CSUN’s Office of Student Success Innovations was created to find ways to close the graduation gap by engaging and empowering faculty, staff and students to work collaboratively to develop ideas that expand educational equity and student success. Photo by Lee Choo.

Recognizing that there is no single answer to ensuring students have the support they need to graduate, officials at California State University, Northridge have built a “village” — spearheaded by the Office of Student Success Innovations — to tap into a wide pool of campus talent to find creative ways to help students succeed.

The Office of Student Success Innovations (OSSI) was created more than a year ago with a mission of closing the graduation gap by engaging and empowering faculty, staff and students to work collaboratively to develop ideas that expand educational equity and student success.

“The plan is to figure out how to close the gaps at CSUN using institutional data — including raw numbers about students’ performance in priority courses (courses needed for graduation) as well as information we already have about what works and what doesn’t — and turn it into innovative ways to help our students succeed,” said OSSI director Kristy Michaud, a professor of political science.

The effort began before the California State University Chancellor’s Office announced its Graduation Initiative 2025 — a plan to increase graduation rates for all CSU students while eliminating gaps in graduation rates between better served and underserved students and between lower income and higher income students — earlier this year. The OSSI mission to increase equity in course-level outcomes, retention rates, and graduation rates aligned with the goals of the chancellor’s office initiative.

“We are using data to identify specific areas on campus where opportunity gaps are bigger or smaller, so we can learn what is already working on campus and scale it up,” Michaud explained. “We also put together a list of all the lower-division classes that have higher rates of non-passing grades and larger gaps so the colleges can focus their efforts on the courses that have the largest impact on rates of equity and success.”

Opportunity gaps are the result of disparities in resources available between students, often because of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic status.

“Opportunity and achievement gaps are collective problems,” Michaud said. “The only way we are going to successfully tackle those problems is if we empower faculty and staff to help identify ways we can improve. We want everyone to work together to find solutions, whether it’s curricular, pedagogical or programmatic changes.”

The raw data can provide insight into which students may be having trouble accessing resources and help faculty identify which students they are not getting through to. If it’s just one, the problem can be tackled on an individual basis. But if it’s several, Michaud said, the solution may require a reassessment of the course, how its presented and the resources available to the students.

Collectively reviewing the data provides an opportunity for faculty and staff to brainstorm about possible solutions to the problems — solutions that may lie outside that one classroom. And it lets faculty members know that they are not alone in their efforts to help their students, Michaud said.

“It’s sort of like that old proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’” she said. “In our case, it takes a campus to ensure our students succeed. Everyone on campus is invested in the success of our students.”

Michaud said the response to OSSI’s efforts has been positive.

“One of the biggest changes we have seen is that the number of people who are concerned about this has grown,” she said. “We first started hosting meetings focusing on students’ success about every other month, and with each additional meeting, more people showed up. Now, there is definitely a large community of people who want to help solve the problem.”

Faculty and staff are brought together in interdisciplinary communities and are given course- and section-level data on gaps in rates of non-passing grades between students. The information collected by CSUN’s Office of Institutional Research includes gaps between students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. While those taking part in the discussions are provided with evidence-based strategies to help close those gaps — such as a learning-centered syllabus design, transparent assignments and grading, high-impact practices and metacognitive interventions (using class time to help students think about how learning works) — they also are encouraged to come up with their own solutions.

“Each student is unique, as are the faculty and the colleges,” Michaud said. “What works for one college may not work for another, but we can learn from each other. And we can learn from what worked, and what didn’t work.”

One such session, about a year ago, resulted in an immediate change in how the College of Health and Human Development (HHD) welcomed its new students.

“Often, students in a particular major won’t see their faculty in that major until their junior year, once they get all their general education requirements out of the way,” Michaud said.

HHD recognized the importance of welcoming new students to majors in its college when they first step on campus, so HHD now holds a special orientation for its new majors to make them feel welcome and familiarize them with resources within the college that they can tap into when they need help. The idea is quickly being adopted by other colleges on the campus, with each college tweaking the idea to fit students in their unique majors.

As the initiative moves forward, OSSI staff and faculty are regularly assessing the efforts to close the opportunity gaps, particularly in high-priority courses, as well is in one-year continuation and graduation rates.

Key to OSSI’s success so far, Michaud said, is “the freedom we’ve given people to try something new.

“We do not expect to change campus culture overnight, but we hope that by engaging campus stakeholders in all areas and levels, we will see many small changes that should result in transformation at the institutional level,” she said.

CSUN alumna and Director of Administrative Services Edith Winterhalter. Photo by David J. Hawkins.

California State University, Northridge alumna and Director of Administrative Services Edith Winterhalter has been honored as one of the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World. She will receive the “Behind the Scenes Leader” award from the Filipina Women’s Network, at the 14th Annual Filipina Leadership Global Summit on Oct. 25-29 in Toronto.

