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Community Outreach

Outreach Programs

For more than 40 years, Occidental has been an active member of the Northeast Los Angeles community. Current programs include:

  • Community Literacy Center  A community resource since 1963, the Literacy Center provides one-on-one reading and writing instruction for local K-6 children. Our student tutors provide individualized attention.
     
  • Upward Bound Each year, Upward Bound helps more than 100 low-income high school students become the first person in their family to attend college. Established as one of Upward Bound’s original pilot programs, ours is one of the largest and most successful in California.
     
  • GEARUP Through Gaining Early Awareness And Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEARUP) our students and those from Glendale Community College provide tutoring and mentoring services to students at Eagle Rock and Marshall high schools.
     
  • TOPS Since 1992, TOPS (Teachers+Occidental = Partnership in Science) has trained high school science teachers the latest biology, chemistry and physics concepts and provided their students with advanced scientific equipment for hands-on lab experience in the program's mobile laboratory.
     
  • School Partnerships Our students organize and run several outreach programs at local schools including Garvanza, Castelar, and Delevan elementary schools, offering tutoring and mentoring services.
     
  • College Access Programs Occidental heads the national Pathways to College Network, a coalition of 21 foundations and other groups formed to identify successful college prep programs and duplicate them. We also serve as coordinator for a statewide effort to boost college attendance rates among disadvantaged students by increasing awareness of existing financial aid programs.
     
  • Community Partnerships Occidental staff members serve on the boards of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, Solheim Lutheran Home, 20th Century Women's Club, Eagle Rock Community Revitalization and Preservation, and the Northeast Community Police Advisory Board. We played a role in the organization of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council and funded the launch of the council's website. The College also has a limited budget to provide some subsidized space and other services for functions of local groups, a process coordinated by the College’s Community Outreach Council.
     

The Arts

All of our performances and art exhibits are open to the public. Many are free.

  • Music The Occidental Glee Clubs perform several times each year, including an annual holiday concert. The Occidental-Caltech Symphony and the Caltech-Occidental Concert Band present concerts on both the Occidental and Caltech campuses. The Music Department regularly presents a wide range of student, faculty, and guest artist recitals in intimate settings.
     
  • Theater The Theater Department presents two major productions each year, in addition to the annual New Play Festival, a weekend of stage readings and workshop productions of student-written plays. Each summer, our acclaimed Children’s Theater produces a new series of international folk tales at Hillside Theater.
     
  • Art Students, faculty, and off-campus artists regularly exhibit their work in the Weingart Art Gallery and in the Clapp Library Gallery.