It's an open house of a different kind this morning, as 550-students from across Western New York get to attend an open house on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It's the second "Picture Yourself on the B-N-M-C" to persuade kids there is a future in science and medicine and high-tech business. Norma Nowak is executive director of the U-B New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences. Nowak was there last year when a kid said his parents hadn't gone to college.
She responded, "Neither did mine. I said 'I'm a little older than you are but education is a gift and you have to really grab it, hold onto it and take it throughout your lifetime. I said, I'm still learning. I'll be learning until the end of my life.' So, it's really, I think, giving a child the hope and the belief that they can do anything."
Nowak says city kids and their families get a chance to see what goes on in the buildings they may have gone by on the way to school for years.
A-T-&-T Public Affairs Director Benjamin Roberts says kids who go into science and technical fields are the future of his company because they are needed in high-tech fields and that's why the company is sponsoring the event.