(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— SAN BERBARDINO, CA— It’s been a busy summer for the GEAR UP program at Cal State San Bernardino.

It began when nearly 100 high school students from the San Bernardino City Unified School District, who will enter their junior year in August, met at CSUSB to embark on “Explore 23,” a two-week tour of all 23 California State University campuses.

A day later, more of their peers arrived on campus for the nearly four-week GEAR UP University, which kept the second-floor classrooms of the John M. Pfau Library buzzing with activity.

As Summer Steele, director of GEAR UP, sees it, this is part of an effort to make students, and their parents, aware of the opportunities available to them to attend college, and what the students need to do so that they can determine their own future.

GEAR UP — which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs — is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, and the CSUSB program is one of 41 nationwide that received federal grants in 2014.

The Cal State San Bernardino program was awarded $14.2 million over six years, which allows it to work practically year-round with a cohort of about 3,600 students who will graduate from San Bernardino City Unified’s comprehensive high schools in 2020. While some students in this cohort have transferred in and out of the district, GEAR UP essentially has been working with this group of students since they were in the seventh grade.

Steele said GEAR UP has three over-arching goals: increase the academic performance of students in middle school and high school to prepare them for college; increase the high school graduation and enrollment rates into college; and increase the awareness of students, and their parents, of educational options after high school and the financing tools that can help fund them.

And within each of those goals are measurable outcomes to meet annually, such as pre-algebra/algebra pass rates or course failure rates, as GEAR UP site coordinators, academic advisers and tutors, who are assigned to each district high school, work with the students during the school year.

“It’s really by providing a whole lot of services and targeted services,” Steele said.

Emily Sanchez, a student at Indian Springs High School in San Bernardino, said the program helped her to focus on her schoolwork. As a middle schooler, Sanchez didn’t think school was all that important. By the time she was a high school freshman, she said, “it was really bad. My family, they would see my grades and say, ‘Well, just do your best.’ I really didn’t know what my best was.”

Sanchez began working with the GEAR UP academic adviser at her high school who showed her how to study, and how to approach her classroom work and homework. That put her on track, and she says attending college is now a goal.

“It’s like a big family,” said Tyler Scantlebury of GEAR UP. She attends Cajon High School near the CSUSB campus, and once thought she would join the military out of high school. “They don’t treat you like an outsider. Everyone is equal or the same. And when you need help, they help you. There are some programs that say they will help you, but you don’t get the help that you need. But GEAR UP, it does help.”

Both students say the biggest lesson they’ve learned from GEAR UP is responsibility, showing them how to own their successes as well as when they fall a little short.

“The way they talk to you is not in a demeaning way, like, ‘Get your grades up,’ ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that.’ They’re not like that,” Scantlebury said. “They’re comforting — they comfort you to get your grades up and do well. Like, ‘You know this is right, I can’t force you, but I would rather you do this.’ I feel we need more of that, and GEAR UP gives that.”

Steele said she’s seen the growth in students, especially those who have been working with GEAR UP since the seventh grade.

“You see the tremendous growth from last summer to this summer,” she said. “You can just see the growth, not just in attitude toward education, but they’re becoming responsible young adults. There’s a big difference between a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. I’ve definitely noticed some of those shifts in both the way that they’re thinking and speaking.”

And as for measurable outcomes, Steele points to these as some of the highlights, when compared to the incoming senior Class of 2019:

• The 2020 cohort has seen its course failure rate drop by 4 percent;
• In the A-G requirements — the courses required by students to qualify for admission to a public four-year state university in California — the 2020 cohort has seen an increase of 4 percent; and, Steele said,
• The 2020 cohort has a higher percentage of its students who passed pre-algebra and algebra.

Steele also points out that GEAR UP is not going it alone in the effort. Because the federal grant was a partnership grant, the CSUSB program had to find community partners to match that grant through services and in-kind assistance. In addition to the university and the San Bernardino City Unified School District, joining GEAR UP is the College Board, EduGuide, Elevate Consulting, Elevated Achievement Group, Gorilla Marketing, Nestlé USA, the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE), The Princeton Review, Thinkwise Credit Union, and Tutor.com.

