Fall 1997

A unique program SOARS into its second summer

SOARS was conceived by UCAR president Rick Anthes and associate vice president for human resources and employee relations Edna Comedy in order to help remedy the chronic underrepresentation of African-Americans, American Indians, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Alaskans in the atmospheric and related sciences. These groups made up only 2.4% of respondents in a recent survey of the discipline by the American Meteorological Society, although they constitute more than 20% of the U.S. population. SOARS follows the Summer Employment Program, which brought a new group of undergraduates to Boulder each year from 1980 to 1995; input from SEP students was used to craft the new program.

SOARS protégés. First row (left to right): Kiesha Stevens, Jennifer Zabel, Jazmin Diaz-Lopez, Paneen Petersen, Karen Mozealous. Second row: Jennifer Price, Christopher Castro, Stephanie Rivale, Sharon Perez-Suarez. Third row: Shirley Murillo, Lacey Holland, Rachel Vincent, Darnell Powers, Janel Cobb. Not pictured: Carl Etsitty, Quindi Franco, Preston Heard. (Photo by Carlye Calvin.)

SOARS gives participating students--called protégés--educational, research, and financial support; mentoring; and career counseling from acceptance (typically between the sophomore and senior years) through completion of their graduate degrees. Support during the academic year also comes from 38 UCAR member universities. "The partner university offers resources that equate to 50% of the protégé's grad school expenses for each of two years," explains Tom Windham, director of SOARS. "SOARS, through an NSF grant and now with new agreements with NOAA and NASA, contributes the other 50%." The program also subsidizes the summers at NCAR.

NASA and NOAA funded two of this year's new protégés. The students in these positions aren't locked into doing their research at that particular agency. The idea is that a match will present itself in time so that NASA and NOAA will eventually have SOARS students on site. "We want the program to have maximum flexibility," says Windham. At the end of the summer, the Environmental Science Division of the U.S. Department of Energy also became a sponsor, funding four new students for next year.

SOARS offers protégés in a graduate degree program the option of staying on their home campuses if that allows them to make significant progress on research toward the completion of their degree. Three SOARS protégés from last year--Carl Etsitty, Janel Cobb, and Preston Heard--exercised this option, returning to NCAR only to give seminars/updates on their work. A fourth, Quindi Franco, spent most of the summer in Washington, D.C., examining the links between climate research and public policy. "In a sense, he's on a field study," says Windham, "and the field happens to be D.C."

Windham developed the format for the program, in which each protégé is assigned four mentors. One is the traditional research mentor, one helps with science writing, one is a community liaison, and one (actually a group) offers peer support. Along with conveying technical knowledge, the mentors help guide the students through insecurity, homesickness, culture shock, and other pitfalls. Each mentor goes through an orientation program, which includes a three-hour workshop, to learn how to best serve a protégé.

For further information about SOARS, contact Windham (303-497-8624 or twindham@ucar.edu) or visit the program's Web site.

SOARS protégés and their projects for 1997