Alumnus Josh Franco selected for prestigious Congressional fellowship
A former Cerritos College political science student, Josh Franco, Ph.D., has been
selected as a 2024-25 American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow. The fellowship is a highly selective, nonpartisan program aimed at expanding the
knowledge and awareness of Congress. He is the first community college faculty member
to be selected since the 1960s.
Born in Mexico and raised in southeast Los Angeles County, Josh attended Washington Elementary School and Bellflower High School. After attending Cerritos College, he transferred to UC Merced when the university opened in 2005. In 2007, Josh began working for then-Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi. The Lieutenant Governor visited the campus in 2008 to discuss issues around future workforce training.
When Garamendi ran for Congress and won the election in 2009, Josh moved to Washington, D.C., and worked with Congressman Garamendi as his Senior Legislative Assistant and later Policy Advisor. In fall 2012, Josh returned to UC Merced to earn a Ph.D. in Political Science. He started teaching at Cuyamaca College in 2019 and is now a tenured faculty.
Josh eagerly awaits the APSA Congressional Fellowship, especially given the upcoming Presidential election, inauguration, and dynamics and events shaping politics at home and abroad. His return to the nation’s Capital 15 years later, armed with a doctoral degree, a successful academic career, a family, and a wealth of life experiences, will be a moment of personal reflection and professional growth.
Dr. Sunday Obazuaye, Victor Obasohan, Dennis Falcon, Walter Fernandez, and Solomon
Namala, among others, were all mentors to Josh. He used to hang out in the Social
Science basement with them. He follows their example by reaching out to students and
offering to meet and discuss their academic and career goals. Josh believes that welcoming
students to a classroom, college, or discipline requires showing them the knowledge
awaiting their discovery, and a mentor plays a crucial role in this process.
In addition to the APSA Fellowship, Josh is a growing leader of the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) and Open Education Resources (OER) movement. He co-authored the Introduction to Political Science Research Methods OER textbook, authored the Polimetrics OER workbook, and is currently writing the Congress in Action OER workbook. He has been striving to make knowledge accessible to community college students by bringing topics and research typically reserved for four-year and graduate-level students to students at the two-year level.
Josh's selection to APSA’s Congressional Fellowship Program is a source of pride and inspiration for our college community. It demonstrates the heights our alumni can reach and the impact they can make on the lives of others. We are pleased to have Josh as a part of our community, and he is immensely proud to be a Cerritos College graduate.
Read more about Josh in the 2008 feature story.
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