The California Institute of the Arts has announced a five-year, $1.25 million grant from the Eisner Foundation in Beverly Hills to provide operating support for a new media program offered by the Community Arts Partnership (CAP) and scholarships for former CAP participants who attend CalArts.

CAP is designed to link CalArts with Los Angeles county communities through free, afterschool, and school-based arts programs for youth. Many former CAP students who attend CalArts live in households at or below the poverty level, while many others are the first in their family to attend college.

Last year, 7,476 students in fifty-three underserved communities participated in CAP programs, including fifteen students in the new media program. The Eisner grant will enable at least twenty-five former CAP and other low-income students to study new media at CalArts by 2012.

"Through our family foundation, we want to do all we can to support the development of young scholars interested in new media," said Michael Eisner, former chair and CEO of the Walt Disney Company. "We believe passionately in the potential of all young people, and think that connecting them to the resources of CalArts is a tremendous vehicle for advancing not only the youth of Los Angeles but the long-term viability of new media itself."