Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award to Manuel P. Berriozábal for Distinguished Service to Mathematics

Abstract

Manuel Berriozd_bal is a mathematician, a college professor, and a visionary with the unusual talent to turn his visions into reality. best example-and the one for which he has become most widely known-is the incredibly successful Prefreshman Engineering Program (PREP). He formed PREP at University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) in 1979 in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and several colleges and universities out of his concern about the low number of minority students who successfully completed college studies in science and engineering. PREP is a mathematics-based academic enrichment program. Its focus is on the development of abstract reasoning and problem solving skills. Participants study mathematical logic and its applications, algebraic structures, probability and statistics, technical writing, some topics in engineering, physics, and computer science. They also learn about careers in science and engineering. When San Antonio PREP first started twenty-two years ago at UTSA, the conventional wisdom was that the program was doomed to failure because middle school and high school students would never want to spend eight weeks during the summer on a college campus studying mathematics and its applications. Furthermore, it was believed that minority students would not succeed in this structured and disciplined environment. Indeed in 1979, a San Antonio magazine published a feature article on UTSA that reflected the low expectations of Texas minority students. In this article an anonymous member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board expressed opposition to approving an engineering program at UTSA with the words, The Mexican American community is not where engineers come from anyway.~ Twenty-two years of operation have belied these low expectations. Since 1979, this program has been replicated as the Texas Prefreshman Engineering Program (TexPREP) in 15 Texas cities on 25 community and senior college campuses and Feb~~~~~~~~~!: :.:.:::: :irur 201 97_