GEAR UP also involves the parents of its students to get them involved through workshops on topics such as financial aid and even bringing them along on college campus tours.

Moreover, just as important, Steele said, the program involves teachers, providing professional development opportunities that give educators more tools to use to help their students achieve. “GEAR UP at its core is about sustainability and systemic change,” she said. “So part of what we have done with GEAR UP is we’ve provided a lot of educator professional development.”

As the Class of 2020 nears its finish line, Steele said she hopes to see funding to get another cohort of students through its high school graduation while preparing them to succeed in college.

Moreover, she said she hopes to see a change in the way students and their parents view a college education.

“I really want to see it become a systemic change so that there is a college-to-career-going culture for all of the students,” Steele said. “It can be attainable for everyone, it can be an option for everyone. It’s just about shifting those mindsets and having those conversations early enough on.”

Visit the California State University, San Bernardino GEAR UP websiteat csusb.edu/gearup for more information.

Also, follow it on social media:

• Facebook, search @CSUSBGU;
• Twitter, @GEARUP_CSUSB; and
• Instagram, @gearup_csusb.

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— LOMA LINDA, CA —- Loma Loma Linda University (LLU) has been honored as a 2018 “Great Colleges to Work For,” by the Chronicle of Higher Education, a leading trade publication for colleges and universities, in partnership with Modern Think. 

The program is designed to recognize institutions that have successfully created great workplaces for their employees and to further the research and understanding of the specific factors, dynamics and influences that impact an organization’s culture.

“This honor speaks highly to the dedication and passion our employees and faculty demonstrate each day,” said Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH, president of Loma Linda University Health. “Their commitment to the mission of continuing the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus Christ is truly inspiring for the entire institution.” 

The results were released on July 16 in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 11th Annual Report on The Academic Workplace and are based on a survey of more than 50,000 people from 253 academic institutions. Of that number, 84 institutions made the list as one of the “Great Colleges to Work For.” 

LLU won honors in seven of the 12 recognition categories, including collaborative governance; confidence in senior leadership; facilities, workspace & security; work/life balance; professional/career-development programs; job satisfaction; and respect and appreciation.

The survey results are based on a two-part assessment process: an institutional audit that captured demographics, benefits, communication, and workplace policies, and a survey administered to faculty, administrators and support staff. Employee feedback was a primary factor in deciding whether an institution received recognition.

Participating institutions receive a survey that measures the extent to which employees are involved or engaged in their organization. Results are categorized by small, medium and large institutions, and LLU was included among the medium-sized institution with 3,000 to 9,999 students.

The institution was also selected for the 2018 Honor Roll distinction, which is awarded to institutions that are recognized most often across all of the recognition categories. 

“Our institution comprises a family of extraordinary people who live to serve and make a difference,” said Ronald Carter, PhD, provost of Loma Linda University. “I am inspired by the teamwork of our faculty and staff, and their commitment to academic excellence, spirituality and service.” 

Great Colleges to Work For is one of the largest and most comprehensive workplace studies in higher education. 

For more information, visit llu.edu or to begin a career with Loma Linda University, search Find a Job.

By Marisol Beas | California Black Media

 (EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)——Leo Hickman, the founder of Classy Hippie Tea Company, has been in business for seven years. Hickman said under the current economy “there is monetary value, even if you are losing” because Trump “just put in tax breaks for owners,” the American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that can be written off.

The American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in December and will have some benefits to small business owners. The National Federation of Independent Business  says small business owners will be able to file as “pass through entities,” which allows owners to file and pay as an individual.

In addition, the NFIB says business owners can deduct up to 20 percent of claimable income. According to the NFIM, taxpayers will not have to file deductions to claim the deduction, “and may simultaneously claim this deduction and the standard deduction.” 

