Community Resources
Discover Long Beach City College: A Community Resource
Long Beach City College (LBCC) has an offer you can’t refuse. If you’re interested in earning a college degree or change careers, want to grow your small business, or work at Long Beach City College, then you don’t want to miss their upcoming Discover LBCC workshop. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 4, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Main Long Beach Library Auditorium Lobby, 101 Pacific Ave., Long Beach.
According to John Pope, Director of Public Affairs and Governmental Relations, this will be an opportunity to find out what Long Beach City College has to offer you.
In a phone interview with PalacioMagazine.com, Pope explained that Long Beach City College did a study 18 months ago where they looked at how the school reaches out to the community. One of the recommendations that came out of that study was to have a stronger presence in the neighborhoods.
Pope told PalacioMagazine.com “People who haven’t been to college may be intimidated to just show up on campus and start asking questions. So what we’re doing with this workshop is bringing the college into the community.”
This will be the second workshop scheduled by LBCC. They’re targeting libraries, community centers and places where community people and neighborhoods already gather.
“We’re hoping that it’s very easy to come out and learn more either for themselves or maybe they have high school children that are thinking about college. This is a great place to do that.”
While organized principally by the Communications and Public Relations division, you can expect representatives from around Long Beach City College. There will be staff from admissions, personnel to talk about jobs at LBCC, and representatives from the Small Business Development Center to talk about free or low cost assistance. There will also be an opportunity to talk about the Workforce Development programs where the focus is more on assistance for people who want to make a career transition or find a job.
“Community Colleges are not just about getting to a four year transfer. We have certificate programs. We have our career technical assistance program that are more focused on shorter term goals for folks who want to transition more quickly into a job in the workplace as well as all of our community resources.”
Long Beach City College Area Three Trustee Sunny Zia, the trustee for the Main Library’s area in Downtown Long Beach, will host the evening’s program. The program will include a welcome from her followed by an overview of Long Beach City College from the President of LBCC, Eloy Ortiz Oakley.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley
“He’ll spend about 15 or 20 minutes on a presentation. We will have some general time for Q&A. We’d like those questions to be high level, applicable to everybody that’s in the room.”
That will be followed by another hour dedicated to allowing people to engage at various tables with representatives from all over Long Beach City College. That’ll be the opportunity to get answers to specific questions about any area of the college.
There will be Spanish language as well as sign language interpreters at the event.
For more information on Discover LBCC, you can visit the Long Beach City College website www.lbcc.edu or call 562.938.4353.
