Beyond Our Gates, the program of outreach, listening and community engagement by University of the Pacific’s new President Pamela Eibeck, has decided UOP can best help Stockton by helping its children’s literacy.
Bull’s eye.
As this story says, apallingly, only 36 percent of San Joaquin County third grade students are performing at grade level in language. That is a giant stink bomb with a 10-year fuse.
Now UOP is “taking the leadership role in assisting and bringing together the numerous agencies involved in improving literacy rates.”
Finally, at long last, this once-aloof university has ceased to allow its discomfort with Stockton to drive it inward and it is reaching out to share with Stockton it’s intellectual capital.
Couple that with Steve Lowder at the helm of Stockton Unified, and this city’s long-term prospects look a whole lot brighter.
“This is a great thing that’s happening here in Stockton,” one expert is quoted as saying. And so it is.
