Your gift will add to the El Centro Endowment. Distributions from the endowment sustain important priorities.
For decades, El Centro has provided graduation stoles to graduates at no cost to students or their family.
On top of the historical, Sarape Stole, which honors Chicano history and Mexican Heritage, El Centro also provides hand-made stoles from Guatemala in honor of cultural ties to Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
Each stole is hand-made using a weaving practice signifying a truly meaningful history and legacy.
El Centro’s Graduate Stoles are long-time symbols of pride for students and their communities, who often sacrifice a lot so our students can thrive here at CSU.
The average cost of one hand-made stole is $31.
Our goal is to provide 460 stoles each year for free.
Each year, the endowment helps as much as possible to provide $14,260 in free graduation regalia.
Since our founding in 1976 mentoring has been a pillar of El Centro’s impact on new and continuing students.
Started as individual outreach from the Director of El Centro Chicano Services, mentoring quickly developed into a peer-mentoring program, which we now call La Conexión.
Our program is a proven strategy that positively impacts students’ persistence at CSU and eventual graduation.
We strive to allocate $400 for each peer-mentoring group.
We call each mentoring group a “Familia.”
Our goal is to host 5 Familias, or $2000.00 each academic year.
Our student employees are the heart and soul of El Centro. Whether they are greeting every guest or serving as a peer mentor, we take tremendous pride in how we help develop each staff member’s career-readiness.
Guided by the University’s Career Competencies developed by the Career Center, we provide robust, thoughtful training focused on self-efficacy, critical thinking, and teamwork.
Moreover, our supervisors care passionately about taking the time to support them in any way we can holding staff to high expectations and .
One week of income for student staff is $170, which helps them meet their basic needs.
If our endowment could grow large enough, we could fund the $5,400 required to support one student employee, so they can help us greet the more than 2,000 visits we receive each academic year.
Check out our calendar and explore all the ways to connect, or reconnect, with your friends, former faculty and staff.
In close collaboration with Colorado State University Archives, we have pulled together a few memorable pictures.