Monthly Archives: October 2017

Broad array of UCLA community members advocate to elected officials in downtown L.A.

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Jermeen Sherman, assistant director of UCLA Extension’s Custom Program and Corporate Education, and others meet with L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson.

From the top of Los Angeles City Hall with a nearly 360-view, Jermeen Sherman could look out toward every part of the county.

She, and approximately 50 other UCLA students, faculty, staff and alumni, were preparing to meet with elected officials, or their staff, from all 15 city council and all five Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor districts to discuss workforce development, entrepreneurship and career readiness.

The meetings were part of UCLA Day with Local Government in downtown Los Angeles, which is meant to show government officials the university resources available to the community and partnership opportunities between UCLA and every corner of the county where it’s located.

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UCLA Advocate of the Year: Dennis Gutierrez Speaks Up For Higher Education

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Dennis Gutierrez is always ready to extoll the virtues of UCLA and higher education.

Dennis Gutierrez is a man with a message. He has never been afraid to speak up, and that stick-to-itiveness has served him well in every new vocation and every cause he’s promoted, including that of his alma mater UCLA.

“I’ve had nine careers in my life,” he said with a laugh reflecting on his own personal resume. “It’s like, ‘What do you do?’ Look, I learned a long time ago that you follow your passion. If you do not follow your passion, it’s work, and if it’s work, you’ll never be good at it.”

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UCLA Landmark Community Program of the Year: Caring for the Underserved

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Through Song-Brown grant money, UCLA family nurse practitioner students go out into underserved communities for their training.

Professor Mary Ann Lewis only wants students in her UCLA family nurse practitioner (FNP) program who understand what it really means to have that title.

“We’re not preparing family nurse practitioners to practice dermatology in Beverly Hills, that’s not our philosophy. Nursing has always meant taking care of the poor. From public health nursing in the early 1900s, all the immigrant communities, they took care of the poor, that is nursing’s forte.”

Through California Song-Brown grants, the Caring for the Underserved program was born more than 20 years ago, pairing UCLA School of Nursing with community health clinics around the Los Angeles region. Now, the program is being recognized for its longterm successes with the UCLA Landmark Community Program of the Year.

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UCLA Rising Advocate of the Year: Juana Hernandez Looks To Pay It Forward

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Juana Hernandez uses her position at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to help students and build partnerships with higher education institutions.

It takes a Westwood Village? Juana Hernandez, who graduated from UCLA in 2009, said she owes a lot to the greater UCLA community, a community she has been an active member of since graduating, paying it forward to the next generation of students.

Her parents immigrated to Southern California from Guanajuato, Mexico in the 1970s. They wanted to give their children the best shot they could in America, and understood the importance of education in that process, but their experience with the U.S. education system wasn’t just limited, it was non-existent.

Hernandez, however, came out the other side stronger than ever, putting in the kind of civic work for students and higher education that has garnered her the UCLA Rising Advocate of the Year award.

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UCLA Catalyst Community Program of the Year: UCLA Allied Healthcare Careers Program

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Dr. Carol Mangione speaks with 130 sophomores and juniors from Orthopedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School for a special presentation by the Allied Healthcare Careers Program.

Two stark realities existed as the impetus for the creation of the UCLA Allied Healthcare Careers Programs.

On the one hand, UCLA Health laboratory technicians’ average age is over 60, and California is projected to have a major workforce shortage in the area, despite a rapidly aging population that will lean on the system more than ever.

On the other hand, there are pockets of Los Angeles being neglected when it comes to higher wage workforce training. For example, Service Planning Area 6, more generally known as South Los Angeles, is known for high rates of unemployment among young people.

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Senator Henry Stern Conversation Answers Questions, Champions Advocacy

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State Senator Henry Stern addresses a room of Pierce College students for their annual Day of Politics.

You can make a difference.

It was a simple message, but consistently, the conversation between California Senator Henry Stern and UCLA journalist-in-residence Jon Christensen, came back to civic action and what students in the crowd could do to make a difference.

“The real work is in advocacy and leaning on local representatives like me to make sure we are serving you,” said Stern, who just completed his first year in the state legislature as the youngest member of the Senate, representing the 27th district.

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