. With nearly $400,000 in requests, “it was a very competitive process,” she adds.

The final grant-supported projects included professional development services for teachers at Hueneme and Channel Islands high schools; a community arts partnership with a farm worker housing project in Oxnard; expansion of an after-school science program for girls in elementary schools in Goleta and Santa Barbara; year-round mentor teams to foster science and math-based competitions with mechanical devices and for test preparation at various levels and schools; and a second year of programs to counsel, mentor, and encourage parental involvement for South Coast students of African American and American Indian heritage.

FOG’s overarching goal is to ensure a more meaningful education and future college opportunities for UCSB’s target populations, said committee Chair Claudine Michel, professor of black studies. “Our committee was truly gratified to be able to identify strong proposals in the social sciences and humanities and in the sciences that will expose K-12 students to multiple perspectives, and open further avenues to them,” she said.