Hickman said he started his tea company after backpacking around the world. He noticed how all of the different cultures sat over tea and talked about the community, and how “from there at a community level you could activate and start changing the community.”

Hickman says that although the Trump economy is helping his business the system was “not built for us.” But he believes that African Americans are not “excluded, where [they] are included is in the programs as workers and the laborer” but that “you have to figure out a way to get access to get to the other side.”

Once you are there Hickman says, “There is going to be bigotry, racism, and hatred that will try to keep you where you are at… but you have to figure out how to bubble up.” Because Hickman says, “If you are going to be in this country you have to be about money.”

Hickman says there are no actual losses when you can write things off, “that’s why this side is set up for them, it was built for you to take a risk.” But Hickman says that African Americans need to “take the small risk of…thirty five dollars to get your business filed,” because if you don’t “we miss out on a couple hundred grand.” 

“You are creating your own economy… it comes down to how much effort you are going to put into educating yourself, and it opens up the world; that’s were freedom lies.”

Cheryl Brownlee, the CEO of CB Communications, started her small business 20 years ago. Now, under the Trump economy Brownlee said, “A lot of things [African American business owners] had the opportunity to be a part of before are changing” and those “opportunities are being taken away.”

Brownlee started her business 20 years ago in her living room as an idea, launching CB communications officially in 2000. CB Communications has partnered with organizations like The Black Advocates for State Services, Café De California, The International Black Women’s Policy Institute, and the California Black Expo.

“We started out…in Sacramento and now we are international,” Brownlee said, working in countries like “Belize, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and [now] Ghana.”

Brownlee and Hickman’s businesses are clear cases of success but perhaps anomalies in the Trump economy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics projects the growth rate of the Black labor force to be slower than the growth rate of the black population between 2018-2026. Furthermore, the overall labor force of Black Americans has been on the decline and is between 5.4 percent-10.1 percent in California.

Brownlee said, “I don’t think that when you are a small business. You have many resources” they are “limited.” The Guidant Financial Small Business Trends and Statistics show that 67 percent of small business owners face the lack of capital, marketing, and advertising efforts.

African American small businesses exist in California but a majority of them are not certified in the State, Brownlee stated. “The small business administration …[found] that there is ten thousand African American businesses in the state of California.”

Brownlee said the Black Chamber of Commerce is making efforts to find the business owners to help them get registered. Brownlee said this is important because this gives African American business owners the “opportunity to be on the list, so when individuals are looking for businesses they can be contracted.”

Under the Trump economy, Brownlee says, it is “big businesses [who take] contracts and if they want to work with small business they may work with small women owned businesses, not African American women, just to meet that check box.” According to the Public Law Research Institute this check box is the federal preferences in public employment, contracting, and education based on ethnicity to eradicate discrimination. “In business, the mindset is the same… racism is becoming blatantly more open” Brownlee said.

“It’s really hard” for small minority businesses, there has to be “organizations advocating on your behalf, to show the value” of African American businesses Brownlee said.

African American businesses need more access to education and tools, Brownlee stated. We need to have “more partnerships” within the African American community.

African American business owners “have to be more conscious, more aware, because we are not going to survive in this administration or any administration really going forward, unless we really understand what business is.”

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)- SAN BERNARDINO, CA— Fifty student leaders with the Sierra Club’s youth chapter gathered outside the Nestle Bottling Facility in Cabazon, CA today to protest the company’s privatization of public water resources. They awarded Nestle with a “#1 Water Thief Award” in a mock recognition ceremony, noting that the company has been diverting water from national forests using an expired permit.

“Nestle doesn’t have a right to claim that this water is theirs to profit off of. Water should be a human right, not something that international corporations can exploit from our communities,” said Sam Rodriguez, youth leader with the Sierra Student Coalition from San Bernardino.

Nestle has withdrawn 62.6 million gallons of water per year for the past 68 years for bottling, all from public sources. While California remains in a historic drought and local residents face mandatory water restrictions, Nestle continues to divert publicly-owned resources. Sierra Club youth activists cited corporate privatization and climate change as factors that have exacerbated ongoing water shortages in California and around the world.

