However, hard work and sacrifice will pay off on Saturday, June 22, when they "graduate" from the program in a special ceremony in the CSUN Shoshone Room in the Satellite Student Union, at the north end of campus at the corner of Zelzah Avenue and Lassen Street.

The culmination ceremony, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., will feature students who have made significant gains in their academic performance. The program's top students will read their essays. In addition, tenth through twelfth-grade honor students will perform a skit illustrating their research into a selected public issue. At the conclusion of the ceremony, awards will be distributed based on a studentís academic achievement.

For the past eight months, middle and high school students voluntarily attended the Saturday Enrichment Academy, a program offered by CSUN's DuBois-Hammer Institute to enhance their skills in language arts and math in preparation for a successful college career. CSUN faculty taught the courses while upper division Northridge students served as tutors and mentors.

"From February through June the students showed a significant gain in their achievement," said T Fox, program coordinator for the institute. "At the conclusion of the Saturday program there was a 30% increase in test scores in comparison to the pre-test taken in February."

The Saturday Enrichment Academy was held in collaboration with UCLA and a parent group, Advocates for Valley African American Students (AVAAS).

Barbara Rhodes, director of the DuBois-Hammer Institute, said the program was created "to address the declining enrollment of African-American students at CSUN and other CSU and UC schools and to elevate the graduation rates."

Rhodes said the institute also hosts a summer leadership camp, which this year will take place during the first week of August on the CSUN campus. The four-year-old camp's primary focus is for middle and high school students "to implement a community project to underscore their values as social capital in their communities and to nurture a spirit of giving back," Rhodes said.

For more information contact, T Fox at (818) 410-5964 or Barbara Rhodes at (818) 677-3380.

California State University, Northridge has more than 31,500 full- and part-time students and offers 59 bachelorsí and 41 master's degrees. Founded in 1958, it is the only four-year university in the San Fernando Valley and the third largest in the 23-campus CSU system. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges recently said CSUN "stands as a model to other public urban institutions of higher education."