Cal State LA, UC Irvine earn funding and partnerships for diverse student development programs

Thanks to a historic grant, two Southern California colleges can build up programs to enhance diverse student leadership development, officials said.

The Honors College at Cal State Los Angeles is partnering with Tuskegee University, a historically Black campus in Alabama, through an education grant that will help develop an undergraduate curriculum that officials say will enhance the “education of character” for students at both schools.

UC Irvine’s “Anteater Virtues” project, a similar academic character-development program across campus, also received grant funding towards growth and education partnerships.

Both schools were among 29 national colleges and universities, one of 24 chosen projects, and the only Southern California-based campuses that received an “Institutional Impact Grant” from Wake Forest University’s Educating Character Initiative (ECI). The initiative equips public and private schools with the resources needed to build diverse student development programs, officials said. The university issued out $15 million total in grant money, with support from Lilly Endowment Inc.

CSULA officials said its partnership with Tuskegee University — made possible by a $195,161 ECI grant — will be called the “Building the Character Collaborative.” It focuses on designing a cross-cultural character and leadership program for students at both campuses — rooted in the teachings and philosophy of author and educator Booker T. Washington, the founding principal and first president of Tuskegee University.

“We aim to create a model that will benefit all the students at each university—and ideally be adopted at other colleges and universities,” said Kathy Cooke, director of the Honors College and the grant co-principal investigator.

The award highlights the diversity at Cal State LA and Tuskegee, Cooke said. Both schools will work together to develop relationships and learn about each other, while dissecting cultural and racial experiences.

CSULA serves a majority Latinx student body — 74% of enrollment, as of the spring 2024 term — while Tuskegee serves a majority Black student body. 

Both colleges will integrate the students’ diverse backgrounds, knowledge and experiences into future leadership skills, Cooke said.

“Learning from and within diversity is crucial to the project,” Cooke said.

UC Irvine’s “Anteater Virtues” program — awarded $400,000 in the ECI grant money — will expand the campus-wide project, officials said. The four virtues, established in 2019, focus on building the “curiosity, integrity, intellectual humility and intellectual tenacity” of UCI students and faculty, so they can develop “virtuous intellectual character” while on campus.

The grant will lead “to the creation of innovative educational resources that will not only benefit UC Irvine students, but will be used by students worldwide, in lots of different educational settings,” said Duncan Pritchard, director of the project.

Both CSULA and UC Irvine were also recently awarded collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation to advance research and education in the field of materials science.

Across the U.S., institutions from liberal arts colleges to military academies, plus colleges that enroll more students of color and first-generation students, all received three-year grants, ranging in amounts from $100,000 to $1 million.

City News Service and staff reporter Allyson Vergara contributed to this report.