“Nestle is taking water from our communities and then trying to sell it back to us for profit, while also worsening environmental degradation with plastic water bottles and packaging, and a pipeline that goes through the forest,” said Erika Ruiz, San Bernardino resident and youth leader with the Sierra Student Coalition. “It’s a danger to our generation’s future and an insult to our communities.”

More information and petition language at sc.org/Nestle

Live video and photos at facebook.com/SierraStudent

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—RIVERSIDE, CA— Each year, families line up to receive a free backpack. The Adrian Dell and Carmen Roberts Foundation will once again be distributing backpacks at its 17th Annual Free Backpack Giveaway event on Saturday, August 4th from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Castle Park in Riverside.

This back to school event is an opportunity for the Adrian Dell and Carmen Roberts Foundation to provide educational resources to school children ages K-12 in the community for the upcoming school year. This is a free event and early arrival is strongly suggested. Backpacks will be handed out on a first come first serve basis and the school age child must be accompanied with the parent or guardian to receive a backpack. Sponsors include: Assemblymember Jose Medina, Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, Castle Park, Summit College, Riverside City Fire Department, Riverside Police Department, NAACP Riverside, Raceway Ford, Riverside Unified School District, and Cold Cutz.

For more information visit www.adcrfoundation.org.

Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital (LLUCH) recently gained two young benefactors after brother-sister duo Ashton and Alyssa Jean-Marie donated over $1,000 to the LLUCH Birthday Club.

For their birthdays this year, the siblings raised money by asking for donations to the hospital in lieu of birthday gifts. They set a goal to raise $500 but were able to raise $1,005.

“There are things far more important than toys,” said Alyssa, 11, during the check presentation ceremony on July 2. “It makes us happy to help sick kids, and hopefully this will make a difference.”

The Birthday Club was established in 2016 to honor and celebrate extraordinary kids who want to give back to other kids in need after Ulysses Hsu became the hospital’s first junior philanthropist. Funds raised through the club will benefit Vision 2020 – The Campaign for a Whole Tomorrow and the construction of the new Children’s Hospital tower.

Rachelle Bussell, MA, CFRE, senior vice president of advancement at Loma Linda University Health, said she was moved by the generosity of Alyssa and Ashton, 4.

“These kids are teaching the next generation the value of giving back and making a difference for someone else,” Bussell said. “Donating in honor of a birthday to our Children’s Hospital brings valuable dollars to kids and families during some of their most difficult times, and we hope it has made you feel incredibly special birthday. You are special to us.”

Alyssa and Ashton are the youngest members of the Birthday Club and the first siblings to donate.

Alyssa said she learned a lot through the process and would do it again.

“I’ve learned to be more selfless and appreciate what we have.”

To learn more about donating your birthday to LLUCH, visitLLUCH.org/BirthdayClub.

By Lue Dowdy

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— Your favorite BBW Contestant is What It Do! Cast your vote for your favorite selfie! LUE PRODUCTIONS 2018 BBW/Plus Size Model Competition is almost here.

As a part of the competition, each contestant took a selfie wearing a white t-shirt or tank top. The selfie with the most votes by Friday, August 24 at 5 p.m. will be our online selfie winner and will be recognized at the competition on the Red Carpet, Sunday, August 26 at 5 p.m.

As of right now, Jasmine Hall contestant number 8 is taking the lead with 654 votes with contestant number 4 Casandra Greer right behind her with 624 votes.

You can vote for your favorite by visiting our event page on Facebook. Please don’t miss this entertaining and exciting event happening right here in the beautiful City of San Bernardino, my hometown.

Tickets can be purchased now by texting (909) 567-1000 or inboxing LUE PRODUCTIONS. The evening will bring awareness to domestic violence. Break the silence! Please Report Abuse. Until next week L’s!

