HPU to host elite-student program
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
About 400 of the nation's brightest seventh- and eighth-graders will be in Hawai'i this summer as part of the prestigious Center for Talented Youth program.
Advertiser library photo • Sept. 27, 2001
Johns Hopkins University is working with Hawai'i Pacific University to bring the state one of CTY's eight elite summer programs.
"This is a major program for us, and we think it's a major program for Hawai'i," said HPU president Chatt Wright.
The students will arrive June 28 and take over the HPU Windward campus for July and most of August. All of those in the program scored in the top half of 1 percent in the college-entrance SATs. The intensive, three-week courses they will take are equivalent to an entire college course.
Program leaders have been recruiting Hawai'i students for the program at HPU and expect 60 to 100 from both public and private schools. Eventually they envision 300 Hawai'i students qualifying for their summer programs based all over the country.
"This is a major program for us, and we think it's a major program for Hawai'i," said HPU president Chatt Wright. "It brings a lot of very talented people to Hawai'i, and hopefully, as this program grows, it will bring very talented young people from Asia to this program, and many of these people will come to study in America and with us."
The CTY program will take over the entire campus for eight weeks, with two intensive three-week, seven-day-a-week sessions with a different group of students scheduled for each session, and a break in between.
"It's like going to college," said Rod Romig, CTY project liaison and dean of the College of Business Administration at HPU. "They'll live and breathe logic or mathematics or ethics in Asian art or about 12 other classes."
The students will use the class for credit or as a preparation for advanced placement back at school.
Although tuition is $2,500 for a three-week course, financial aid is available.
Since its 1979 inception, the Baltimore-based program created by Johns Hopkins has offered accelerated courses to more than 800,000 students. The hope with the Hawai'i site is to provide easier access for talented students here and to attract bright young students from Asia.
The high school programs are open to students between 12 1/2 and 16 1/2, but CTY also has programs for younger children.
Wright said the Center for Talented Youth draws students from 26 countries and 45 states, and the student body makeup at HPU is remarkably similar.
"They essentially came to us because we share common missions and ethos," he said. "One-third of our student body comes from 107 different countries, one-third from all 49 sister states and one-third from Hawai'i."
CTY was also attracted to the self-contained safety and beauty of HPU's Hawai'i Loa campus and its dormitories for 200. To accommodate the program, most of the Hawai'i Loa summer courses will be transferred to the HPU campus in downtown Honolulu, said Wright, with some shorter, end-of-summer programs staying at the Windward site.
"Normally we run a full complement of programs out there during the summer, so we're front-loading one of our summer programs in Honolulu," said Romig.
Recruiting began last September and generally wound up in December, but there are still some last-minute decisions to be made, said Charles Beckman, director of communications for Johns Hopkins.
"Our talent search usually has a seasonal enrollment from September through December, but we extended," said Beckman. "We usually go into schools, and through the teachers in the gifted and talented programs we get the word out." CTY staff from Johns Hopkins made a special recruiting trip to Hawai'i.
This won't be the first time Hawai'i students have participated. For the past 10 years Hawai'i students have been taking part in programs at Mainland sites, with 45 students attending last summer.
"We're trying to help more kids know about this program, especially kids in the public schools, and home-schoolers," Beckman said. Financial aid is available, plus a separate Hawai'i program financed by the Harold Castle Foundation is allowing CTY to add 15 to 25 scholarships for students in public schools.
Faculty for the program will be hired both from Johns Hopkins and HPU, plus additional personnel to staff the dormitories.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
