AltaMed Health Services Corp., a City of Commerce-based federally qualified community health center, has given the University of La Verne $15 million toward construction of a $44 million health sciences college to house a newly established college that aims to train health care workers to fill a critical shortage in the state. 

While the university is based in La Verne in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, this new College of Health and Community Well-Being, which launched last year, will be about 10 miles east in the city of Ontario in San Bernardino County, effectively creating a satellite campus for the university.

AltaMed’s donation is the largest single donation to the project to date and brings the total raised so far to about $38 million. With this promised donation, the project has cleared a major hurdle. According to the university, construction on the 60,000-square-foot building is now slated to start early next year. The building could be open for students in time for the fall semester of 2025.

The College of Health and Community Well-Being is expected to help alleviate Southern California’s critical shortage of health care professionals. 

In recognition of AltaMed’s donation, the college is to be named in honor of AltaMed’s current chief executive, Cástulo de la Rocha.

The funding from AltaMed will also be applied toward 10 undergraduate and graduate degree programs at the college, including nursing, health administration, physician assistant practice, marriage and family therapy, clinical psychology and athletic training.

As a federally qualified health center. AltaMed must reach out to – and treat patients in – underserved communities. As such, AltaMed operates nearly 60 community health facilities.