History of the Center

The new Center at CLU arose from a 2003-06 Irvine Foundation Campus Diversity Initiative grant of $400,000. That grant focused on transforming the campus into a welcoming, inclusive environment. While Irvine funding ends this year, five faculty working groups have been established by the Gender and Ethnic Studies Program (the precursor to the CEJ to serve as interdisciplinary learning communities, promoting peer review and research collaboration on:

  1. Immigration and global cities
  2. Globalization and media
  3. Religion and global change
  4. Diversity and educational excellence
  5. Health and social change

Then, in October 2006, Gender and Ethnic Studies faculty attended the first Ventura County Women's Forum and were inspired to create a web-based community to house a countywide network of people committed to pursuing social justice. This idea, an online Ventura County Collaborative for Social Justice, reflects the Center's expanded vision to become a community service of CLU, inextricably tied to the county's needs and designed to support local grassroots efforts for positive social change.

Institutes & Networks

There are three major components of the Center. Ventura County Collaborative for Social Justice which help link community organizations and concerned citizens with academic researchers from throughout Ventura County's universities and colleges who will be organized into the (now) seven working groups housed within the Center's two institutes, the Institute for Healthy and Livable Communities and the Institute for Identity and Globalization.

The themes of the working groups and institutes reflect the current foci of a variety of grassroots groups, local agencies and community-based organizations. The Center aims to achieve social change by utilizing web-based technology to coordinate the university's community outreach efforts. By centralizing the teaching, service and research efforts of CLU and other academic partners focused on promoting equality and justice, the Center's activities will foster collaborations to aid communities of Ventura County who may currently be disconnected but share common goals.