By Guadalupe Barriga
President of ELAC Dr. Alberto J. Roman and ASU President Mr. Yuxuan Bai co-hosted the Town Hall for ELAC students on Friday from 12-1 pm.
Students were welcomed to sign up through their emails for a meeting to ask questions about financial aid, school COVID regulations, students’ services and the possibilities of in person courses.
Roman invited special guests like Anna Salazar from the Admissions office, Cecilia Cruz from the Health Center, Lindy Fong from Financial Aid, Michelle Hernandez from Counseling and others to answer students’ questions.
Important details were covered throughout the meeting for instance the possibility of in person classes for summer and fall.
Roman said ELAC will have some in person classes but will not allow more than 50% capacity in classrooms including students and professors. Before the pandemic a classroom was able to hold 42 students.
Now there will only be 20 students per classroom. Classes will be available online and some in person depending on students’ needs.
As for now Dr. Roman said summer classes will primarily be online and hopes for the future to keep important classes online for students who work and have a family to take care of.
“The pandemic taught us some online classes do work fine online,” he said but nothing is final yet.
Isabela Ganido, an ELAC student asked “Do we need the vaccine to return to school?”
Many students and faculty have this concern since some UC and Cal State schools are requiring the vaccine to return to in person classes.
Dr. Roman stated the Los Angeles District is not requiring students or faculty to have the vaccine to return to in person classes right now since they need to consider people’s reasons to not get it like health conditions or religion.
This can change in the future students and faculty will be noticed if the vaccines is required by the district. Financial aid was also discussed in the meeting.
Lindy Fong at the Financial Aid office encourages students to apply for financial aid before the deadlines. AB540 students also qualify for financial aid but must submit the Dream Act application in order to receive financial aid.
Fong says they are here to help students with their financial aid, and students can reach out to the Financial Aid office through phone and email for help.
Dr. Armond Aghakhanian from the ELAC Foundation wants students to know there are scholarships available through the ELAC Foundation each scholarship has different requirements and students can view all the scholarships on elacfoundation.com.
ELAC foundation is also providing emergency funds for students who are struggling to pay rent or get food. The emergency funds are available to everyone regardless of immigration status.
It was also announced that ELAC partnered up with Via Care to provide vaccines by appointment to students’ and their families.
The vaccination clinic will take place on May 6, 7 and 8 at ELAC. An email with a link to sign up for an appointment was sent to students this month.
Dr. Roman and Mr. Yuxuan Bai are inviting ELAC students to get involved and vote in the upcoming LACCD Student Trustee and ASU 2021-2022 elections. Students can vote for the next ASU board members on April 26 starting at 8 am and it will close on April 30.
Dr. Roman is encouraging students to vote at the ASU election “Have your voice on campus,” he said.
Students will continue to get emails with the latest news regarding online and in person classes along with other important news.