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The Big Story: USC student wins $4M California State Parks grant to build San Bernardino park and wellness center
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Jorge Zatarain has spent almost his whole life in San Bernardino, but it wasn’t until he briefly left that he saw the beauty of his home city.
- Zatarain’s first job out of college took him to 35 different U.S. states, where he helped Chevrolet market cars at sports venues and major events. Seeing so many cities made him realize that there was so much potential in San Bernardino – with its art, culture and scenic backdrop of mountains – despite its economic and public safety challenges.
That epiphany sparked a career that has largely focused on helping San Bernardino communities. Now, the Master of Nonprofit of Leadership & Management (MNLM) student is overseeing an ambitious project that could help his home city fulfill its potential.
- As Director of Operations at the nonprofit El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center, Zatarain is overseeing development of a 20,000-square-foot park and wellness center in San Bernardino.
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Plans include a playground, community garden, basketball courts, a game room, and library, among other amenities.
- The project won a $4.25 million grant from California State Parks and $250,000 from the City of San Bernardino. The project is set to break ground this month.
Read more about the project
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After Monterey Park shooting, Price MPA grads help a shattered city heal
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On the night of Jan. 21, 2023, a 72-year-old man armed with an illegal semi-automatic pistol walked into a dance studio in Monterey Park and killed 11 people. Another nine were seriously wounded. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in Los Angeles County history.
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Nearly three years later, two graduates of the USC Price School are working to heal the community’s collective trauma.
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Monterey Park City Councilmember Thomas Wong and Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Paul Lee have joined with fellow city officials and non-profit organizations to hold community events to bring people together.
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Access to mental health services has increased, including the provision of counseling at community events. And they’re collaborating with other cities and agencies to help them try to prevent mass shootings.
Read more about the MPA alumni’s efforts
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🪖 Analyzing the Venezuela attack: The U.S. strike on Caracas continues a historic trend of growing presidential power – and diminishing Congressional power – over foreign conflicts, USC Price School Provost Professor Jeffery Jenkins says. Read more
🤖 New AI Initiative: Professor Glenn Melnick, working with a USC student team, launched the AI Knowledge Hub with a website chock-full of information about how faculty, students and staff can get up to speed on AI. Read more
🔑 Compromise is Key: Consent and compromise are crucial to repairing the damage to U.S. democracy, according to speakers at the George Washington Leadership Lecture. Read more
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One last thing: Disadvantaged neighborhoods face barriers to access cultural institutions
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Less educated and lower income neighborhoods are consistently farther away from cultural institutions – such as elite universities, museums, and theaters – that can help advance one’s social mobility, according to a new study from the USC Price School of Public Policy.
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What they researched: The study – published in the Journal of Economic Geography – is the first to quantify the geographic barriers that may reduce the number of lower-income and less educated households who consume the types of “cultural capital,” such as knowledge, skills and education, that enables greater social mobility.
- What they found: Communities with high levels of education are systematically closer to all eight representative sources of cultural capital. Highest income earning tracts are, on average, significantly closer to all forms of cultural capital than the lowest earning tracts, when distances are measured by expected travel times.
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Why it matters: “We’ve increasingly realized that our cultural capital can dictate future outcomes,” said Professor Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, the study’s co-author. “If it’s one of the attributes that explains social mobility, then isn’t the simple policy solution to provide more access? Well, then you start to look at where cultural capital shows up in a place, and you realize it’s really physically and spatially out of reach for less educated and less well-off residents.”
Read more about the study
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