About 40 community college students from low-income families will participate in a new program to enable them to complete their bachelor’s degrees at Loyola Marymount University, thanks to a $400,000 grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
The two-year grant will establish the Cooke Undergraduate Research Scholars Academy at LMU in partnership with El Camino College and West Los Angeles College. The goal of the program is to expand educational opportunities for high-achieving students from ECC and WLAC whose families, schools, and communities need additional resources to help them reach their goals.
LMU and its community college partners will provide educational, financial and personal support through an enriched research and educational curriculum along with peer and faculty mentoring.
Between 15 and 20 students will be selected each year to participate. Eligible students must have completed at least 24 college course units, have at least a 3.0 grade point average and meet federal guidelines for low-income students based on eligibility for Pell and Cal grants.
CURSA participants will begin the summer after their freshman year with a 10-day research program hosted at LMU. Seminars will focus on enhancing research skills and delivering research presentations. Each student will be assigned an LMU faculty mentor to supervise their work.
Participants will receive additional support with ongoing programming throughout their academic tenure at community college as well as during their transition to LMU.
Anne Prisco, Ph.D., vice president of enrollment management, and Paul Jimenez, Ed.D., director of transfer services and orientation, are the co-directors of the project.
“We welcome this pledge of support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation,” said Prisco. “At a time when President Obama is asking the nation’s colleges and universities to make a college education accessible to a broader range of students, this financial commitment provides LMU with vital resources.
“With this help we can strengthen our work with two of our local community college partners, and ultimately foster success among a group of students who might otherwise never receive a bachelor’s degree.”
Previous recipients of the Cooke Foundation’s Community College Transfer Initiative grants include Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and University of Southern California.