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Dr. Charles J. Alexander oversees the legacy of the Academic Advancement Program (AAP) at UCLA, one of the longest running academic support programs for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students.
Established 53 years ago and built on principles of social justice, AAP’s mission is to create and administer innovative academic programs for students historically underrepresented in higher education. These students are provided academic supports that include counseling, scholarships, and opportunities to participate in innovative science programs.
“Dr. Alexander is very accessible, very approachable for students,” says Dr. Claudia Salcedo, who adds that administrators can sometimes be perceived as separate from the students they serve. Salcedo is the director of the Center for Community College Partnerships at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).Â
Prior to starting this position in April 2024, Salcedo spent two years as assistant director for administration of the Academic Advancement Program working with Alexander, who has directed AAP for over a decade. During that time, she saw his hands-on approach with staff and students.
“If you bring a concern to him, he will try to find a resource,” says Salcedo. “If the university is not providing the resource, he will make a connection.”
In addition to directing the AAP, Alexander is associate vice provost for student diversity. He describes his current work as “being a thought leader, resource person and a fundraiser, a person looking at innovative ways to implement some of our programs and activities that we provide for students at UCLA.”
Academic Advancement Program
AAP is rooted in the purpose of public education, notes Alexander. It is providing greater access for students from low-income, first-generation backgrounds. Coming from such a background drives him. “I think public institutions have a mission to make sure that those in society have access to higher education,” says Alexander, who arrived at UCLA in 2006.
AAP emphasizes that their students have earned the academic right to be at UCLA and have shown the potential to excel and graduate. This is achieved through thoughtfully coordinated and proactive programs and services. By example, the counseling/advising unit uses an intrusive model, monitoring students’ progress and regularly checking in on them.
When students speak about challenges, it is usually unrelated to their courses, Alexander explains. Issues arise due to financial challenges, family obligations, and basic necessities.
“If we know someone is housing insecure, food insecure, or financially insecure, we have resources to help those students,” says Alexander, referencing AAP’s emergency response crisis team (ERCT) and noting that between 3,000 and 3,800 students engage with ERCT each quarter, over 10,000 per year.
There are temporary supports for someone who needs a place to live as well as emergency student funds. To avail themselves of these resources, students would notify a member of the staff, which includes both professionals and fellow students, who put students at ease. There are food closets and snack carts on campus as well as food vouchers, to which AAP participants have access. Alexander says the food closets are accessible on campus and frequently replenished.Â
Recent UCLA graduate Mumtahina Tajrian availed herself of AAP programs throughout her time as an undergraduate and worked in the office for over two years. The tutoring and academic counseling were crucial to her success. The daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, she is the first in her family to graduate college.
“Coming to UCLA was a huge shift for me,” says Tajrian. “The environment is a lot more fast-paced than what I was used to. It’s very competitive. … AAP was one of the first things that made me feel like I belonged at UCLA.”
The students availing themselves of AAP have found their way to UCLA. Alexander observes that many high school and community college students see no connection to the university, therefore building pathways to higher education is part of AAP’s outreach. “One of the things that we’re doing, and I would highly encourage other public institutions to do the same, is to create educational partnerships with high schools and community colleges,” Alexander says.
AAP currently works with about 25 community colleges in the Los Angeles vicinity. Their work involves sending students who previously attended those colleges, and now attend UCLA, to those schools to speak with students about transferring to a four-year institution. For interested students, there is the transfer alliance program that helps students negotiate the transfer process.
“We also provide scholarships if they do get into UCLA or UC,” says Alexander. “The California legislature put some caveats . . . to make it a lot more seamless in terms of helping students transfer from community college without taking a lot of time to fulfill requirements.”
As AAP builds its high school partnerships, it looks to high schools with low rates of college enrollment. AAP staff works with students, faculty, and staff at those schools and at UCLA to create pathways. These include summer programs and academic year Saturday academies that have built a feeder for youth in their communities. The Saturday academies regularly host upward of 75 high school students and 45 undergraduates.
“When I think about Dr. Alexander’s impact with the students we serve specifically, I think about his connections and how that leads to the amount of scholarship money that has come into UCLA,” says Salcedo, speaking about the partnerships and donors that Alexander has cultivated.
Community
“We’ve created what we call an academic home for students who are from marginalized communities or communities that are underrepresented or low-income communities,” says Alexander. “When you create an atmosphere and an environment where students feel supported, they see people like themselves working in those environments.
“We hire a lot of students to be peer mentors, peer counselors, peer learning facilitators, which are basically tutors,” he continues. “With that kind of structure and those kinds of environments we create . . . a community where everyone is supporting each other, and people who have gone through the university like them are in a role to inspire and to motivate them. Then, you see the successes.”
The peer mentors are recruited from UCLA’s undergraduate student body and are usually former participants in AAP. Peer counselors are current students who enroll in a quarter-long, four-unit course as part of their training. Once they complete the course, they are assigned duties. Peer learning facilitators are students who successfully passed the course they are being hired for, and some have previously been recipients of AAP peer learning.
