Helping HEOP

For over 30 years, the Higher Education Opportunity Program, a partnership between New York State and New York colleges, has helped talented high school students from low-income backgrounds gain access to elite institutions like Columbia University and Barnard College. But three recent staff vacancies in the Barnard branch of the program present the school with a critical challenge: to build on the program's substantial successes without compromising the sense of community it has fostered. Barnard's administrators have, so far, been mindful of the students whom the program serves. They must ensure that their new hires reflect the same sensitivity to student concerns about the future direction of the program.

Admission to HEOP is competitive and, for those planning to enroll at Barnard, culminates in a six-week summer program prior to a student's first year. Admitted students receive testing, counseling, tutoring, and academic advising; financial aid is channeled through a combination of the New York State Tuition Assistance Program, Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, Federal Work Study, and special HEOP grants and stipends. For participating students, all of whom must be New York State residents, HEOP is more than the sum of its services. It is, they say, an on-campus sanctuary and a source of academic assistance and emotional support—a family away from home, and a direct channel for information and support amid college and university bureaucracy. Most of all, HEOP makes attendance at Barnard possible for those who might otherwise be unable to afford it.

Barnard's search for a director, assistant director, and counselor-adviser for the HEOP program makes this a sensitive time for students dependent on the services that the office provides. Interim director Saul Davis, Barnard College Dean Dorothy Denburg, and sophomore class dean Vivian Taylor have stepped in to guide students through this transition period. Barnard's deans deserve credit for meeting with HEOP students and keeping them informed about the process, for encouraging student input, and for answering questions in the HEOP office at designated times. Equally important, however, is that they hire replacements committed to HEOP's core purpose of affording disadvantaged students the opportunity to attend top-tier schools. HEOP students will, appropriately, participate in the interview process for the new director, and their views should carry significant weight.

The program director collaborates with Admissions, Financial Aid, the dean of studies, and members of the faculty for development of academic programs and heads a team of counselors, instructors, and assistants to meet HEOP program objectives. The director also represents HEOP and Barnard at outside conferences and community meetings. As such, it is imperative that Barnard select someone who appreciates what makes HEOP unique. More than merely a provisor of financial aid, the program is a one-stop shop for student needs and an essential source of support. To take it in a strictly academic direction, as some students fear will happen, would disserve the interests of its clients.

The new director will have much work to do, not least helping students become reoriented after the sudden decrease in program staffing. HEOP needs additional resources, as well, including an enlargement or renovation of the overcrowded office in which it is currently located. Since HEOP is predicated on personal connections between staffers and students, both the office and its personnel must be accessible and inviting. Above all, HEOP students want a director who understands the position of economically disadvantaged students at Barnard, who will look out for their interests, and who will preserve the supportive environment that HEOP has created.