Clips

The Los Angeles metropolitan area harbors the largest homeless population in the United States of America. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a nearly 26 percent increase in homeless residents in both the city and county in 2017, increasing the total homeless population to more than 80,000. -- SCV News

Last week in Los Angeles, at the Education Writers Association’s annual seminar, I moderated a panel featuring a handful of people who are thinking a lot about the socioeconomic mobility of students, and more fundamentally, the purpose of higher education. The panel, which included Marvin Krislov, the president of Pace University; Dianne Harrison, the president of California State University, Northridge; and Allan Golston, of the Gates Foundation, had a few recommendations. Colleges should be actively recruiting and enrolling low-income students—and that means more than targeting ads to prospective students on social media. It means a commitment to going where they are—areas that a lot of schools do not typically recruit—and demystifying the process of going to college. Then they should be supporting students with resources when the students get to campus—whether it’s writing centers, generous financial aid packages, or simply empathetic academic advisors who perhaps came from low-income backgrounds themselves. And it is also preparing students for jobs after college and building relationships with businesses that ease the process of finding post-graduation employment for students, especially for those whose parents don’t have their own professional networks. -- College and University

That career faltered, but Porter did not. He went on to have a successful future as a theater performer, culminating in his win of both a Tony and Grammy Award for his performance in the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” in 2013. Now, even while continuing to act (as well as write and direct), he has made a return to the recording studio – his most recent album, “Billy Porter Presents the Soul of Richard Rodgers,” debuted last year, and on June 2 he brings those songs (as well as other material – “the full Billy Porter concert experience,” as he puts it) to the Soraya at Cal State Northridge (18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, Calif.) for a live performance. -- Los Angeles Blade

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, 40 Jewish students were presented with their doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees at another alternative graduation ceremony at California State University in Northridge. -- The Jerusalem Post - Israel