Stories

Though many Broncos have packed up and left for the summer, other students have kept Santa Clara’s campus busy.

For the past two weeks, middle schoolers from the Ocala STEAM Academy have been participating in a free math camp, part of the Curated Pathways^TM to Innovation Program, in Vari Hall. Sponsored by HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, YWCA Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara University, the camp taught students—specifically female students and students of color—pre-Algebra and Algebra I.

Lesley Slaton Brown, HP’s Chief Diversity Officer and co-founder of Curated Pathways^TM to Innovation—a program dedicated to helping young women and people of color prepare for and navigate STEM careers, completed the original research into and helped organize the camp.

“HP is very vested in creating a diverse workforce, and more importantly creating a workforce where women and minorities want to come work for us,” Brown said. “We wanted to build a solution that really afforded students an opportunity to get exposure, get motivated, and be incented to go the whole way.”

One of the teachers of the camp, Kathy (Gallo) Picchi, a San Benito county math coach and teacher at San Benito High School as well as a 1992 graduate of Santa Clara, was recruited as one of the teachers in the math camp. Picchi was excited about the camp location. 

Picchi said. “It’s important to get the students onto a college campus, and SCU is an excellent choice.”

The Ocala students were invited to the camp based on their active participation in Curated Pathways^TM at their school, and their interest in attending a camp for the first time.

For many of the students, the camp was their first experience on a college campus.

June 30 marked the final day of the camp, where students were treated to a campus tour and a pizza and chocolate chip cookie luncheon. The students also received gift bags and t-shirts from HP.

Though this was the first year of the camp, a unique component of the comprehensive Curated Pathways^TM offerings, HP hopes to continue what they’ve started. 

“Our goal is to do it continually,” Brown said. “Have other schools engaged, universities engaged, have other industry partners, HP and others, offer up their space for the students.”

The camp aimed to give more opportunities and access to female and minority students. For Picchi, seeing their growth and development was the most enjoyable part.

 In an effort to bridge the gap in the engagement of underrepresented minorities and women in STEM, YWCA Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Santa Clara University, and Purdue University have launched Curated Pathways™ -- an IT solution developed to help young women and minorities navigate their journey, with an emphasis on computing careers.

Knowing that success and competency in math is the #1 correlated factor for succeeding in engineering and computing in college, and that minorities and women typically are under-prepared in math, the math camp at Santa Clara University was designed as a component of Curated Pathways^TM.  The camp aimed to maintain the increased interest in computing that Ocala students have developed based on their interface with the Curated Pathways^TM during the academic year.

Top Image: Recent Santa Clara graduate Nick Medal leads a group of middle schoolers from the Ocala STEAM Academy on a tour of the Santa Clara University campus on June 30. The tour was part of the final day celebration of the students’ two-week Curated Pathways^TM math camp, sponsored by HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, YWCA Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara University.

Second Image: Students from the Ocala Steam Academy enjoyed a pizza luncheon in Vari Hall. The students also received gift bags and t-shirts as a reward for completing the camp.