ADVISORY/ExxonMobil and University of Florida to Mark 10 Years with Gator Outreach Program, Attracting Students to Engineering.

Business Editors/Education Writers

ADVISORY...for Wednesday (Nov. 12)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

WHAT:           More than 130 students from Howard Bishop Middle
                School will meet with the University of Florida and
                ExxonMobil to mark the 10th year of the Gator
                Engineering Outreach Program - a unique
                ExxonMobil-university collaboration to attract
                students to engineering.

WHO:            Mr. Truman Bell, Education Program Officer,
                ExxonMobil Foundation

                Mr. Earl Wade, Academic Coordinator, College of
                Engineering, University of Florida

                Mr. Jonathan Earle, Associate Dean for Student
                Affairs, College of Engineering, University of Florida

                Dr. Mary Chambers, Superintendent, Alachua County
                School District

                Dr. Pramod Khargonekar, Dean, College of Engineering
                University of Florida

                Ronnie Die
                Sophomore, University of Florida
                Gator Engineering Outreach Program alumnus

WHEN:           Wednesday, November 12, 2003 at 9:50 a.m.
                Media availability with interactive presentation to
                students of Howard Bishop Middle School

WHERE:          University of Florida
                J. Wayne Reitz Ballroom - A
                Located at the corner of Museum Road and Reitz Union
                Drive

BACKGROUND:     Of the 68,000 U.S. students who earn bachelor's
                degrees in engineering annually, only about 8,000, or
                11 percent, are black, Hispanic or other minorities.

                Considering that the minority population is growing
                far more quickly than the white population, those
                figures raise the troubling prospect of a serious
                decline in engineering graduates - in an era when
                engineers are increasingly crucial to the nation's
                technology dependent economy.

                The Gator Engineering Outreach Program - the only such
                ExxonMobil-university collaboration in the country -
                brings hundreds of minority and low-income middle and
                high school students from all over Florida each year
                to visit and tour the UF engineering college.