May 14, 2001
Oakes junior awarded $10,000 Strauss Scholarship
Nickie Bazell, a UCSC junior at Oakes College, has been awarded the Donald A.
Strauss Scholarship for next year. The annual scholarship of $10,000 is awarded to
15 students with outstanding leadership potential and communication skills from four-year
institutions in California.
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| Nickie Bazell will use the project share of her scholarship to implement a mentoring and tutoring program at Watsonville High School. Photo: Jessica Brice |
Established by the wife of Donald A. Strauss as a memorial when he died in 1995, the scholarships are used by recipients to implement public service projects in their local and regional communities.
Bazell is the third UCSC student to receive the scholarship in the last three years. In addition to the funding Bazell will receive to implement her program, the Strauss scholarship will pay all her registration fees and the costs for her class books for the next academic year.
Bazell will use the project share of the scholarship to implement a year-long mentoring and tutoring program, entitled "Students Towards Achievement In wRiting Success (STAIRS)," at Watsonville High School. As part of the project, Bazell will recruit UCSC students and oversee STAIRS, which will send the mentors to aid underachieving 9th- and 10th-grade Watsonville High students. The goal of the project is to advance these students to the writing and reading levels of their peers. STAIRS offers UCSC students academic credit in exchange for the 8 to 10 hours a week they spend in a Watsonville High classroom each quarter.
"It is important to note that 60 percent of the students there are socioeconomically disadvantaged, and Watsonville High School ranks among the lowest in the state academically," says Bazell. "This program will improve both academic progress and the attitude of the students towards education."
David Anthony, provost at Oakes and Bazell's sponsor, says that Bazell was a natural candidate for the scholarship. Bazell currently works as a mentor and tutor at Monterey High. "She gave an excellent proposal," says Anthony. "It takes advantage of the experience she already has from working with students at Monterey High, and blends it with her desire to bring programs like this to other schools."
Bazell is currently the Chancellor's Undergraduate Intern for the Oakes Serves Program, a mentoring and tutoring program that sends UCSC students to five schools around the Monterey Bay. As part of her internship, she oversees 18 students and coordinates their schedules with the schools in which they mentor.
"It's so often the case," says Anthony, "that as schools are getting larger, it becomes harder to provide that one-on-one help students need. A lot of students fall through the cracks because of this."
Because of the Donald A. Strauss Scholarship and the STAIRS program, students at Watsonville High School will receive the extra attention they need to help them succeed.
