UC reaches out to Californians hit by recession
UC campuses are launching career training and student community service programs to aid Californians feeling the effects of the recession.
The Los Angeles Community Development Department has turned to UCLA Extension to offer out-of-work professionals job retraining. The extension division has 20 postgraduate professional certificate programs it will offer to people enrolled in city work force development programs. The city will use its federal Recovery Act funding to offer the classes free-of-charge to participants.
"Typically the city is focusing on job training for lower-wage workers, Welfare to Work or trade jobs," said Cathy Sandeen, dean of UCLA Extension. "But in this recession we're seeing the professional sector being laid off, and that's having huge ramifications for the economy. These are the people who are not buying cars."
The program offerings will focus on high-demand sectors including certificates in global sustainability, health care management and recycling and solid waste management.
The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism's Knight Digital Media Center, which provides multimedia training for mid-career journalists, held a 5-day training workshop for a dozen news staff recently laid off at National Public Radio. The workshop is one of several initiatives the center, which is funded by a Knight Foundation grant, is working on to help journalists who have lost their jobs get the skills needed to work in digital media.
UC Irvine Extension offered a free webinar titled "Extreme Career Makeover" for recent grads and displaced workers. The online seminar offered tips for boosting job security and refocusing careers. For a small annual fee, campus career centers offer alumni the same job hunt services available to current students.
The career centers have been tailoring services for soon-to-graduate students to address the recessionary job market. UC San Diego is offering a program called the Job Search Stimulus Package. UC Berkeley expanded a program, which pairs students with alumni mentors, to more low-income students by paying travel costs. The UCLA Undergraduate Student Association is sponsoring a career center Entrepreneur Tradeshow to match students with entrepreneurs who can tell them how to launch a business in tough economic times.
Students themselves have been stepping up their volunteer efforts to help their communities. At UC Santa Cruz, theater majors staged a production to benefit the local food bank. At UC Irvine, health science students opened a free weekly clinic to provide primary and preventative care to medically underserved people who are not eligible for government programs.