Long Beach City College has received a $3 million federal grant on October 24, as funding for a STEM program focused on LatinX students of Long Beach under the DESTINO program.
The grant money comes from a Title V federal grant and will be distributed to LBCC over five years, as the school creates the structure required to implement the policies within the grant.
“We’re given all this money that we can actually use to support students with science, technology, engineering, and math whereas our state funds limit what we can do,” said Board President Vivian Malauulu.
The school will also begin utilizing the newly constructed buildings on campus and fill them with support staff and faculty they plan to hire.
“We’ll be hiring a STEM counselor to help students just in that field. Also, we’re going to be hiring a coordinator to open our science resource center,” said Vice President of academic affairs Kathleen Scott.
The structure of the program will be developed within the first two years, requiring the school to begin the hiring process of support staff and faculty to act as a point of contact between the school and students in the program.
“We will designate faculty and we will have that science resource center be a hub. Different faculty will be there, we’ll have tutoring that comes out of there, workshops for students,” said Scott.
The school will also begin introducing the DESTINO program to local high schools and begin working alongside future students with financial literacy classes, academic workshops, and implementing a STEM-focused version of the viking summer voyage.
“We’re gonna look at teaching strategies, helping the faculty be trained in equity concepts and teaching practices, making the classroom as welcoming as possible for all students, particularly Latino and Hispanic students in relation to this grant, ” said Scott.
The long term plan for the DESTINO program is to expand on the ideas and concepts proposed under the grant and provide the same quality of academic excellence to future students.
But current students will likely be transferred or graduated by the time the program is extended to include students other than current highschool students.
“I’m the first in my family to go to college, and I wouldn’t be here without forcing myself to ask for help,” said Airline technology major and LBCC student, Aldo Valdez.