By Mark Muckenfuss

Just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month and HSI Week, Cal State Monterey Bay’s El Centro, aka the Center for Latine Student Success, has received a five-year $3 million grant from the Department of Education. 

“It’s a huge deal,” Suzanne Garcia, associate professor of bilingual education and director of El Centro, said of the grant. “We’ll be able to impact the CSUMB and local community in a variety of ways.”

Until now, El Centro, which is a support center for Latine students, has relied on funding from several campus organizations and student fees. Having its own funding, via the new grant, will allow it to hire a full-time associate director and a full-time coordinator. Garcia also plans to hire a part-time research analyst. 

Other funds will go toward student scholarships, she said, as well as to programming and community outreach. 

“The funds will be used for events, such as the ones we’re having for HSI Week,” she said, “as well as a lot of workshops and making sure we’re meeting the needs of our students.”

El Centro is already connecting with the community, said coordinator Betsi Solis, who supported a highly requested Spanish language orientation event for parents this year. The event drew 500 people and was part of an effort to provide what Solis called a “seamless transition” from high school to college.  

“That seamless transition is going to be very helpful for the students,” Solis said, especially those who are first-generation students. “Those parents can then go home and have a knowledgeable conversation with their students about college.”

That, as well as other Spanish language events on campus, is helping to make CSUMB more of a bilingual environment, Garcia said, which is one of the El Centro goals.

“Part of this equity work is not just practical but symbolic,” she said. “When the university was founded, the Latine faculty would call it CSU Mi Barrio. I think when people come into El Centro they feel that we are like a place away from home. In fact, we’re aiming to support efforts to make CSUMB a fully bilingual university.”

She’s also hoping for some permanence.

“By the end of this grant, one of the things we have a need for is being able to institutionalize El Centro,” Garcia said. That would mean recognizing the center as an ongoing component of CSUMB, where funding would come from the university.

“Other CSUs and UCs have their own centros, so I feel like we’re catching up,” she said. 

The new grant will go a long way to making that happen.