Chancellor tries to encourage transfers

  EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Chancellor
Carnesale looks through a microscope as Jaime Lopez of
East L.A. College looks on.

By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff

Chancellor Albert Carnesale traveled to East Los Angeles College
on Tuesday to encourage transfers to UCLA and to emphasize the role
of university-community college partnerships in increasing campus
diversity.

This marked the first time a University of California chancellor
has ever visited the college, according to Richard Moyer, vice
president of academic affairs at ELAC.

The visit was in conjunction with the Center for Community
College Partnerships, a branch of the UCLA Academic Development
Office. The center works with local colleges to prepare students
for transfer to a UC campus.

“We very much want these students to transfer to UCLA, but
more importantly, help them attain higher education no matter where
they go,” Carnesale said.

ELAC, along with West Los Angeles College and Compton Community
College, is a recipient of the Fund for the Improvement of
Postsecondary Education, a grant program by the Department of
Education.

ELAC currently has a 50 percent admittance rate in terms of
students who apply to UCLA, admitting 83 of 162 applicants in 2001,
with 62 stating their intent to register.

Carnesale toured the ELAC campus, stopping to sit in on some
classroom instruction, including UCLA doctoral candidate Irene
Vasquez’s History of America lecture about early racial
mixing and identification during colonial times. In all his stops,
he took time to answer students’ questions about the transfer
process.

Carnesale later addressed a crowd of about 100 outside the
Vincent Price Gallery, outlining the necessity for ELAC students to
apply for a transfer to the UC. He cited his own humble beginnings
as inspiration for the audience.

“Even the son of a taxi driver can be chancellor of
UCLA,” said Carnesale, the child of immigrant parents with a
Bronx upbringing.

“We want you at UCLA and the UC system, and we need
you,” he continued.

Carnesale also signed a copy of UCLA’s course catalog at
the college’s transfer center, much to the delight of the
staff, who immediately handed him another transfer document to
sign.

Adolfo Bermeo, assistant vice provost for diversity, said the
chancellor’s presence was important in bolstering efforts to
attract students from low-income areas of Los Angeles.

“Our interest is to not only increase the pool and
diversity of applicants, but to open doors for families that have
been previously denied access,” said Bermeo, who also directs
the Academic Advancement Program and teaches Chicano/a Studies at
the César Chavez Center.

Bermeo said that current times have made progress difficult. He
cited the recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
D.C., a slowing economy and cuts made to the UC budget as political
and economical roadblocks.

“There is not adequate funding for working with
advancement,” he said.

Students who have benefited from transfer outreach programs said
they now have more confidence about applying to UCLA.

Amilicar Monterroso, a 25-year-old aspiring film student who
plans to apply to UCLA next fall, said his involvement this year in
the Summer Intensive Transfer Experience opened his eyes to the
possibility of admission.

“It was the most intense educational experience of my
life,” said Monterroso, who returned to school last year
after going on the road with his electronica band. “It made
me feel like I belong at UCLA.”

The SITE program is a six-day program that guides aspiring
community college students through the transfer process, allows
them to live in the residence halls and provides university
counseling for the transition to UCLA.

“We shouldn’t sell ourselves short,”
Monterroso said, referring to his community college peers.
“We have a place here.”

The morning breakfast reception included appearances by
Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, and Sylvia Scott-Hayes,
president of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of
Trustees.

Carnesale said he hopes his visit encouraged prospective
students in the L.A. community college system.

“We want to provide support for students from
disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue their education at UCLA,”
he said.