A new ‘Resource’

However, even with those resources available, Pima Community College has been working toward providing more resources for students who are of refugee or DACA status.

Hilda Ladner, diversity, equity and inclusion officer, is the lead for a new project that involves establishing a space where students can obtain up-to-date legal information as further updates are disclosed and student workshops that work in collaboration with ScholarshipsAZ.

The Student Resource Center for Immigrant and Refugee students will have a designated space at Pima’s Downtown Campus in the Campus Center building.

For Ladner, the opportunity to have a space like this comes at a pivotal time, considering all of the recent changes that have been adopted by the federal government and the Arizona Supreme Court.

“This center will focus on providing students with resources, such as basic legal information and a place that students can feel comfortable in asking for anything they might need,” Ladner said.

The center will be up and fully functioning in the next few weeks and will employ students with an average of 20 hours-a-week stipend.

“The new Student Resource Center is going to become a useful resource in the long run because it will create more opportunities for students to create the life they desire,” said Pima student Cristina Otero, who’s majoring in respiratory therapy.

Carolyn Fike, ESL faculty, believes that “additional ways to address the needs of our international, refugee and immigrant students is to: put bilingual material on Pima’s website, have interpreters in the Student Services Center, provide materials that are  printed in more than one language, and train student services staff to recognize how fluent in English the student is.”

The original idea behind the center originally came from students wanting a place where they could have knowledgeable and active participants support them during such a transitional time.

“A student resource center that is run by students is the kind of place people want to keep coming back to you know because they know that there are people in there that are going to be able relate to them,” said Adrianna Sanchez.

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Hilda Ladner, diversity, equity and inclusion officer for Pima, can be contacted at 206-7215 or at [email protected] for additional information regarding The Student Resource Center for immigrant and refugee students.