By Olivia Wynkoop. Bay City News.
UC Berkeley's Latinx Research Center will receive a $3 million state budget allocation, announced California Sen. Nancy Skinner, chair of the state senate budget committee.
The university's Latinx Research Center studies how this population continues to grow in the state and what resources are required at the state level to meet the needs of the expanding demographic.
"Currently, Hispanic Californians make up nearly 40 percent of our state, but only about 19 percent of UC Berkeley's undergraduate enrollment and just 9 percent of its graduate students," Skinner said in a statement.
"The Latinx Research Center is crucial in helping to ensure that the UC system's main campus lives up to its promise to be a truly diverse institution that provides opportunity for all," he added.
The center's research has been used to inform policy, shed light on obstacles facing Latinos in the US, and guide rising Latino students toward higher education and leadership.
Although the university considered it an important research center, it has faced budget cuts.
Skinner worked with the research center's president, Dr. Laura E. Perez, to raise funds in this year's state budget bill to keep the research center stable.
"At the Latinx Research Center we understand that human and cultural diversity is a fundamental part of intellectual wealth, and that knowledge of our cultural, gender, and sexual plurality is the path to an increasingly perfect union," Pérez stressed in a release.
The $3 million in funding will also support five areas of study for faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students around democracy, the environment, public policy, health, and decolonization.
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