Enrique “Kiki” Zuniga Scholarship Deadline

History of Scholarship & Enrique “Kiki” Zuniga

Enrique “KiKi” Zuniga—whose immigrant parents were from Guanajuato, Mexico—was born and raised in the City of La Habra and is one of thirteen children: eight brothers and four sisters. Prior to Mendez vs. Westminster, which ended segregation in California schools, Kiki attended Wilson School, which was set up for Mexican American children.

Kiki attended Fullerton College before being drafted into the Army in 1961. After his service, he worked as a barber and in construction. However, with the guidance of Joe Lopez, professor at California State University Fullerton, Kiki enrolled in CSUF, where in his first semester as a student, he made the Dean’s List. Motivated by the Chicano Movement, he founded and served as the first M.E.Ch.A President at CSUF. In this role, Kiki visited local barrios to motivate Chicano youth to pursue higher education.

After earning his Bachelor’s degree at CSUF, he attended UC Santa Cruz, where he earned a K-12 Bilingual Teaching Credential. He then returned to CSUF to complete his Master’s degree in Library Science. Upon earning his Master’s degree, he was hired as a tenure-tracked full-time counselor at Fullerton College with one condition: he needed to earn a Master’s degree in counseling, which he would eventually receive from Chapman University. Making Fullerton College history, he was the college’s first full-time tenured-tracked Chicano counselor.

Kiki served as a counselor at Fullerton College for twenty-five years. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in changing the campus climate relative to serving underrepresented and low-income students. He was known as the counselor who reached out to non-traditional students to motivate and convince them to pursue their goals for a brighter future. He was dedicated to helping students and believed in the power of education to change lives. He was famously known for “walking the quad” and making sure his students were in class.

When Mr. Zuniga retired, Fullerton lost one of its pillars. This scholarship is dedicated to him for his significant accomplishments and his love for guiding non-traditional students to academic success.

Scholarship Criteria

A scholarship review committee will be judging all complete applications and will award scholarship amounts based on the essay and the categories below. The committee will award at least three $300 scholarships each to one Cypress student, one Fullerton Student and one NOCE Student. Students are only eligible for one scholarship.

• Student must have minimum Cumulative GPA of 2.0
• Student must have completed at least 9 units and currently enrolled in at least 6 units (at FC and/or CC).
• Students enrolled in Fullerton College or Cypress College must have the goal of transferring to a 4-year University.
• Students enrolled in the North Orange Continuing Education must have a goal of attending Cypress College or Fullerton College.
• Student must clearly state their commitment to higher education.
• Provide example of the level of commitment to the Latino community.
• Amount of community/volunteer hours served
• Include any information that demonstrates your leadership roles/experience

Award Dates

Scholarship recipients will be notified via email by Wednesday, April 3, 2019 and must be available to attend the Scholarship Awards Ceremony on Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 4:30 p.m. at Cypress College.

Download the criteria and the application here.