CSU Dominguez Hills Partners With ShareFest and LAUSD to Encourage College and Leadership Aspirations in Urban Teens

For many teens in the South Bay, summer vacation means family excursions, time on the beach, or possibly a temporary job. For others, attempts to fill the idle hours ends up in gang activity and drug abuse.

To provide better summer options for youth at risk, California State University, Dominguez Hills recently partnered with the Los Angeles-based nonprofit ShareFest and the Los Angeles Unified School District to hold the second annual Youth Development Academy (YDA). The four-week program provided an opportunity for young people to participate in positive activities that instill good learning habits, leadership qualities, and an ambition to go to college.

"Every university should encourage the educational growth of youth by exposing them to a college environment," says David Gamboa, director of Government and Community Relations.

During the YDA, students learned about health, nutrition, character building, decision-making, self-awareness and leadership through activities that included sports, theatre, art, reading, and other educational activities designed to show the many options that exist beyond the self-destructive and high-risk activities that are widely available in their communities.

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When Dr. Donald Gerth, former president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, was hoping to bring publicity to the university during the 1984 Olympics, he offered the Carson campus as a possible venue to the event chairman Peter Ueberroth.

That conversation resulted in the building of a Velodrome on campus, a world class cycling venue with a 333.3 meter track and seating for 2,500 spectators. For the Los Angeles Olympics, 6,000 were accommodated with temporary seating. The construction, which cost $3.5 million, was funded by the Southland Corporation (now known as 7-11, Inc.) and was completed in 1981. In preparation for the Olympics, the concrete track was tested with several smaller events, including a human-powered vehicle exhibition in 1983.

Thomas Philo, archivist, University Archives and Special Collections, says that the use of venues at existing locations throughout Los Angeles, enabled the city to host the Olympics without suffering financial losses on a one-time event that would incur substantial expenses.

“[The Olympic committee] was determined to find sponsorship for the events and make sure that Los Angeles didn’t take a financial hit like other [cities] had in hosting the Olympics,” he says. “Los Angeles became the model on how to do that.”

Philo says that the effort required to bring an Olympic venue to CSU Dominguez Hills speaks to the commitment the campus was making to become a vital part of the Los Angeles community, “where people would come for a premier event like the Olympics.”

“It put us on the map,” he says. “The thought behind it was that we would [later] use it as an outdoor amphitheatre for the university. The further thought was we would make Dominguez Hills the center of collegiate cycling in the country.”

According to David Karber, emeritus professor of public administration and former vice president of administration at the time of the Velodrome’s construction, building the Velodrome and hosting the Olympic cycling events on campus inspired the development of a CSU Dominguez Hills cycling team.

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