Michigan State University will continue providing much needed assistance to students who are children of migrant farm workers with a U.S. Department of Education grant renewal of more than $2 million. MSU's College Assistance Migrant Program Scholars initiative, better known as CAMP, has served more than a thousand eligible migrant and seasonal farm worker students during its 20 years.
The CAMP initiative identifies, recruits, admits and enrolls migrant and seasonal farm worker students and provides them academic, social and financial support to complete their first year of college. The program has produced more than 300 graduates throughout the past 20 years.
“The purpose of CAMP is really to provide an opportunity for first generation college students; their most difficult year is their freshmen year,” says Luis Alonzo Garcia, director of MSU's Migrant Student Services. “And our perspective and that of the purpose of CAMP is to facilitate and get their feet well grounded in the institution and provide them some basic skills to make sure that they can get through their four or five years of undergraduate studies.”
“I'm a daughter of migrant farm workers,” says Kiara Liz Zarate, a third-year undergraduate student at Michigan State University currently working toward her degree in child development with a minor in Chicano Latino studies. As a third-generation migrant field worker, she plans on establishing nationwide early childhood development centers that will benefit migrant and immigrant families with access to resources and a better education.
“I'm the third generation of the field workers in my family. I'm from South Texas and in all honesty, just to keep it real with you guys, if it wasn't for the CAMP program that I was introduced to, I would not have had a chance to attend college. Universities are quite expensive. And for a low-income family who just depends solely on agricultural farm work, it's pretty difficult to afford top notch universities. CAMP has been an overall great experience the years that I've been there. Like Luis mentioned before, they really do make it easier for us to be there.”
“My experience with CAMP has been, honestly, one of the best moments of my life,” adds Eduardo Jimenez, better known as Lalo. He's a first-generation college student studying computer science. This is his third year in college. And after he graduates, he hopes to work with cyber security in Los Angeles.
“I'm a farm worker as well. I always was working in the fields and education was always a dream because we couldn't afford going to college. I personally couldn't afford it. I never even thought about going to college. I was just living life, working in the fields, going to school and then just going back and working, working. When it became time to apply for colleges, I didn't know what to do. I didn't even plan on going to college. Because of CAMP coming into my life, it really changed everything. It changed my whole life around because I never thought I'd be here. I never thought I'd be attending Michigan State ever in my life. I never thought I'd be studying computer science because I never thought I’d go to college.”
Garcia talks about the particular challenges children of migrant farm workers face in college. And he describes how CAMP finds, attracts, and recruits students like Kiara and Lalo. And he tells why CAMP is such a good fit at MSU.
“And one of the first things I tell the students when they arrive at MSU, I make it very clear to them, is that nobody owes you anything in life,” says Garcia. “Nobody’s going to give you anything. In life, everything you get you're going to have to earn. And that is our expectation of you as a CAMP student. You're going to get a degree, but you're going to earn it. Nobody's going to give it to you, but we are going to be your support system to get you through it because you can do it. And the entire staff are former migrants. They've all worked in the fields. So we know what we're talking about."
“I think one of the most important things about the migrant farm worker community that we work with is how much of a mobile population they are,” says Elias Lopez, senior associate director at MSU's Migrant Student Services Department, where he has worked in a management and advising capacity to migrant and seasonal farm worker students for more than 10 years. And Elias was a participant of the first MSU CAMP cohort in 2001. He graduated from MSU in 2006.
“And we don't think about the disruption they experience within the K-12 system and how each student experiences that education so differently. Oftentimes students attend more than one high school in a year. And we have some of our students who often will attend three or four different high schools in one year. When we go out and we recruit them, many times these are children who never had hopes of going to college. They never thought about it. They never thought that this was going to be something that they could achieve because of the amount of disruption in their lives in addition to being low income and not knowing how to pay for it.
“So being able to be in a position to go and meet many of the students before they're even thinking about college and facilitate the process of applying and familiarizing themselves with the opportunities that exist with higher education is an amazing opportunity that we have, especially as we are part of Michigan State, which prides itself in being a land grant institution. And even many years later, we continue to be able to go to some of the most vulnerable populations in our country to give them these opportunities. A lot of the work that we do is very specific to that first year experience to be able to give them that exposure to college.
“And I think that what makes us so proud to be a part of Michigan State University is how much they've been able to provide in not only their mission, but also in some of the resources and commitment that they have to our students to be able to continue some of their services after their first year.”
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