Winterhalter will be recognized as one of 100 women of Philippine ancestry who are changing the face of leadership in the global workplace, and have reached a high rank for outstanding work in their respective fields.

“The Filipina Women’s Network is focused on increasing the awareness of Filipino women, their power as leaders and policy makers at all levels in every sector of the economy, and they are really big on women mentoring, which they call ‘femtoring.’ I like that it allows members to pay it forward by ‘femtoring’ younger women,” said Winterhalter ’03 (Accountancy), M.A. ’10 (Educational Administration), Ed.D. ’16 (Educational Leadership).

Winterhalter is the director of administrative services in the Division of Administration and Finance at CSUN. She also serves as the chair of the International Society of Filipinos in Finance and Accounting (ISFFA), but award recognition is a new experience, she said.

“I feel like I now have a responsibility,” Winterhalter said. “It’s really big, and I’m still not internalizing [the award], to be honest. I’m now [under] a bigger microscope and have to be more socially responsible on a larger scale.”

The volunteer organization she chairs, ISFFA, has U.S. chapters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. A national executive board member of the organization nominated her for the award.

“Our mission is helping young professionals and students break into the industry of finance and accounting,” Winterhalter said. “We started with Filipinos, but [now] anyone is welcome to join. We have students, emerging professionals and those who are new to the U.S. who need help in networking opportunities — as well as career and leadership training.”

Winterhalter has worked at CSUN for 20 years. She started as a staff member in the Department of Kinesiology in 2000, when she was an accounting undergraduate student. After a brief stint working for a forensic accounting firm following her 2003 graduation, she returned to CSUN in 2004 as a budget analyst in academic resources. She worked her way up to become director of administrative services in the Division of Administration and Finance in 2014.

CSUN is the institution that allowed her to grow and learn as much as possible, she said.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to hold a terminal degree, a doctorate, and it’s also the concept of continued learning,” Winterhalter said. “You always need to learn something new. You need to continuously improve yourself, and one of those things is to attain an advanced degree.”

Her family is continuing the Matador legacy. Her husband, John ’09 (Systems/Operations Management), and eldest son, Kurt ’16 (Music), attended CSUN. Her second-oldest son, Sean, is in his second year at the university studying computer information technology.

“CSUN is my home, and I tell everyone I’m homegrown. I got my degrees here, I work here and my family has gone here,” she said. “CSUN is our life. … I’m truly grateful for the opportunities this institution has given me. CSUN sees your abilities, regardless of who you are.”

Hilary J. Baker

Hilary J. Baker, vice president for information technology and chief information officer (CIO) at California State University, Northridge, has been appointed to the board of EDUCAUSE, the association for information technology in higher education.

Baker was appointed as a director-at-large by EDUCAUSE’s board of directors. She is one of four new EDUCAUSE board members who will serve a four-year term starting next month. The other new board members are Keith W. McIntosh, vice president for information services and CIO for the University of Richmond; Sue B. Workman, vice president for university technology and CIO at Case Western Reserve University; and Loretta Parham, CEO and library director for the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center.

“I am very pleased and honored to serve the higher education community in this capacity,” Baker said. “The EDUCAUSE organization provides such valuable professional guidance, support and training. I have certainly benefited from EDUCAUSE throughout my career, and I look forward to giving back through my service on the board.”

John O’Brien, president and CEO of EDUCAUSE, welcomed the new board members, saying they bring with them “an incredible wealth of experience, talents and leadership.”

“EDUCAUSE will benefit from their unique insights and shared passion for our community,” he said.

Baker is responsible for leading CSUN’s IT strategic vision to deliver effective, secure and reliable technology services. Her innovative efforts led to CSUN receiving two Apple Distinguished School awards for the university’s myCSUNtablet initiative, as well as CSUN’s groundbreaking mobile app and virtual/augmented reality student competitions.

Previously, Baker was CIO at Pepperdine University, where she led the information technology division, and, at the California State University’s Office of the Chancellor, she led the implementation of a system-wide, 23-campus administrative systems initiative. She also held progressive IT management roles at the J. Paul Getty Trust and a geographic information systems company.

Baker currently serves as vice chair of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Innovation and Technology Council and is a member of the Oracle Education and Research Industry Strategy Council. She is an alumna of a 2004 Leadership California program for California women executives.

Gabriel Bolivar ’13 (Health Administration) is the patient care experience manager for the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. As part of his job, he speaks to hundreds of people per day and every other Monday he teaches orientation for new hires for 2 1/2 hours.

Public speaking is natural and easy for him at this point.

But on Sunday night, Sept. 24, it became momentarily difficult for him.

