Public Higher Ed update -- Weary of negative politics? Here's a peek at the future of America (it has never looked better!)

June is a busy month.  It is a month of endings and of beginnings -- springtime ends, summer begins (for us northern hemisphere types, at least); there seems to be a spike in marriage activities (thus the ending of an old lifestyle and the beginning of a new lifestyle); it is the biggest month for student graduations which herald the accomplishment of a major goal, and therefore the likely embarkation upon a new goal.  Perhaps it would be better to refer to June as a month of transitions.

Frequent readers will know of my promotion of higher education, and of my involvement with Long Beach City College (LBCC) and its Foundation.  I recently attended the annual ceremony recognizing those students who are recipients of scholarships that are awarded as they make preparations to transition into their next year of study at LBCC.

Over $1.1 million in scholarships were awarded to somewhere around 700 students.  All of the recipients were in attendance and each one was introduced and recognized individually.  President Eloy Oakley welcomed the assembled crowd -- not only the scholarship winners, but friends and families, as well as donors -- with remarks that were warm, sincere, inspirational and concise (hard to do in five minutes, but he did so).  It was a big crowd, but it is a big college.

The diversity of the crowd and the winners was striking.  The General Assembly of the United Nations might be more diverse, but not by much.  The LBCC student population is immigrant-heavy.  Economically, it tends towards the left-hand side of the bell curves of national income and wealth measurements.  There was lots of positive energy.  Sure, being handed a pocketful of money will make somebody feel good.  But it was energy that was looking beyond the immediate and into the future.

The winners were anywhere in age from young to old(er).  I sat next to one of the older winners.  A 50-ish fellow, originally from Cambodia, resident in Long Beach for 35 years now, and the father of three sons.  He was proud of the fact that all of them are in college -- elsewhere than LBCC, at other institutions of California public higher education -- and so now the father is emulating the children by expanding his education.  I was impressed by his enthusiasm and outlook on life.  Much of this gentleman's formative life was during the chaos and tragedy of the Khmer Rouge regime and its aftermath.  He probably carries some baggage from that time, but whatever weight is in that baggage did not seem to be holding him back.

The Scholarship Reception happened to be on the day after the California election.  Notably for LBCC, one of the outcomes of the election was an impressively-large local approval of a bond measure that will enable the College to make infrastructure upgrades and repairs to classroom buildings throughout its campuses.  (Thank you to voters in Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon!)  Better classrooms means more students being educated, and more skills, knowledge and positive energy being put back into the community and the local and national economies.  Everybody wins.

Diversity, lots of immigrants, modest means, positive energy, more voter-approved bonded indebtedness, enthusiastic and inspirational outlooks -- yes, it is California, isn't it?  This is a state that has always been big on precedents, and as the most populous state, its precedents are big deals.  With a population of 40 million, that which is California today will be America tomorrow.

My time as a student at Long Beach City College was long ago, way back in the 20th century.  California was the most populous state then, too.  Those were tumultuous times -- the country was wrestling with the social and economic issues loosened by the war in Vietnam, and by the civil rights and free speech movements.  Nonetheless, the prevailing student energy then was much as it is today.  The future looked good, and it turned out well.  The future still looks good -- everywhere, not just in California.

The LBCC scholarship winners -- and the entire student body at the college, as well as students at colleges and universities throughout the country -- will return to their studies a few weeks before America votes to choose its leadership for the next four years.  Now that the primaries are over (save for the one remaining in Washington, D.C.) the choice will be between a candidate who is clearly comfortable with diversity, immigration, and building on a foundation of already-existing positive energy; and another candidate who has demonstrated extreme discomfort with diversity and immigration, and proposes building on foundations of amplified fear, anger and distrust.

The voting choice is an easy one for me.  Can you guess which one it will be?