Stories

Dr. Tamanika Ferguson is a public scholar, author, educator, and advocate whose journey from Long Beach City College to the Ph.D. reflects the transformative power of community colleges and educational opportunity.  At 23, being detained at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, after leaving high school, and becoming a teenage mother, she enrolled at LBCC without a high school diploma or GED. There, she began to recognize her intellectual abilities, develop confidence as a student, and imagine a future beyond the circumstances that had once defined how others saw her. Read her full story here