In an effort to aid Filipino American students through their educational journeys, El Camino College will continue their partnership with a student support program from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Samahang Pilipino Advancing Community Empowerment (SPACE) program contract was approved by the Board of Trustees during their Nov.16 meeting. This program seeks to help students meet their transfer goals, according to the affiliation agreement.

ECC Transfer Center Coordinator Rene Lozano, has been a partner with the SPACE program for over a decade and believes in the positive effects it has on students who participate in it.

“Now more than ever, I think, especially in a pandemic, students are really hungry for connecting with others, and I think that SPACE is doing a great job of connecting them,” Lozano said.

According to the affiliation agreement, the SPACE program supports students by providing free services like one-on-one and group academic advising, as well as homework help and study groups.

Lozano said the SPACE program has had success in helping the students they serve and that ECC as a whole has maintained a good relationship with the program.

“I feel like that’s another way that we’re supporting SPACE, by having a commitment at the campus level, not just to the Transfer Center,” Lozano said.

El Camino’s SPACE Site Coordinator and Peer Advisor David Alejandrino said the program helps students with goal setting and progress. He also said there are resources offered to students, including helping them with college applications.

“If they have this timeline of ‘I want to transfer in two years, I want to transfer in three years’…we really try our best to help them, you know, basically, stay on track within their timeline of transferring,” Alejandrino said.

Before the pandemic, the SPACE program would also take students on field trips to different school campuses, but now they do “site hangout days” on Zoom to discuss different topics.

“[It] is pretty much a chance for any of the students we meet with to meet all together with one another and to meet with all of our peer advising staff,” Alejandrino said.

Patrick Portiz, biology major, has been involved with the UCLA SPACE program for three years. He said the program has been good for him by helping him with both personal growth and class planning.

“[It] kind of motivates you to do better, seeing how much they are trying to help you as a student and as a person,” Portiz said.

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Students interested in the program can sign-up using the SPACE Outreach Sign-up Sheet.