When Dr. Billy Joe Evans was in high school, his parents couldn’t pay for the exam that would permit him to attend college early. So one of his teachers paid. “That’s the kind of commitment we need from the village,” he says, alluding to the African proverb that “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Today a professor in chemistry at the University of Michigan, Evans tries to provide similar kinds of opportunities to young people with a program that not only encourages minority high school students to pursue scientific careers but gives them a taste of what that means and the support they need.
Evans has won many accolades for his work. Last year he was awarded the Chemical Manufacturers Association Catalyst Award, given to outstanding chemistry professors and teachers, and he has been cited as an outstanding academic leader by his local community and the governor of Michigan. But Evans says he is proudest of the fact that since 1981 every Detroit winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search has come from his program.
Cheryl Porter is one of many who give Evans credit for their success. “My possession of a B.S. degree in chemistry attests to his ability to motivate students toward careers in science. My current pursuit of a Ph.D. underscores that ability,” Porter says.
Evans founded the “Scholarly Research for Urban/Minority High School Students” program in 1981, in which 200 students have since participated. The catalyst for beginning the program, he said, was seeing many bright young African-American students who came to the university wanting science careers but who didn’t do well. High school teachers select students to participate in Evans’s program less on the basis of their grades than on the basis of whether they can work with and develop relationships with teachers. Usually the students are ninth-graders who live on campus at the University of Michigan during the summer and, if they are successful, return for weekends and vacations until they graduate. Some return even while in college. The program pays for their travel and accommodations.
Unlike some summer programs, this one is not just about exposure to college life. The goal, says Evans, is to have students conduct serious research. “They have projects of their own that they do and the experience helps them to see the time commitment, the kind of lifestyle they would have to live.”
Evans says he received the same kind of nurturing his program provides. “My interest in science evolved out of my interest in playing with things,” Evans said. As a young boy I played with model airplanes, gasoline engines, rubber bands and electric trains.”
