By Tyler Shultz

Staff Writer

Cal State Dominguez Hills has received a $4 million grant from the Toyota USA Foundation to spearhead a new effort to increase readiness for careers in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields.

     CSUDH will use the grant to develop and construct a new, 87,000-square-foot science building, which will include a fabrication lab, labs for K-12 teacher demonstrations and training technology-enhanced SMART classrooms, and both indoor and outdoor, collaborative workspaces, according to a joint news release from CSUDH and Toyota.

     “We want this new facility to help support students of the South Bay and Los Angeles so that they can be prepared for the next generation of jobs,” said Mike Goss, president of the Toyota USA Foundation.

     The Toyota Center will be the first floor of the new Science and Innovation building, which will be located on the east side of campus, close to the library.

     An estimated 1.4 million STEM-related jobs are expected to go unfilled by 2018, and filling that gap has been a priority for both the university system and American businesses.
     Paul Browning, campus spokesperson, said CSUDH recognizes that collaboration between students and teachers at all levels is imperative to improving STEM teaching.

     “CSUDH will have the only science building in the California State University system that has a space specifically for K-12 STEM teacher training and is intentionally designed to encourage use by K-12 students and community members,” Browning said.

     Toyota Motor Sales also committed an additional $750,000 to develop mobile fab labs. The mobile labs will include Toyota Tundra-pulled trailers equipped with various tools, such as laser cutters and 3-D printers.

     The mobile fab labs are expected to travel throughout the South Bay and the greater Los Angeles area to serve local schools and bring the learning to the students.

     “CSUDH, because of its central location in the South Bay and Los Angeles, is surrounded by 20 different school districts serving over 500 K-12 schools,” Browning said. “The mobile nature of the program will allow CSUDH to serve thousands of students from diverse communities across the South Bay and Los Angeles.”

     Groundbreaking for the new building is expected to begin in the fall of 2017.