Cabrillo receives $894,500 donation: Funds to…
Cabrillo receives $894,500 donation: Funds to be used for engineering, technology programs
By Kimberly White and Santa Cruz Sentinel |
PUBLISHED: September 10, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: September 11, 2018 at 12:00 a.m.
APTOS – Cabrillo College will use a nearly $1 million donation to beef up its engineering and technology programs, including creating a new summer program for middle-school girls to get them interested in those fields.
The Cabrillo College Foundation announced Monday that it received an $894,500 donation from the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation, which awards grants to nonprofits that serve the people and communities in and around Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.
Some of the funds will be used for a state-of-the-art facility at the Aptos campus that"s solely dedicated to engineering and technology. The engineering, physics, computer science and related programs are now scattered around campus, but they"ll soon be co-located in Building 800, according to Melinda Silverstein, executive director of the Cabrillo College Foundation.
The office of the president and vice president of instruction and the administrative offices were moved out of that building earlier this year, and the remaining occupants have since relocated. Construction is slated to begin in December and wrap up next fall, with the building being renamed the Jack and Peggy Baskin Technology Center for Engineering, Computing and Physics.
The renovation"s cost is pegged at $4.2 million, with $250,000 coming from the Baskin Foundation, $1.9 million from the U.S. Department of Education and $2 million from Measure D bond funds, according to figures provided by Silverstein.
The Baskin donation also will be used to pay for a new summer program for girls enrolled in local middle schools. Up to 30 of those students will be able to attend the week-long Baskin Girls in Engineering and Technology summer program, expected to launch in 2013. Similar to the annual Girls in Engineering program operated at the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, its goal is to get young girls thinking early on about careers in the engineering and technology fields.
Officials are still working on the curriculum, Silverstein said, but "it will be very hands-on" and aims to "demystify what engineering and technology is and show much fun it can be."
The Baskin Foundation focuses on education and women"s issues, according to the foundation"s website. For example, in 2009 the Board of Directors established a scholarship program for women attending Cabrillo who are transferring to a UC campus. Peggy Baskin also co-founded Women"s Educational Success, a program that provides emergency aid to re-entry women who are attending Cabrillo.
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