EWU Attends the Black College Expo – LA

Every year the National College Resources Foundation hosts the Black College Expo in Los Angeles at the LA Convention Center where Seniors, Juniors, and College Transfer Students have the opportunity to meet over 190 colleges and universities and this year our Africana Studies Program was able to attend on behalf of the Admissions team to recruit for EWU.

Rosie Rodriguez, Program Coordinator/Recruiter, and Gloria (Jeanne) Baynes, PhD, Africana Quarterly Faculty were able to attend and talked to students non-stop for the full 5 hours of the expo. Dr. Baynes talked to students about our programs, offerings, and EWU as a whole, while Rodriguez was able to do onsite admissions and answer questions from parents and perspective students.

Rodriguez was able to admit 45 students to EWU on site and was able to connect with Juniors that are graduating next year.

What led you to attending the Black College Expo in LA?

Rodriguez: Admissions presented us with this opportunity that was sent to them. We are very lucky and grateful that admissions paid for the expo fee for us to attend this event. They paid for the LA Expo as well as on in Renton. When we attended the Renton Black College Expo on Nov 5th, 2022, we were asked to attend the LA expo in January because the turnout was going to be far bigger, which proved to be true! There were about 3,000 students at the Renton Expo and over 10,000 students at the LA Expo.

How did it feel walking in the doors and seeing so many tables?

Rodriguez: Seeing all the Black Owned Businesses, HBCU’s and more was beyond beautiful. Seeing the Black culture and Black Excellence was just amazing.

How did it feel when the students first walked in the door?

Rodriguez: It was so exciting. It was amazing to see so many students at an event like this. We had some students immediately gravitate towards us because we were some of the few schools that were out of state.

What were some of the questions that students asked?

Rodriguez: Students asked about scholarships, weather, our sports teams, our majors, what the ambiance of EWU was, professors. Tt was a little bit of everything.

What do you feel students were the most excited about with EWU?

Rodriguez: It would have to be that we are out of state, but we have the WUE scholarship to combat the out of the state costs for California residents. Also, we got a lot of “Oh Cooper Kupp played there!!” “Its the school with the Red Football Field!!”

Why do you think it is important for us to attend these kinds of events?

Rodriguez: We focus heavily on in-state recruitment and miss out on the opportunities to speak to students who may be interested in going out of state. As an ethnicity program, parents and students were happy to see that there was dedicated studies and a space for people of the same background. One parent referred to Africana Studies as “a safe space for Black students” which made me feel happy to hear, since some people in attendance had never heard of a program for Black studies.

We look forward to making this a yearly attendance and want to add a special thanks to the Admissions Team for making this happen!