By LEILA SCHOEPKE | Guest Writer

APSU has been hosting the Science and Math Academy (SAMA), under the direction of Biology professor Willodean Burton, for three years. The program was designed to give a selected number of high schools students from across Tennessee a two-week university experience through which they get a college-level taste of two important subjects they generally take as freshmen: science and math. This year, the SAMA took place from Monday, June 7, through Friday, June 18.

The University of Memphis organized the first Math Academy and that served as a template, Burton said. The second year, Tennessee Board of Regents asked Tennessee State University and APSU to be part of the program. TSU decided to do the math because the template was already there, and Burton decided that APSU should do both science and math.

“I have not regretted that. I think it’s a good combination that I know the students can link the two together and that is two of the courses that whenever you’re talking about education, math and science are right there in the mix,” she said.

Students are chosen to participate in the SAMA through identification by their teachers. The process starts by sending out advertisements to all the high schools in Tennessee. Students get to learn about the program through their high school counselors who would give them the information and connections they need. Individuals who are interested in the program would contact Burton, who would then send them the application materials.

Burton said what is unique about the 2010 SAMA is that APSU was able to hit capacity for the program.

“TBR asked us to accommodate 50 students. The first year they were 30, the second year 35 and this year we actually had over 60 applications. We chose 50 students. Only one did not come, so we have 49 that we’ve been working with in the last two weeks,” she said.

Through the SAMA, Burton hopes high school students will begin to think about a higher education. She also hopes that they choose to go to APSU.

During their two weeks on APSU’s campus, the 49 SAMA students attended math and science classes. They had three math professors and three science professors, all from APSU. There were also teachers from different Montgomery County High Schools who were in the classrooms with the professors.

“They have a mentor and a professor and then the students are there so that the high school teachers can relate to the high school students and they help the professors make a nice smooth transition and distribute the information carefully,” Burton said.

Besides the math and science classes, the students attended a physics session where they had a lecture and activities just as they would do if they went to a college class. They went to the library and learned how to use the computers and how to access information from their home computers. Additionally, they went to a nursing home as a community service activity and spent two evenings there interacting with the residents. On their second visit to the nursing home, they served ice cream and played games. They also had a field trip to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

For the last day in the academy, the students were scheduled to take a post-science test in the morning, as an evaluation tool, as well as attend a reception and a closing ceremony where they would receive gift bags and $150, which is part of the TBR stipulations, for attending and staying throughout the program, Burton said.

APSU biology graduate Scarlett Spurgeon and pre-med student Krystle Irizarry were two of nine group leaders in charge of five or six high school students each. Their role was to teach the students a little bit about what college and on-campus life are like, coordinate some of the activities such as going to the nursing home, help students with their homework, play games and make sure they got where they needed to be throughout the day such as classes, meals and bed on time.

“We got to play a crucial role in how they spent their week, which is pretty interesting because when I first got the job I thought we were just going to watch … but we actually got to plan out the activities, plan out what they were gonna eat, plan what they wanted to watch,” Irizarry said.

Spurgeon said her responsibility as a group leader is very important because “high school students can be very stubborn in some ways but can be easily led sometimes.” Spurgeon considers her role during the academy significant and so, she said, she does her best so her life is “above reproach in any way” and so that she can be someone the younger students can look up to.

“Just basically being leaders to them and being good role models for “them, because a lot of these kids — for example, in the nursing home, they might not have been before and so how do you interact with somebody that’s in a nursing home or how do you act in a college classroom setting,” Spurgeon said.

The group leaders said the experience of being mentors to the SAMA students taught them a lot about responsibility, relationships and helping younger students become acquainted with college life and learn about the many opportunities and possibilities they can have by choosing to further their education.

“It’s very much getting involved with them on a personal level and showing them this is what you wanna do because it’s a better way of handling yourself, it’s a better way of living your life, it’s about going further than what you can do because you know you wanna be successful in the future,” Irizarry said.

Group leaders are chosen through submitting an application that is reviewed by Burton and the coordinator who then make the decision of hiring those best suited to lead the students and assist them during the two-week Science and Math Academy, according to Spurgeon.

The fact the students had a very set and busy schedule which did not give them a lot of free time to do whatever they wanted was frustrating for them at times, Spurgeon said.

Some of the students might have liked being away from home and being on their own for a while. A lot of them loved the hands on experiments in the science classes because they had access to more resources than they normally have in high schools.

They enjoyed the community service of going to the nursing home and interacting with the residents. They also liked some of the math teachers and what they learned through them, the group leaders said.

“It was kind of different from what they learned in high school and it really made them think; and so it was hard, and at that time they didn’t like it, but when they got out of class you would often hear them remark, ‘That was really hard but that was really interesting,’ so I think that they enjoyed it even if they weren’t sure that they did at first,” Spurgeon said.