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— RIVERSIDE, CA—- The memorial services for NAACP Riverside Branch President and Community Icon, Waudieur “Woodie” Rucker Hughes, will be held on Tuesday, July 24 at 12:30 p.m. at Harvest Christian Church located at 6115 Arlington Avenue in Riverside. There will be a viewing at 11 a.m. followed by the repass immediately after the service.

Woodie peacefully made her transition on the morning of July 13. She served as the Riverside chapter’s branch president for close to 20 years. She also recently retired from the Riverside Unified School District where she served as Child Welfare Attendance Manager/District Coordinator for Homeless Education. 

“Riverside has lost a great one. Woodie was knowledgeable, dependable and steadfast in her commitment to Civil Rights and community organizing. Her leadership and strength will be missed,” said San Bernardino NAACP President A. Majadi.

The family has asked that in lieu of flowers and plants, donations should be made to the Memorial Fund at Altura Credit Union.

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— RIVERSIDE, CA— Carolyn B. Murray, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, has been awarded the 2018 Dr. William Montague Cobb award for special achievements in public health at the local level, presented annually by the National Health Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.

The award is given to an outstanding individual in a local community “in recognition of special achievement in areas of social justice, health justice advocacy, health education, health promotion, fundraising, and research.”

Murray received the honor for her many years of research and activism addressing health disparities in the African American community. She will receive the award on July 16 at the Annual NAACP Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

“The College is thrilled to learn that our colleague Dr. Carolyn Murray has been honored with receiving this award,” said Milagros Peña, dean of the UCR College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “The NAACP has led the nation as an organization and a voice to removing barriers, particularly for people of color, and, in doing so, holding our nation to its stated purpose of ensuring political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens. To have Dr. Murray’s scholarship and career be recognized by the NAACP is one of the highest recognitions one can receive in one’s career, and speaks so truly to Dr. Murray’s achievements.”

Murray joined UCR in 1980. Broadly, her research covers ethnicity, race, and health. She has published extensively on doctor-patient interactions, how culture is a factor in health, how racism and mental health are linked, the psychology of health disparities among African Americans, gender disparities in physician-patient communication among African American patients in primary care, and how mental health disparities in the African American population in California can be addressed and eliminated.

Murray’s research interests include the dynamics of the African American family. Specifically, she conducts developmental research on the socialization practices used by African American families. She also studies the processes by which African American children are prepared to participate successfully in society at large.

She is the founder and executive director of the University STEM Academy, a program housed in the UCR psychology building, that teaches children to be health ambassadors. Aimed mostly at African American students in grades six through nine, the academy, which is home also to a mini medical school, creates a healthy and active learning environment to increase participants’ academic skills and performance, and develop their leadership skills.

Murray has published research papers in several leading peer-reviewed journals and authored numerous book chapters in a variety of scholarly texts. Currently, she is writing a lay book for African American parents on how to advocate on behalf of their children within the educational system.

She has won numerous awards and honors, including the Distinguished Teaching Award from UCR, the Riverside Countywide YWCA “Woman of Achievement Award in Education,” the UCR Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, and the Association of Black Psychologists Distinguished Psychologist Award. She is the recipient also of the NAACP Riverside Branch’s Roy Wilkins Award, UCR’s Outstanding Black Faculty of the Year, and the UCR Graduate Division’s Award for Commitment to Graduate Diversity.

“I am deeply honored to receive this award from the NAACP,” Murray said. “It gives me a solid platform to bring the public’s attention to the dire state of health in the African American community and beyond. I would like to thank the local NAACP branch for its ardent support in helping address this issue. Life expectancy has decreased two years in a row for Americans, a grave concern that is largely unreported. This award will serve as a reminder that my crusade against health disparities, particularly in the African American community, must continue. Our work is far from done.”

William Montague Cobb, for whom the award is named, was a pioneering 20th-century physical anthropologist. Born in 1904, he was the first African American to earn a doctorate in anthropology. He also earned a doctor of medicine degree from Howard University Medical School. He was a scholar on the concept of race and its negative impact on communities of color. He served as president of the NAACP from 1976 to 1982. He died in 1990.