The UCLA Community Programs Office (CPO) was first established in 1970 by concerned students, staff and faculty to encourage students to raise their consciousness through community service. Today, the CPO is a departmental unit which serves as an umbrella to the Student-Initiated Access Center, the Student Retention Center as well as twenty-four community service projects. The CPO is one of the most diverse places on campus, where students from various communities come together to learn from each other and share each others experiences. It is a place for students to find a community away from home, a safe place where they can feel comfortable enough to grow and flourish during their time on the UCLA campus.

By being student-initiated, student-run, all of the access, retention and community service projects in the CPO are a reflection and a product of student empowerment.This, in essence, means that students are viewed as the engine that drives social change. Therefore, it is incumbent upon student participants within these projects to acquire the necessary skills to empower themselves and their communities through self-confidence, self-reliance and self-determination. While engaging their work, students are highly encouraged to make a conscious effort in the community- to continuously learn, question, analyze, dialogue, listen, reflect and be critical of their work. In this way, student empowerment is more than a notion or theory. It becomes a reality, one that has occurred time and time again. Throughout the world, past and present, students have taken charge of their own development and community empowerment. Some of the greatest social changes have occurred when students realize that by changing their attitudes they can change the world.

Through the 37 student-initiated, student-run access, retention and community service projects housed in CPO, 397 student volunteers and paid student staff provided over 2382 hours of service to an more than 4630 recipients at no fewer than 129 sites during the 2006-2007 academic year. At least 40 graduating seniors, 3% of UCLA's Class of '07 participated in one or more of these projects. Of these graduating seniors 50% will be going on to graduate school, another 15% will be studying abroad, while 10% were awarded fellowships and 25% will be going immediately into the work force in some social service capacity. These statistics would seem to make the CPO a beacon of student development and community empowerment.