Symposium Brings Together Students and Families
On July 24, CSULB held its first symposium for the family members of our upper division BUILD scholars. More than 250 guests attended and included campus administrators, faculty mentors, staff, BUILD students and their families.
The event started off with welcoming remarks in both Spanish and English from Guido Urizar, one of the BUILD PIs, and Paul Buonora, BUILD director for research enhancement, followed by moving speeches from Simon Kim, associate vice president for research, and Mary Stephens, vice president for administration and finance.
The name 'BUILD' has many meanings for what we are striving to achieve at CSULB. We want to build the resources that we offer for students and faculty. We want to build the career paths and opportunities that students have to complete their graduate degrees and go on to have successful careers. We want to build the support that students have from the university, faculty and their families. Finally, we want to BUILD our community. — Guido Urizar
Chi-Ah Chun, BUILD director for student training, then described activities that the BUILD scholars had participated in throughout the six-week BUILD summer program and explained to the family members how BUILD activities over the next two years would help provide these scholars with the resources, skills, and training to pursue graduate research careers and give back to the community.
The rest of the event was dedicated to celebrating the research that BUILD scholars had been working on with their faculty mentors this summer, represented by 46 poster displays that students were presenting to their family members, faculty and staff. Family members had an opportunity to meet with the faculty mentors and BUILD faculty and staff that their children had been working with throughout the summer.
This was a great event to demonstrate to the students the support they have from their families and friends, their faculty mentors and the CSULB administration. Several of the parents commented on how included they felt because the welcome message was given in Spanish and English and are looking forward to participating in future events on campus.
