LA JOLLA A summer program that invited UC San Diego alumni and others with ties to the campus to spend four days exploring innovative research and educational programs as well as visiting the beach and taking fitness classes launches next week with fewer participants than expected.

Forty people signed up for the Triton Summer Experience, which will take participants on a guided tour through the protected marine areas off La Jolla in a research vessel and into a robotic surgical lab at the medical school. Participants are set to arrive Wednesday.

Although organizers had hoped up to 200 people would enroll, they later realized they marketed it too late in the year for many families to include it in their summer plans and scaled it back.

The outing costs about $2,000 for a family of four and includes four nights accommodations in university-owned apartments.

Families will have access to a concierge and are encouraged to visit nearby beaches. The program agenda includes a family movie night and a tour of the Stuart Collection, the outdoor public art display on campus. Participants also have the option of seeing a play at the La Jolla Playhouse.

What we were trying to do was create a vehicle to have people come back to the campus and explore the innovative and new projects that are here on campus, said Anita Trevino Neubarth, a business development coordinator with the universitys Housing, Dining and Hospitality Services department.

Although they initially looked to replicate alumni camp programs offered at other UC campuses, organizers opted to create a getaway focused more on providing interactive experiences involving scientists and fellows affiliated with the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, the School of Medicine and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

We wanted to do something that was more experiential versus coming in and sitting in a classroom, Neubarth said.

Recruitment is also a goal. Some of the families that signed up have teenage children who are interested in possibly attending UC San Diego in the future.

For the alumni who are older, we are hopeful that they will be able to experience what UCSD has turned into, see where the research is going, she said. For families with children, it could expose them to areas they may want to pursue in college and beyond.

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UCSD alumni program turns low key