SCHOOL MAKES IT POsSiBLE

BY robin graham

Manuel Sanchez moved from Mexico to Wisconsin in 2002, when he was 15. His father didn’t want him to go to high school but Sanchez gently persisted. “I want to give back someday,” he says, “and school is the only way to do that.” Sanchez flourished at Pulaski High School in Milwaukee. “I wasn’t so good at art,” he laughs, “but I loved math and science.”

Sanchez heard about a program for students like himself called the Summer Science Enrichment Program at Marquette University. Not content to just hang out at home all summer, he enrolled in the seven-week program, taking classes while living on campus.

SSEP is one of many programs made possible by the Health Careers Opportunity Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HCOP exposes financially and educationally disadvantaged and first-generation college students like Sanchez to careers in the health care fields in the hopes that they will become doctors, dentists and physical therapists, to name a few.

“The overall objective of HCOP is to deliver service to the underserved by educating professionals from disadvantaged backgrounds,” says Dr. Lawrence Pan, chair and associate professor of physical therapy. “In doing this, it’s more likely that these professionals will go back and serve the underserved.”

Currently, 36 high school and 40 college students are enrolled in HCOP offerings at Marquette. “They come from different cultural, social, racial and economic backgrounds,” says Manuel Santiago, associate director of HCOP at Marquette. They come from around the country, too. “Our primary focus is Wisconsin but we have also gone to Chicago, New York and Puerto Rico to recruit students,” he adds.

According to Maxine Shaifer Harriman, director of multicultural affairs in the School of Dentistry, 10 of the 80 dental students admitted each year are HCOP students. “HCOP gives the dental school a boost in terms of diversity,” she says.

Many HCOP students are also enrolled in Marquette’s Educational Opportunity Program, which has provided financial assistance and other resources to low-income, first-generation students at Marquette since 1969.

Eddie Guzman, EOP counselor at Marquette, says, “We see students who want to become doctors but don’t know any or what you have to do to become one. HCOP offers that insight.”

Jennifer Batie, H Sci ’04, grew up in a family that was an exception to that of a typical HCOP student. “Going to college was a rule,” says Batie, “so I always knew I’d go.” The Chicago native, who now works as a physical therapist at Milwaukee’s Clement J. Zablocki Veteran’s Hospital, enrolled in HCOP to take advantage of the resources available. “HCOP helped me advance the goals I already had for myself,” she says.

In the same way, Manuel Sanchez will receive as much help as he needs. Last summer, he took advantage of a college-prep program through EOP and then began as a Marquette freshman in the fall. He is majoring in biomedical sciences and is interested in becoming a doctor or physician assistant. “It will be really hard,” he admits, “but I know I’ll receive a good education and that’s really important.”

Opening the door to disadvantaged students brings diversity — and vitality — to universities, the health care fields and communities. Says Pan, “If you don’t have programs like HCOP, you won’t have that diversity in dentistry, physical therapy, medicine and other health care fields.”