“Project Impact,” the vision of Chinaka DomNwachukwu, dean of CSUSB’s James R. Watson and Judy Rodriguez Watson College of Education, is the opening feature segment in the season premiere episode of “Inside California Education.”

“Project Impact: Diversifying the Teacher Workforce” takes an in-depth look at the teacher training program that locates, recruits, trains, mentors and then deploys minority male teachers to classrooms throughout the inland California area and the state. 

From left: Chinaka DomNwachukwu, dean of the James R. Watson and Judy Rodriguez Waston College of Education, Judy Rodriguez Watson and James R. Watson, at a meeting of Project Impact students and faculty in February 2025, the day a PBS crew visited to film for its segment, “Project Impact: Diversifying the Teacher Workforce.”
From left: Chinaka DomNwachukwu, dean of the James R. Watson and Judy Rodriguez Waston College of Education, Judy Rodriguez Watson and James R. Watson, at a meeting of Project Impact students and faculty in February 2025, the day a PBS crew visited to film for its segment, “Project Impact: Diversifying the Teacher Workforce.”

Project Impact was born out of DomNwachukwu’s own educational journey as a public school teacher in East Los Angeles in the 1990s. He knew firsthand how it felt to be the only Black male teacher on campus at the K-12 schools where he worked, and he saw how male students gravitated toward him as a positive and impactful presence in their lives.

The segment includes interviews with DomNwachukwu, “Project Impact” graduate and teacher Jacobo Lopez, Project Impact students Jhamal Crump and D’Anthony Boyd, as well as students in Lopez’s class at a Rialto Unified School District campus.

Visit the Project Impact website and the Watson College of Education’s website for more information.