Grant
to benefit health students, advising office
By Yi-Fang Vicky Lin
On-line Forty-Niner
A $90,000 grant offered by the California
Wellness Foundation was given to the Health
Professions Advising Office at Cal State
Long Beach’s College of Natural Science
and Mathematics for the first time. The
contribution is aimed to enhance student
opportunities of entering the health field
or pursuing higher health education.
The office is a campus advising service
in collaboration with the Student Access
to Science Center which provides health
profession career counseling, tutoring and
workshops along with training programs in
the preparation for CSULB students to enter
the medical schools and related careers.
“The grant will help support a coordinator
who will be able to do more outreach and
advising, particularly to minorities and
first generation college students,” said
Carol Itatani, the office faculty director
and professor of biological sciences. “One
of the objectives of the California Wellness
Foundation is to increase the diversity
of California’s health work force.”
The fund supports the office in several
aspects, Eileen Tom, coordinator of the
office, said. With increasing student population
among the field, the grant will not only
support the existing counseling programs,
it also allows more counselors to be hired
in meeting students’ demands.
“The grant will fund three additional tutors
and peer mentors for core science courses,
and assist students by sponsoring their
attendance at local pre-health conferences,”
Tom added.
Holding more annual seminars and various
workshops in health fields, is another important
plan of the grant spending to recruit more
health professional, and helps to prepare
competitive candidates for the post-graduate
programs, Itatani said.
The initial grant proposal was sent to the
California Wellness Foundation. After its
evaluation and review, the office was asked
to send a complete proposal to the organization.
The principal author Itatani ,put the final
version of the proposal together, with the
assistances from several faculty members
Eileen Tom, Patricia Maxwell, Henry Fung
and the Dean of the College of Natural Science
and Mathematics, Glenn Nagel, said Itatani.
“Previously the HPAO received a grant from
The California Endowment. This is the first
time we have received funding from The California
Wellness Foundation,” Itatani added.
The California Wellness Foundation is one
the state’s largest private foundations
located in Southern California, established
in 1992. Its mission is to promote health
care and improve wellness education and
prevent disease by offering various types
of grants to non-profit institutions throughout
the nation.
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