Cal State Fullerton Gets $1.4M for Career Pathways Projects

The difficulty of making a successful transition from school to the workforce remains one of the most persistent problems in higher education. The outcome is bad for students and industries alike: a lack of social mobility and a lack of qualified workers. But California State University, Fullerton’s efforts to tackle this issue got a major boost recently with the announcement of $1.4 million in grants for projects to shape career pathways for students.

The funding comes as part of a California program to tackle issues of equity in higher ed and the workforce. The state awarded $18 million each to six regional collaboratives consisting of at least one K-12 school district, University of California campus, California State University campus, and community college district.

Cal State Fullerton’s share of the money will fund six projects designed to prepare students to work in in-demand areas. One such venture is Project Propel, which is seeking to increase the number of multilingual teachers in the region. A 1998 proposition eliminated most bilingual programs in California schools, and although it was reversed in 2016, there is still a shortage of teachers who speak multiple languages.

Dr. Fernando Rodriguez-Valls, professor of secondary education at California State University, FullertonProject Propel received $211,000 to identify potential multilingual teachers as high school students and offer them individualized mentoring through the process of getting an undergraduate degree, a teaching credential, and a bilingual authorization. Participants will then return to their home districts and instruct students in multiple languages, including Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, and Khmer, the predominant language of Cambodia. The program will run for four years and aims to increase the yearly number of bilingual teacher graduates by 25%, to 125, according to Dr. Fernando Rodriguez-Valls, professor of secondary education at Cal State Fullerton and the director of the project.

Rodriguez-Valls has high hopes.

“I’m optimistic that we can get growth past 25%” he said.

Other projects seek to expose students to career paths that they might not have considered. Pathways for Careers in Manufacturing and Engineering, a joint effort from Cal State Fullerton’s Extension and International Programs and the College of Engineering and Computer Science, has received $211,000 to spark community college students’, high schoolers’, and eventually, middle schoolers’ interest in the field of biomanufacturing. In biomanufacturing, biological materials and systems are used to make everything from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics and food. It’s a burgeoning industry, expected to grow 7% between 2020 and 2030. But it faces a shortage of workers with the necessary technical qualifications—in part because the field is so new and in part because it is highly interdisciplinary, combining biology, chemistry, engineering, and manufacturing. Educational programs haven’t caught up yet, and students may be unaware of the field or intimidated by it.