HIGHER ED TODAY
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.28 COM | OCT. 29 - NOV. 4, 2021
KIDS & EDUCATION
LaGuardia Community
College embarks on
ambitious fundraiser
BY BILL PARRY
LaGuardia Community College has
launched a $15 million fundraising
campaign to help New Yorkers who
lost their jobs or faced other hardships
during the COVID-19 pandemic get
back on track through higher education.
LaGuardia’s Tomorrow Campaign
will help more New Yorkers get
the training they desperately want to
pursue new jobs or upskill to advance
in their current positions.
The Tomorrow Campaign is galvanized
by an anonymous donor who
pledged $5 million, which will be the
Long Island City-based college’s largest
donation to date if LaGuardia raises
$10 million by the end of the year.
Tomorrow funds will significantly
expand resources to support students
with tuition scholarships, gap grants
(for non-tuition grants like books, MetroCards
and childcare), internship
support including stipends, technology
support (laptop loans and Wi-Fi
hotspots) and more. Ninety-five percent
of funds raised will go directly to
students.
“We’re aiming high with this ambitious
fundraising campaign because of
the urgent need to help New Yorkers
get back on their feet. The $15 million
will transform the lives of LaGuardia
students and create a new talent pool
for New York City employers,” LaGuardia
Community College President Kenneth
Adams said. “The impact of gifts
to Tomorrow will be felt immediately
by hardworking, resilient students
who are striving to better themselves,
their families and our city — setting
them up for a better tomorrow.”
LaGuardia serves over 30,000 students
a year in associate degree, accelerated
workforce, pre-college and high
school equivalency programs. Many
come to LaGuardia eager to build a
better life, with a majority of students
living below the poverty line, earning
less than $30,000 per year, and many
others are immigrants or first-generation
college students.
Financial support can mean the
difference between graduating or
dropping out of college, or staying in
a minimum wage job versus securing
better employment.
Tomorrow funds will be available
to all LaGuardia students, regardless
of immigration or citizenship
status, in both degree and non-degree
programs.
“By raising $15 million we will increase
support available for LaGuardia
LaGuardia Community College is
launching an ambitious fundraising
campaign to help more students like
Sabiha Farheen get back on track after
the pandemic through higher education.
Photo courtesy of LaGuardia
Community College
students by 500% — in recent years we
raised approximately $3 million annually
— and given the toll of COVID-19,
it’s needed,” LaGuardia Foundation
Board Chair Suzie Scanlon Rabinowitz,
Esq. said. “We are incredibly grateful
for the generous donors who have
helped us raise $4.8 million to date for
Tomorrow. We are asking friends of
the college, corporate partners, philanthropies
and LaGuardia alumni, faculty
and staff to help us raise the $5.2
million still needed to qualify for the
$5 million gift. Please join us today.”
Accelerated workforce training
programs, often provided with
the school’s industry partners, and
pre-college programs are provided
through LaGuardia’s Adult and Continuing
Education Division. Students
who complete these programs often go
straight into well-paying jobs or enter
college ready to succeed. However, as
non-degree programs, there are no federal
or state programs to help them pay
their tuition.
“Our workforce training programs
are vital to helping students get back
to work, and we are proud to be one of
the first community colleges to offer
scholarships specifically for non-degree
students,” Adams said. “Without
emergency aid, unexpected financial
burdens can lead to students dropping
out of school. Whereas, students who
receive aid from the LaGuardia Foundation
are three times more likely to
graduate than general students.”
To learn more about LaGuardia
Community College’s Tomorrow
Campaign, or to make a donation, visit
laguardia.edu/tomorrow.
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Researchers from the City University of
New York have developed a device that integrates
indoor navigation with augmented reality
to help emergency responders find their
way through poorly lit, potentially dangerous
spaces to evacuate people in danger.
The group of researchers, composed of
faculty, staff and a graduate student from The
City College of New York, Borough of Manhattan
Community College and the CUNY Office of
Research are currently refining the technology
that one day could save lives. Their invention
will be marketed as a smartphone app, providing
real-time maps and turn-by-turn navigation,
and eliminating the need for the costly
sensors and 3D scanners currently on the market.
The minds behind this exciting project received
training and funding from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and are the beneficiaries
of CUNY’s decade-long push to provide
academic researchers with the acumen, resources
and networks needed to translate their
inventions into commercially viable ventures.
The thinking is that if CUNY’s brightest
scholars in the sciences, engineering and tech
can produce breakthroughs that address realworld
problems, their discoveries will have
multiple benefits — diversifying the STEM
workforce, establishing new pathways to employment
for our graduates and in turn, driving
a more equitable, inclusive economy.
CUNY’s focus on leveraging the creativity
of its research community can be seen in an array
of new university programs that advance
these goals to the benefit of society and our region’s
economic development.
City College recently won a $750,000 “Build
to Scale” grant from the U.S. Economic Development
Administration (EDA) to fund the
creation of the Center for Co-Innovation and
Medical Technology, which seeks to translate
product concepts to the marketplace through
the development of medical technologies that
address unmet clinical needs. The project,
which will bring many new STEM-related jobs
to Harlem, will also receive $750,000 in local
matching funds from City College and a philanthropic
donor.
The same enterprising spirit can be seen in
the Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s summer
announcement to bring its Blackstone
LaunchPad entrepreneurship and skill-building
program to nine CUNY colleges, a $6 million
commitment to support career mobility.
Students will receive resources and guidance
to expand their mentorship networks, enabling
them to pursue job opportunities and create
their own start-ups.
Leading the Push
And notably, starting in January, CUNY
will oversee the New York Region Innovation
Corps (I-Corps) Hub, an exciting, $15 million
federally-funded program established by the
NSF to provide entrepreneurial training and
mentoring to diverse academic researchers.
The award is the largest the NSF has ever conferred
to CUNY and will allow these inventors
to develop their scientific and engineering discoveries
into products and build the enterprises
needed to bring them into the marketplace.
The New York Region I-Corps Hub has a related
objective: giving our brightest minds the
guidance they need to bring their innovations
out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.
Through it, CUNY will lead a consortium
of eight local colleges that includes Columbia
University and New York University, which
will work together to identify product opportunities
and spearhead the creation of student-
and faculty-run startups that address realworld
concerns.
Working in teams, guided by industry professionals
and buoyed by seed money from the
NSF, faculty and student researchers will work
to identify promising product opportunities
and form start-up ventures to commercialize
them. CUNY will oversee approximately 30 ICorps
teams after the program launches.
The I-Corps Hub will enable faculty and
graduate student researchers like those who
produced the indoor navigation system to
sharpen their technological discovery, scale
its production and bring it to market. Their experience
illustrates the I-Corps program’s immense
value.
Initially, they conceived the technology as
a tool to help the blind and visually impaired,
but a seven-week I-Corps workshop last spring
guided them through a rigorous process of customer
discovery, which showed a limited market
for such a product. Through more than 100
interviews with architects, building managers,
construction workers and firefighters, however,
they determined their product could fill a great
need for safe navigation by emergency responders.
The inventors adapted the technology and
it is being piloted at 10 sites across New York
State. They are now seeking a patent.
It’s a great example of our work to harness
the ingenuity of CUNY’s community, and to expand
access and support for entrepreneurs at
a time when their innovations can be vital to
our region’s pandemic recovery and long-term
growth.
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/tomorrow
