Laying the path to a college education is the easy part for the College Assistance Migrant Program. Convincing students to take it is the challenge.
The program, popularly referred to as CAMP, targets a sizeable population in California that nonetheless isn’t a sizeable portion of the college-going population: the children of migrant farm workers.
The federally funded program provides academic, financial and emotional support to 80 incoming freshmen every year. But it’s not necessarily an easy sell, says Viridiana Diaz, acting director and an alum of the program. “Most are students who are not planning to go to college. And if they are going to go, they plan to go to a local community college nearby. Not to the ‘big city.’”
Each semester representatives from the program visit the children and their families where they live—in the agricultural areas, in the camps—to encourage them to make the leap to college. “Once we can get them to come on campus to visit, they are more likely to come to Sac State. After a day, they can see themselves here.”
Before she was approached by a CAMP recruiter, social work major Adriana Cervantes had no plans to attend a four-year university. “My high school counselor told me I was ‘community college material,’” she says. But the recruiter, who happened to be Diaz, told her she had the grades and motivated her to apply. And Diaz was right. Cervantes will graduate in December and plans to pursue a master’s degree.
Each fall a new “class” of CAMPers arrive. But an additional 1,500 continue to touch base with the program throughout their college careers and after graduation, stopping by program headquarters to advise the new crop, or just hang out. “They never leave,” Diaz says with a laugh.
CAMP students receive academic counseling, tutoring, social activities, housing assistance, job placement, and, perhaps most importantly, emotional support. Most of those working in the CAMP office are graduates of the program and are well-versed in the issues the students face. In addition to academic challenges—as many as 96 percent need remedial courses in English and mathematics—there are topics that are common among students who have left family life to attend college including homesickness and, in particular, guilt.
“They see us as counselors,” Diaz says. “That’s the main support they receive from us. We offer a ‘home away from home.’ It’s a place where students like them are facing the same issues that they are.”
In her first year Cervantes didn’t think she was going to make it, but says CAMP helped her become more confident.
“I grew a lot,” she says. “I was exposed to a lot of things I didn’t think I could do. I accomplished things I didn’t think I could accomplish.”
Art Pimental agrees, saying the program was “empowering” and helped a formerly shy person get out of his shell and get involved with student government. Pimental carried that involvement into a term as president of Associated Students and to his current position on the Woodland City Council.
Pimental, like other CAMP alumni—who say “once a CAMPer, always a CAMPer”—is using the education he received as a way to give back to his hometown. “A lot of us are going back to our communities to address what we didn’t get when we were growing up,” he says. “CAMP had an amazing impact on many, many lives. It’s really neat to see the growth of each person and that a lot of us are now in a position to make a positive impact in our own communities.”
An amazing 90 percent of CAMP students complete the program and return the following year. And after that first year, most students go through a transition phase where they branch out to get involved with the rest of the University, Diaz says. “We encourage them to learn the first year, then get involved with organizations.”
And they do, joining fraternities and sororities, clubs and intramural sports. Several CAMP members such as Pimental and another former president, Eric Guerra, have held positions in ASI student government.
“The growth I see in the students is the growth I experienced as a CAMP student,” Diaz says.
» Back to contents