The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, or ANSEP, started in 1995, and since 2002, the University of Alaska has graduated 149 Native engineers and scientists, a substantial contribution to the state's skilled professional workforce.

ANSEP works with Native students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds, a category that covers most rural Alaska school districts, although non-Native students at the university frequently take advantage of ANSEP.

The program is widely acclaimed as a model for the higher education of disadvantaged minorities, but its formula for success can be applied to any school, in any community and across all ethnic groups, according to ANSEP director and engineering Professor Herb Schroeder.

The formula is a mix of high expectations, the right preparation, teamwork, intense peer-group study sessions, and incentives. Peer-group sessions - older students teaching younger students - are a core part of ANSEP's strategy. The older students become role models to show that Native youth can excel in, and even teach, challenging academic material.

Another ingredient is career visioning, where students work alongside professionals in internships to see how the things they have learned is applied in real life, Schroeder said.

The program boasts a 70 percent retention rate, which means that after four to five years, 70 percent of the Native students who joined ANSEP are still in their programs or have graduated.

That's well above the national 50 percent retention rate for engineering students.

The statistic has attracted attention from prestigious groups like the National Science Foundation, which is interested in ANSEP as a model for encouraging young Americans of all ethnicities to aim for careers in the sciences or technical fields.

The NSF is now supporting an effort to duplicate ANSEP in other universities, and to expand its efforts in rural Alaska schools. There are now ANSEP-type programs in 12 higher education institutions in nine western states. The University of Alaska Anchorage manages them all from Alaska.

Efforts so far have paid off, but Schroeder believes that if he can get students interested in science and technology at an even younger age, they might be more inclined to graduate and, just maybe, head to college and sign up for the engineering program.

He's working on a plan.

Bridging the gaps

There currently are about 200 Native students in ANSEP at the Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses. Just 15 years ago, there was only one Native student enrolled in engineering at UAA, Schroeder said.

The ultimate goal is to graduate 50 engineers and scientists each year, a big boost of talent to the resident workforce. ANSEP has a way to go to reach its goal: 18 graduated this year and Schroeder expects close to 30 next year.

The biggest challenges to reaching the goals are how to build expectations and standards for higher math and sciences for young Native children in rural schools, Schroeder said.

"Some of the teachers in village schools don't think Natives can become engineers and scientists. They steer Native children away from challenging classes and toward trade schools rather than the university," he said.

Schroeder levels the same criticisms at Alaska's better-equipped urban schools.

One way to build that bridge is through a summer bridge program for rural high-school graduates intent on enrolling in the University of Alaska system. The aim is to give refresher sessions to allow rural students to catch up with graduates from the larger city schools systems, and be better prepared for university freshman-level classes.

In this year's summer bridge program, there were 12 students interested in engineering and nine planning to study biology.

Students spent nine weeks in the summer on campus attending math classes and also working in paid internships with companies. Internships allow young people to earn extra money, as well as work in a real-life professional work environment, Schroeder said.

Computer incentive

The summer bridge program has been successful, but it costs about $11,500 for each student, and there has never been enough funding or internships for all the students who apply.

The solution: help students get that level of preparation in high school, which would reduce the need for the summer bridge.

The first step was to encourage high school students to take more math and science to begin with. Schroeder's team settled on a novel solution.

"For high school kids, computers are what hot rods were in my generation," Schroeder said.

In the 1950s and 1960s teenagers loved to tinker with cars. Modern teens tinker with computers.

ANSEP developed a plan to have high school students build their own computers to use at school, but only on the condition they take chemistry, physics and trigonometry. If they pass the classes with a C or better, they get to keep the computer, Schroeder said.

"We have built more than 1,000 computers now and we know that if a student builds a computer, there is a greater than 60 percent likelihood that they will complete all three classes successfully prior to graduation," he said.

The university is working with about 180 high schools students in 17 rural communities around the state.

The limitation on this is the number of computers ANSEP could fund. The kits cost about $1,200 each. Enough money was cobbled together, mostly from grants, to fund the computers for the high schools.

In 2009, ANSEP supplemented the outreach with a summer "junior academy" at UAA, where 24 junior-level high school students came in for five weeks of math and science classes. They were intense, 12-hour days, and Schroeder gives the students a lot of credit for sticking with a rigorous schedule.

"This was in addition to 21 high school graduates we had in our regular summer bridge session, so we had 45 Alaska Native young people in summer classes this year," Schroeder said.

The university hopes to repeat the junior academy next summer and to make it a regular thing, but funding must be found. Unlike the summer bridge program for high school graduates, there is no ongoing funding for the junior academy.

Even with junior academy, it's still not enough. Young people must be provided with the inspiration, guidance and opportunity at even younger ages, Schroeder said.

To do that, this year ANSEP has a pilot program underway with high school freshmen and sophomores attending schools in Chevak and St. Mary's.

This is also aimed at encouraging young people to stay in high school. Some rural school districts have a 40 percent high school dropout rate. The computers are a way to stimulate interest in technology, science and math while encouraging teens to graduate.

Mike Nabors, one of ANSEP's three regional directors, is also working to get North Slope village schools involved in the ninth- and 10th-grade program.

Nabors is an Inupiaq from Wainwright who went through ANSEP himself and received his engineering degree from UAA. All of ANSEP's regional directors are graduates of the program. Two of them, including Nabors, started in with the summer bridging session right after high school.

The high school outreach is coupled with online tutoring offered through ANSEP to high school students in the program, including one initiative in having Native students in upper-level university classes work with high school students through a real-time, Internet-based program.

High school students are also encouraged to take advantage of online courses and tutoring available through their local school districts. ANSEP has also found an interactive online tutoring program, ALEKS, which offers courses in math and science.

Building jobs

Alaskan employers have an advantage hiring university engineering and science graduates who are born and raised in the state, Schroeder said. They're used to a northern climate and living in the state's relatively small communities.

They generally like living in Alaska and want to remain in the state, which translates to lower turnover costs for employers. Schroeder says internships, a key part of the program, also gives employers a chance to get to get to know students in advance of their graduation.

ANSEP's corporate supporters are a who's who list of the state's petroleum, engineering and technical support industries. State and federal agencies are also on the list.

Supporters include such major private firms as Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc., the Pebble Partnership and Teck Cominco.

Arctic Slope Regional Corp., Cook Inlet Region Inc. and NANA Regional Corp. also offer support, as do such government agencies as the NSF, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Various contractors and Alaska Native corporation subsidiaries support ANSEP through internships.