THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060027
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
The Norfolk State University seniors talked about their polysyllabic research projects and their high-flying futures as if they were merely describing the inevitable.
Cicely Pickett worked in an MIT lab last summer, studying ``perceptual identification priming.'' Translation: figuring out how different parts of the brain contribute to memory skills.
Danielle Morgan, a Norfolk native, was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in ``atomic force microscopy.'' Specifically, surface adhesion. In layman's terms, making sure that your bag of chips is sealed as tight as possible.
Their plans after next week's graduation are easier to comprehend, though no less ambitious. Pickett will enroll at the University of Maryland at Baltimore Medical School, and Morgan will return to Chapel Hill to pursue her doctorate in physics, helped substantially by a six-year, $150,000 fellowship.
They are two of the success stories of NSU's 10-year-old science honors program, known as the Dozoretz National Institute for Minorities in Applied Sciences.
The program, which has graduated about 130 students, mixes intensive courses, far-reaching research opportunities and a nurturing atmosphere. The goal: to help reduce the nation's shortage of black scientists and doctors so that, one day, thousands of minority students across the country will be taking the same journey, just as matter-of-factly.
Officials at Norfolk State - who have been criticized for having the lowest SAT average and highest acceptance rate among Virginia's state-supported four-year schools - point to the Dozoretz program as their unheralded beacon. It's proof, they say, that their students can stand up against the best from U.Va. and William and Mary.
Students like Morgan and Pickett. Like Kantis Simmons, a fast-talking 21-year-old chemistry major from Decatur, Ga., who has worked at NASA Langley to develop pressure-sensitive aircraft parts. This fall, he'll start doctoral work at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, supported by a six-year, $180,000 fellowship.
Students like Tamara Jones, a 21-year-old chemist from Virginia Beach, who has recently traveled to Akron and Detroit to deliver papers at science conferences. Like Morgan, she's headed to Chapel Hill for graduate school, with nearly $100,000 in aid.
And as the program finishes its 10th year, it's about to reach its newest milestone: At least two of its alumni are expected to receive doctorates at other universities this month. One is Tracey Holoman, 27, a 1991 graduate who is getting her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park.
``I think I got a good-quality education at Norfolk State,'' said Holoman, who is weighing offers to be an assistant professor at schools including Maryland and North Carolina AT&T.
``You hear that black universities don't prepare you well,'' she said, ``but it's not true. I think I was as prepared as anyone else. The courses are just as tough; the curriculum is the same.''
Henry T. Frierson Jr., associate dean of the graduate school at Chapel Hill, seconds her opinion. He runs the university's summer research program, where Morgan and Jones worked. Of last year's 40 participants - from schools such as Berkeley and Duke - four came from Norfolk State's Dozoretz program.
``The students, from what I gather, are extremely competitive,'' Frierson said. Morgan and Jones are returning for grad school, ``but all four of the students we would love to have come back to UNC.''
The program is named after Dr. Ronald Dozoretz, a local psychiatrist who has helped fund it. The budget is about $500,000, most of it coming from the state, director Larry Mattix said.
Students who get in don't have to pay a penny: The university picks up all costs, including tuition, room and board, and books. That bonus, students and administrators say, is a key tool to win students away from colleges like Duke and U.Va.
But it also has inhibited the growth of the program, whose enrollment has stayed between 90 and 100, or about 1 percent of the university's total. There is no money to give more full scholarships, and officials don't want to bring in more students without that offer.
``A lot of students have to work,'' Mattix said. ``If they're working part-time jobs to make ends meet, they can't spend the same amount of time studying. That would hurt the program.''
If the quantity of students hasn't changed over the years, the quality has, Mattix said. The program requires students to have at least a 3.0 average in high school and, usually, a 1000 SAT average. Next fall's batch of 40 freshmen has a 3.65 grade point average and 1035 SAT average. About 135 students applied for entry.
Aside from the financial incentives, many students say it was the close-knit atmosphere that persuaded them to attend the Dozoretz program. ``At other universities, such as George Mason, I would have been lost,'' said Deneishia Fisher, a 21-year-old senior from Virginia Beach who's headed to U.Va.'s medical school.
There's also a sense of camaraderie among the students, partly because they're clustered together in Norfolk State's men's and women's dorms.
``Living together helps a lot,'' said Pickett, a 22-year-old biology major from Rock Hill, S.C. ``Most likely, at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, there's somebody up to help you'' if you have a question.
And there's often someone to get you moving if you're loafing off. ``People will sometimes knock on your door and say, `You need to get back to work,' '' Morgan, 21, said.
Dozoretz students are separated into their own classes their first year, but take courses with other Norfolk State students the rest of the time.
``The freshman year is important,'' Mattix said. ``That's where you build your foundation and study habits.'' But mixing the Dozoretz students with the others in upper-level courses ``strengthens the regular programs. It provides the competition in the classroom that sometimes is necessary to raise the level of learning.''
The course requirements are demanding. Mattix estimates that Dozoretz students have to take about 10 more credit hours, or about two to three more courses, than other undergraduates.
Their schedules are chock-full of science, math and computer courses, with hardly any time left for electives. That means that some pre-med students have to scramble during their senior year to squeeze in the liberal-arts classes required by medical schools, but they say it's worth it to get a firm grounding in science.
``Your freshman year is your easiest,'' Morgan said. Leslie Murray, a 19-year-old freshman from Virginia Beach who was sitting nearby, looked crestfallen. ``Really?'' she asked.
In the fall semester, Morgan said she took quantum mechanics, physical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, advanced lab, advanced vector calculus and scientific instrumentation. ``I pretty much studied all the time,'' she said.
Students must keep a B average every semester to stay in the program, but not everyone makes it. About 75 percent of the entering students graduate from the program, Mattix said. Many of the others end up graduating from the university.
The survivors in the Dozoretz program say it's a great boot camp.
``By being so challenging, it teaches you that not everything is going to come easy,'' Pickett said. ``You do have to work hard to get what you want.''
For many students, a highlight of the program is the required summer research internship. Last summer, Pickett was at MIT.
``You realize that Norfolk State isn't really different from other schools,'' she said. ``It's just the prestige. With all of those people, I didn't feel any less prepared.''
Holoman, the doctoral student, said her summer work at NASA, measuring the level of pollutants in the atmosphere, gave her an edge when she got to Maryland. ``Graduate school is 75 percent research and 25 percent classes, so my background . . . made me familiar with lab techniques, instead of going in cold,'' Holoman said.
Holoman has experienced other benefits, too.
On Saturday, she married a fellow Dozoretz graduate, Daryl Holoman. He's a software engineer for International Research Institute Inc., a firm in Newport News. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
Tamara Jones, left, Cecily Pickett and other students in Norfolk
State's honors science program are preparing for high-tech futures.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM SCHOLARSHIP by CNB