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Community colleges are known for access – for making higher education accessible to many different types of students, including those with challenges that place a four-year institution out of reach, at least for the moment. Broad access means offering multiple points of entry during the year – one should not have to wait until September to start college. Thanks to this flexibility some students complete their degree requirements at the end of the fall semester. We stay in touch with our “December Graduates” and do our best to get them to show up for commencement the following spring. Many come back in June, grab their robes and mortarboards, and join their classmates for the festivities. We recently caught up with a couple of students who completed their LaGuardia associate degree programs last month.
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Lin Lin Myat, 22, originally from Myanmar (Burma), completed her Associate of Science degree in Business Administration and will begin pursuing a bachelor's degree in Accounting at Baruch College. Lin's ambition is to work for one of the Big Four accounting firms and eventually start her own business. “When I started at LaGuardia,” she said, “I was 20 years old. Coming to the US alone from an underdeveloped country was a significant change for me, but it was my dream. I chose LaGuardia because of its diversity, numerous programs, and student clubs. From the moment I arrived, I felt comfortable and confident that I could achieve my goals. I will always be grateful to LaGuardia because it’s where my journey began. Now, as I attend interviews in my business suit, I carry with me all the connections I have made along the way." | |
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Gloria Don Lam Len, 24, is also from Myanmar, where she grew up as a member of the Chin ethnic minority. Gloria completed her Associate of Arts degree in Political Science. She is moving on to Columbia University for her bachelor’s degree. Coming from a country embroiled in civil war, Gloria faced financial and emotional challenges. She credits scholarships and stipends from the LaGuardia Foundation for alleviating her financial burdens and enabling her to pay rent. The Wellness Center provided invaluable mental health support. Reflecting on her time at LaGuardia, Gloria explained, “The President’s Society is where I enjoyed my student life the most. It opened my eyes to new possibilities and motivated me to strive even harder.” | |
Helping Foreign-Trained Nurses Become US RNs | |
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Last month, thirty students trained as nurses in their home countries competed our NCLEX-RN Prep Course for English Language Learners. The program, funded by the NYC Department of Small Business Services and run by LaGuardia’s NYC Welcome Back Center, helps foreign-trained nurses prepare for and pass the US nursing licensing exam, or NCLEX-RN. This being Queens — or “The World’s Borough” as they say — our students came from Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burma, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Tibet, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Fourteen of them have already passed the NCLEX-RN and are now working with our Career Services team to obtain full-time employment in New York City hospitals or other healthcare providers. (For a sense of the impact of the program, imagine an immigrant woman who has been working in a low-wage, hourly, home health aide job becoming a full-time nurse at NYU Langone — the wage and benefit differential is life-changing.)
The NYC Welcome Back Center is at the forefront nationally in adapting the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) model for English language learners. For the NCLEX-RN ELL course, our language instructors team-teach with health sciences faculty. According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the average re-licensing exam pass rate for LaGuardia NCLEX-RN ELL students is 74%, almost double the national average pass rate of 40%.
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 | | The U.S. Department of State recently announced the 2024 recipients of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, awarded to American undergraduates to support their study abroad. This year’s recipients include LaGuardia students Quashawna Hutcherson and Laniel Collazo. Both Quashawna and Laniel are enrolled in the Japanese Option of LaGuardia’s Liberal Arts: Social Science and Humanities major, and will be travelling to Japan this summer thanks to their Gilman Scholarships. Quashawna worked with her advisor, Lissette Aguilar, while Laniel worked with his advisor Jenny Lugo. Their success would not have been possible without the ASAP office and advisors who encouraged them to take EIS216: International Schooling in Global Contexts, taught by Dr. Maria Savva, Professor in the Education and Language Acquisition Department, Co-Director of the Office of Global and Experiential Learning, and Gilman panelist. We used to ask students who went abroad to send postcards. Now we settle for WhatsApp messages.
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Students from Queensboro Correctional Facility Complete LaGuardia Courses | |
Professor John Chaney (Social Sciences) and Dr. Joni Schwartz-Chaney (Humanities) celebrated with the second cohort of students at New York State’s Queensboro Correctional Facility who successfully completed one of four courses we teach there through LaGuardia’s Accelerated College Transition (ACT) project. The ACT project, supported by a three-year $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice awarded to LaGuardia in October 2023, provides access to LaGuardia classes and wraparound services to residents of the facility, which is across the street from the college. Professor Chaney is the Principal Investigator and Dr. Schwartz-Chaney is the Co-Investigator for this major federal grant that LaGuardia is so proud to support. | |
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CUNY will be presenting a Teaching Award to LaGuardia Professor Michele de Goeas-Malone for her commitment to advancing teaching excellence and student success. Professor de Goeas-Malone, Education Program Co-Director and Lecturer, was nominated by Dr. Billie Gastic Rosado, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Dr. Arthur Lau, Chair of the Education and Language Acquisition (ELA) Department. “I am deeply honored to receive this award and very grateful to Provost Rosado and Dr. Lau, the ELA department chair, for recognizing and nominating me for it,” said Professor de Goeas-Malone. “This award is a powerful reminder of why I love teaching and motivates me to continue providing the best possible learning experiences for our students. From high school dropout to receiving this recognition, what a ride.” | |
NYC Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Salutes Stellar Student | |
On December 6, LaGuardia student Christiane Villaroel was presented with the New York City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Scholarship Award by Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson and Joseph Trimble, executive from Wells Fargo, at the 19th Annual Hispanic Business Award Banquet and Scholarship Award Ceremony. Christiane, who pocketed a $2,500 scholarship, was selected as a candidate for the award by the LaGuardia Community College Foundation, a longtime partner of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Over the past 19 years the NYCHCC has awarded more than $210,000 to students who attend college in the New York City area. Christiane is pursuing his Associate of Applied Science in Programming and Software Development and aspires to become a software engineer. He is currently a software engineer apprentice at Wells Fargo. | |
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The LaGuardia Community College Foundation recently established the Visual Arts Scholarship Fund thanks to a generous donation from Peter Brown, former Fine Arts professor. In addition to his teaching duties, Peter served as director of our Fine of Arts Program for nearly 30 years, from 1973 to 2002. To celebrate of the launch of the Visual Arts Scholarship Fund, we hosted a reception for Peter and his wife, Denise Smith, which included a tour of the Fine Arts, Industrial Design, and Photography programs. With Humanities Chair, Professor Vera Albrecht leading the way, the tour concluded in the E-Building 5th floor Gallery, where students, faculty, and staff thanked Peter for his incredible support and showed Denise and him beautiful examples of current students’ work. | |
LaGuardia Students Complete NYS Court Interpreter Internship Program | |
| | | As the Fall Semester came to an end just before the holidays, four LaGuardia students completed the NYS Court Interpreter Internship Program. This intensive, five-week internship is designed to enhance students’ understanding of court interpretation through practical, immersive experiences. Each intern worked under the mentorship of seasoned court interpreters, gaining first-hand exposure to legal procedures and the critical role interpreters play in trials, hearings, and mediation sessions at courts in NYC. Alex Landi (a paralegal studies student interpreting in Spanish), Annette Meyers (a deaf studies student interpreting in American Sign Language), Antoel Gega (an accounting student interpreting in Albanian) and Eric Liu (a computer science student interpreting in Mandarin) discovered how their language and interpreting skills give them big advantages for career opportunities. That they could use their bilingual abilities to help people who are deaf or have limited English navigate the court system was all the more gratifying.
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