EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE

1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez

Monterey Park, California 91754

www.elac.edu

Contact: Office of the President

  323.265.8662

East Los Angeles College Awarded $8 Million to Assist Students

In STEM Related Careers

                East Los Angeles College has been awarded two grants totaling $8 million for projects that will, over five years, attract and assist students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and to help them to achieve completion (degrees or transfers) within a shorter time period than the current 4.2 year average.

                The U.S. Department of Education awarded a grant of $1.2 million per year, $6 million total for five years to GANAS—Goals and Needs to Accelerate STEM-- a strategy to attract students to STEM disciplines. The project has the following components:

• Math Academy –encourage 200 targeted STEM students to progress to advanced math courses in a timely manner.
• Media Assisted Instruction—improve methods of teaching higher level of math to improve course completion and transfer numbers.
• Faculty Advising—identify and train 60 faculty members to advise and mentor upper division Latino STEM transfer students.
• Articulation/Transfer Development with Private Universities—assist STEM students to transfer to universities, using orientations and course sampling, as well as trouble shooting transfer problems.

Dr. Armando Rivera-Figueroa, chemistry professor, will direct the GANAS project.

The National Science Foundation awarded $400,000 per year ($2 million total) to support a five year effort to increase the number of ELAC graduates and transfers in STEM fields. The ASSIST program (Academic and Student Support to Improve STEM Transfers) will provide “summer bridge” activities for 180 high school students to encourage them to matriculate to ELAC. In addition, ELAC STEM students will receive mentoring, counseling and undergraduate research internships at nearby research universities, thereby stimulating transfers to university level STEM majors. Karen Daar, dean of Academic Affairs and professor of anthropology, is the principal investigator.

                East Los Angeles College (ELAC), located in Monterey Park, California, is the largest of the nine Los Angeles Community College District institutions. In addition to the main campus, the ELAC South Gate Educational Center and ELAC Rosemead Educational Center serve more than 1.5 million residents of the college’s catchment area. Approximately 78% of the more than 28,000 students enrolled in the Fall 2010 semester were Hispanic/Latino.

                The college offers a wide variety of professional career and transfer STEM programs ranging from engineering to an extensive offering of science-oriented careeres. Comprehensive natural science and mathematics departments provide transfer and foundation courses for STEM students. Extensive tutorial and advisement services assist underprepared students to matriculate.

                ELAC has one of the largest Hispanic enrollments in California and has competed and been awarded Title V, Strengthening Hispanic Serving Institutions funding since the act’s inception in 1999. An active Resource and Institutional Development Office coordinates grant funding and management.

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