The long-running, pre-freshman summer program is a vital part of creating community even before school begins. Many students build lifelong friendships from connections made during that time. Something similar is conducted for transfer students. Between 350 and 400 freshmen and transfers participate each year.
“It’s such a crucial part of their educational journey,” says Alexander. “They get a chance to get a head start on classes, so all the courses they take are credit bearing. . . We instill this pedagogy of excellence on them in the sense that they earned the right into the university, they belong here in the university and have every right to take advantage of all the resources of the university. During that summer, we’re not only doing the academic part, but also teaching them skills in terms of how to negotiate campus.”
AAP’s research, assessment, and evaluation unit conducts surveys, reviews grades and hosts focus groups to collect data on the summer bridge programs. That data show that the students who attend the summer bridge program build great resilience skills, and resilience leads to retention.
When Salcedo worked directly with Alexander, she sought his mentorship so she could strengthen her leadership skills and continue her professional development. She asked many questions, which he gladly answered. She says she not only built confidence in her abilities, but she became a stronger advocate for student needs.
The Center for Community College Partnerships, which Salcedo directs, is no longer directly housed within AAP, but she continues to work closely with AAP. The center works with all 116 community colleges in California to prepare students to apply to schools within the University of California System and enhance the diversity of these institutions. Should those students be admitted to and enroll in UCLA, they are automatically connected to the resources and services offered through AAP.
Graduation rates of students in AAP are almost comparable to the university at large, Alexander notes. According to the last reported numbers, the five-year graduation rate for AAP students is 87% versus 91% for all UCLA students.
There is also programming to prepare the students to move on to graduate, to go on to professional schools, and to develop the academic, scientific, political, economic and community leadership skills necessary to transform society. That begins from the time the students enter UCLA, progressing as they become intently focused in their junior and senior years.
“This program really helped me in terms of my career path,” says Tajrian, who is planning to apply to medical school, and says AAP was tremendously helpful in her understanding of what that entails. “I got a lot of guidance about what kind of extracurriculars I should be doing and how I can keep my course load in order. What things I should be preparing myself for, and honestly it was a lot of emotional support as well.”
Several times, Tajrian asked to meet with Alexander, and despite his busy schedule he made time for her. “He’s very open to meeting with students,” she says. “He would counsel me and reassure me.”
For those students who may want work experience prior to graduate school, AAP helps them find internships. This includes the students currently working alongside AAP’s staff as peer counselors, peer mentors, and office support staff. “Students help us run this operation, and as a result, we get a lot of success stories coming out of the program,” Alexander says.
Tajrian says many of the tasks she did on the job at AAP were helping students just like her. “There is nothing more fulfilling than that,” she says. “It made me want to get up and come to work every day because of the meaningful work we do.”
Higher education for the future
Alexander seeks staff members who are smart, have good problem-solving skills, are innovative, and can contribute something to the program. Many have had experiences like the students with which they’re working. He endeavors to get innovative ideas funded and constantly meets with people within and outside the university who are interested in collaborating or seeking information and guidance about replicating all or parts of AAP.
Alexander is studying the success and impact of various programs within AAP. He also runs the high aims program, which provides academic, career, and mentoring support to AAP students who are high achieving in math and science and want to go into health professions. Each cohort is typically 15-20 students. There have been 15 cohorts to date, and the alumni are currently being surveyed to gauge the program’s impact.
Another area being explored by AAP is international education because AAP students have not typically done study abroad, and Alexander says he thinks more should consider and take advantage of it. From 2010 to 2020, AAP had an exchange program with Vrije University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, that targeted the exchange of low-income, first generation, and underrepresented students. Alexander is working with Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to do a similar student exchange starting in the fall of 2025.
“They’re going to be researching issues that impact the students’ respective communities,” Alexander says. “They’ll have a research question that they’ll take with them. They’ll work with a faculty member and conduct research for six to eight weeks and then come back and give a presentation.”
Alexander says one of the most pressing issues in higher education is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). He sees nothing harmful about DEI, rather people create harm by not understanding the benefits of such programs and initiatives on campus. “There is a good reason why we continue to do this kind of work,” he notes. “It’s all about inclusion, inclusion of everyone, not just those folks who are being singled out or targeted.”
Another pressing issue, he says, is the cost of education in terms of how it is impacting low-income, first-generation students. Alexander has seen a dip in low-income students applying as well as enrolling at colleges and universities.
“The cost of education has risen tremendously over the last few years,” he says. “The FAFSA situation as it’s occurred (problems with the implementation of the new FAFSA) really put a damper on students in terms of what they’re able to afford and how much they can get from the various institutions that are trying to recruit them.”
The third pressing issue is the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students spent extra time engaging with higher education online, so interactions with professors and support services could not meet all needs. Even though these students may now be on campus, that time in virtual spaces heightened anxiety and impacted feelings of belonging for students. It also took a toll on mental health, and institutions must treat that with sensitivity.
Salcedo says that Alexander has worked hard to ensure that mental health needs as well as other needs are being met. “He’s always in tune with the student voice and making sure he’s bringing in those resources,” she says.