Cal State L.A. Professor Bianca Guzmán, who has helped develop initiatives to prepare students for college and ensure they graduate, has been selected as a Massachusetts Institute for College and Career Readiness (MICCR) Senior Research Fellow.
Guzmán is director of “GO East LA: A Pathway for College and Career Success.” The initiative promotes academic success for all East Los Angeles students by focusing on college awareness, preparation and completion, and career readiness.
Go East LA is administered out of the new Center for Engagement, Service, and Public Good at Cal State L.A. The initiative is a partnership between Cal State L.A., East Los Angeles College, and the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“I am so excited to be selected for this competitive and nationwide project on college and career readiness,” Guzmán said. “It is an opportunity for Cal State L.A. to share what we are doing with GO East LA, and to learn from other campuses nationwide about their Cradle to Career Initiatives.”
As a senior research fellow, Guzmán will work with a team of researchers to develop strategies that improve college and career readiness outcomes. She will also attend three annual two-day institutes at Boston University, take part in online quarterly professional development and participate in bimonthly discussions with team members.
Guzmán will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the team as a product of a public school education in California. She attended Hoover Street Elementary School and Berendo Junior High School in central Los Angeles, and she was bused to Ulysses S. Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley. She is a former chair of the Chicana/o Studies department at Cal State L.A. She also is an ecological community psychologist who received her doctoral degree from Michigan State University.
In 1987, Guzmán founded a non-profit organization called Choices to promote health and education in Latino communities. Choices continues to be an active program on campus and students participate as research assistants, interns and community engagement volunteers.
Guzmán has written numerous articles that have been published in peer reviewed journals and she has also edited a book, entitled Latina Girls: Voices of Adolescent Health in the U.S. She received both her bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and master’s degree in social psychology from Cal State L.A.
Photo: Bianca Guzmán. (Courtesy of Bianca Guzmán)
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01/26/15