Professor Diana Garcia keynote speaker

CSU Monterey Bay Professor Diana Garcia will deliver the keynote address at the 10th annual AVID Writers Conference set for March 22 on the CSUMB campus.

AVID – Advancement Via Individual Determination — is an in-school academic support program for grades 4-12 that prepares students for success in four-year colleges and universities. A goal is to present opportunities to minority, rural, low-income and other students who don’t have a college-going tradition in their families.

More than 450 students and teachers, representing 36 middle and high schools from Palo Alto to Greenfield, are expected to attend the conference. They will have the opportunity to participate in writing workshops led by faculty and staff from CSUMB and other colleges, and will hear from former AVID students about how the skills they developed in the program helped them in college.

The conference is the culmination of a “write-off,” a timed-writing exercise modeled after the CSU English placement test. This year’s theme was “How technology is affecting interpersonal relationships.” More than 4,100 middle and high school students participated in the write-off; each school selected its conference attendees based on their performance in the writing exercise.

Garcia, a professor in the Division of Humanities and Communication, writes poetry and essays. Her book, “When Living Was a Labor Camp,” published in 2002, was an American Book Award winner.

The AVID program has helped make college a reality for thousands of students for over three decades. In California in 2009-2010, 91 percent of AVID seniors had completed four-year college entrance requirements, compared to 36 percent for their statewide counterparts.