New Intercultural Center Lauded : Education: Golden West College aims to help foreign students and new immigrants expand their English skills.

In a colorful outdoor ceremony, Golden West College President Judith Valles on Monday dedicated the school’s new Intercultural Center, saying it “provides a central location for all of us to learn from each other, creating a global awareness.”

Valles said the Intercultural Center will celebrate Golden West’s diverse student body, which includes a growing enrollment of Latinos and Asian-Americans. The community college recently was picked as a motion picture location because of its large Vietnamese-American student body.

Scores of students from various ethnic groups attended the dedication, which featured jazz music, balloons and the kickoff of a weeklong campus festival honoring intercultural activities.

The new center, located in the college library, will help foreign students and new immigrants expand their English skills. The center also will encourage students from all ethnic backgrounds to better understand each other’s culture, Valles said.

Mayor Thomas J. Mays, who was among speakers at the noontime dedication, praised the Intercultural Center as “a very important addition to our community.”

The center will be staffed by volunteers, including its director, Ruth Hunter, a retired Golden West College speech professor.

“This center will be a central gathering place for all students on campus,” said Fay L. Hendry, public relations director for the college. “We’ll have bilingual volunteers assisting students from many backgrounds, and there will be books and magazines from various cultures so that students can learn from each other’s culture. We’ll also have educational workshops in the center.”

Hendry said the college ultimately hopes to find larger headquarters for the Intercultural Center.

The facility is also available for community use, officials said, and has served as a meeting place for the Sister City Assn. of Huntington Beach.

Valles said Golden West’s mix of students from various ethnic backgrounds is a boon to international understanding.

“These students are providing us a valuable asset, and through our Intercultural Center, we hope to take advantage of this asset. We are going to maximize their presence here and learn as much as we can about them.”

According to college officials, Golden West has students from 26 nations, in addition to the Vietnamese-Americans, Mexican-Americans and other ethnic groups who are permanent residents of this country.

The college’s last available ethnic breakdown, from the fall of 1988, showed that its 14,022 students came from these ethnic groupings: white non-Hispanic, 69.8%; Asian or Pacific Islander, 13.8%; Hispanic, 7.1%; black non-Hispanic, 1.1%; Filipino, 0.9%; American Indian/Alaskan native, 0.9%; decline to state, 5.1%; other, 1.2%.