Standing in front of a podium at the Northridge Center giving his acceptance speech in front of a room of nearly 200 people at the annual CSUN Alumni Scholarship Recognition Dinner, he stopped. Bolivar looked down and patted his chest as if to collect himself. He choked up and held back tears.

Bolivar was one of eight Matadors who received one of the Alumni Association’s First-Generation Scholarships, an award the graduate student also received in 2012 when he was an undergraduate at CSUN.

“You changed my life and you changed my wife’s life,” Bolivar recalled the first time he received a scholarship.

With his first award, Bolivar said he was able to conduct research with CSUN Health Administration professor Stephan Chung and create a tool that educates Mexican-American families about the uses and benefits of hospice services. That tool has now become a program utilized by five community organizations. The scholarship also allowed Bolivar and his wife, CSUN alumna Cynthia Bolivar ’17 (Family and Consumer Sciences), much needed financial comfort.

“And so, your contributions are not only impacting my life, my wife’s life, but also these families who are now learning about the wonderful use of hospice within their communities,” Bolivar said.

And now, with another scholarship, his path to receiving a master’s degree is smoothed and his intent to impact more people is closer to reality.

The CSUN Alumni Scholarship Recognition Dinner was a celebration of 14 students who received scholarships in one of three categories —  First Generation (students who are the first in their family to attend college), Legacy (students who had a parent or grandparent graduate from CSUN) and Graduate (for a student currently in a CSUN master’s program). The event was so inspiring last year that it drove new CSUN Alumni Association President and alumna Cindy Chernow ’78 (Anthropology), ’91 (Counseling and Guidance) to take on the position.

“Being a part of last year’s event for the first time and hearing our student recipients left me incredibly proud to be a member of the Matador family,” Chernow said. “In fact, it was what inspired me to accept the challenge of the presidency, to help ensure continued support for the next generation of Matadors.

“I am reminded of what a recent president once said, ‘We have both an obligation and a responsibility to invest in our students and our schools.’ By investing in our CSUN students, we are making an investment in our future. Tonight we celebrate a few of these incredible students and their accomplishments.”

The thread that spread throughout the CSUN Alumni Scholarship Recognition Dinner was how donors weren’t just impacting one person — they were impacting many, and in some cases generations.

For the first-generation recipients, scholarships are helping to fulfill the dreams of families and setting into motion a culture for future generations to seek higher education. For the Legacy Scholarship recipients, they are continuing a culture of higher education at this university and further validating the prestige of a degree from CSUN.

“I’m really fortunate to have received this scholarship,” said freshman Grace Jacobsen, whose mother Jodi earned a bachelor’s in Speech Communication in 1991. “I graduated from high school and I was so excited about starting school. But I needed to afford to go to school. When I got the scholarship, I was genuinely surprised. I’m excited to carry on my mom’s legacy at CSUN and have my own story as well as hers.”

Julie Leach, a First-Generation recipient, went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison on a track and field scholarship. However, mental illness — which she said has affected other members of her family — derailed her on her journey toward a degree. She decided to get on a new path and transfer to CSUN, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 2016 and is now on track to receive her master’s in social work.

“It’s such an honor, especially since it’s from the Alumni Association because I’m an alum,” Leach said. “It’s such an honor to get a First-Generation scholarship. I see a lot of my clients who are first-generation college students. I know how much work you have to put in and the perseverance you have to put in. There are extra barriers you have to persevere through, so that’s especially meaningful for me (to be awarded the scholarship).”

One of the most emotional moments of the night came when freshman Christopher Ordoñez gave his acceptance speech.

He spoke of how he came to the United States four years ago after a life-threatening moment in his life.

“The reason why I came here is because I got shot four times,” Ordoñez began. “I don’t even know how I’m here talking to you. I have one bullet in my shoulder, two bullets in my neck. I was not going to be able to talk. The doctor told me I would have to use something in my lungs to breathe. But none of that happened. It’s a miracle I’m here with you guys.

“I couldn’t get out of my house for two months. I said to myself, ‘Chris, are you going to be depressed the rest of your life, or are you going to take advantage of your second opportunity?’ And so I chose to take advantage, and now I’m here with you guys.”

Now he has even more opportunity, thanks to many of the people in the audience that night who have given to CSUN and the ones who might not even realize the impact they have made on students. A portion of each Alumni Association membership helps fund these scholarships.

As they reached for the sky, the female technology entrepreneurs shown in the documentary She Started It! fought the gravity of societal norms and pressures.

In the film, which screened Oct. 4 in the Delmar T. Oviatt Library of California State University, Northridge, the protagonists are shown dealing with: the discouragement of girls from pursuing careers in technology and entrepreneurship, a lack of allies in the male-driven world of venture capitalism, and leadership systems that tend to undervalue the traits women can bring.

CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison applauded the film for celebrating creativity and innovation in the field of technology and innovation, and highlighting the important role women have played in spite of significant obstacles.

“CSUN is a catalyst for broadening the pool of talent and changing culture so that everybody has equal opportunity to succeed, and everyone’s contribution to progress is recognized. Sadly, women continue to be hindered and their stories untold, especially in the fields of technology, engineering, and innovation,” Harrison said.  She added that films such as this, and universities such as CSUN, help ensure that the future of innovation is enhanced and expanded by fully utilizing the talents of everyone who is motivated and persistent regardless of their gender, skin color or economic background.

The event was presented by the Oviatt Library and the Bonita J. Campbell Endowment for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE). After the film, a panel of women with entrepreneurial and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) successes reacted to the movie’s themes and shared their own experiences of triumph and challenges.

The panelists—entrepreneurial engineer Carolyn Casavan, CSUN biochemistry professors Karin Crowhurst and Paula Fischhaber, and University of Southern California media arts and practice professor Tania Mulry—emphasized that women can bring valuable differences to enhance male-dominated fields, but if they want to lead in the same style as men, that should be OK, too.

“The whole business environment was built by men and it’s designed along their ways of thinking,” said Casavan, who began her career in research and manufacturing with Mobil Oil Corporation and now works as a sustainability and environmental consultant. “And we’re different. We have a lot of value to bring to the table. Instead of trying to fit into their world, we need to add our world to that world. I think that’s where women will succeed. We need to go to the institutions and say, ‘You need to understand the value women are bringing to the table and add them to your value chain.’”

There is also the resiliency factor that cannot be discounted among women breaking into these fields where they have been underrepresented. A key quote from the film came from Thuy Truong, a serial entrepreneur whose ventures included running and selling a frozen yogurt chain in Vietnam: “If plan A, plan B, plan C don’t work, there are 23 other characters in the alphabet.”

In addition to Truong, She Started It! highlighted entrepreneurs such as Stacey Ferreira, who was in high school when she co-founded MySocialCloud, which attracted the attention of Virgin magnate Richard Branson, who helped them secure $1 million in seed money; and Sheena Allen, whose mobile app company Sheena Allen Apps hosts six apps and has millions of downloads.

The film’s protagonists are shown mastering the tightrope walk of acceptable behavior for women pitching ideas to men in the business world: be approachable and likable, hold your own—but don’t be too assertive.

“One of the things that came back again in the movie and probably in all of our lives is the societal norms aspect: ‘This is not the way that a woman or girl acts or operates,’” said Crowhurst, who works with CSUN students on projects to further understanding of protein structure and function. “It did make me think about my own path, maybe I’m not socially in tune with other people, but I basically didn’t care. I’m sure all of us feel like we don’t belong in certain places at certain times, or ‘that these people must know way more than I do,’ but it’s just the idea of ‘this is what I want to do and if people don’t think I should do it, that’s too bad.’”

Truong and Ferreira are shown dealing with high-publicized failures, then deciding to start again.

“What the movie drove home for me is, regardless of what you try to do for a living, bringing that resilience is so important,” said Fischhaber, who conducts research on the biochemistry of DNA repair pathways, which protect organisms from cancer and aging. “The ability to keep going when you really wanted to give up is probably the most important characteristic I have. I saw that in all the women in that movie. If that’s the piece we can give our students here, I think they’re all going to be successful.”

Mulry, a founding member of the MasterCard Worldwide’s Information Products and Services team whose contributions continue to yield the company more than $45 million annually, agreed.

“To make a connection between entrepreneurship and science, one thing that really helps people cope as an entrepreneur when they need that resilience the most is to talk about business as an experiment,” Mulry said. “They really learn the scientific method, they learn they can have a hypothesis, they can test it, and they can see: Were they right, were they wrong? Either outcome is OK; they learn and they can adjust. And that’s exactly the way they can build a business.”

California State University, Northridge student reporters for El Nuevo Sol — CSUN’s Spanish-language journalism program’s first publication — received the Emerging Youth Voice award from New America Media (NAM) in September for the students’ 22-story project — Trabajadores Jóvenes en Los Angeles (Young Workers in Los Angeles) — about millennial challenges and experiences in the workplace.

The winning team was comprised of journalism seniors Pilar de Haro, Keila Vizcarra, Curtis Poindexter; journalism alumni Grecia Lopez, Aracelly Solis, Arabella Hernandez; art senior Lorena Roque; journalism and mass communication alumnus Daniel Shin and former student Michael Arvizu. The faculty advisor for the project was journalism professor José Luis Benavides.

CSUN journalism professor and faculty project advisor
José Luis Benavides. Photo Credit: CSUN website.

The El Nuevo Sol project staff set out to debunk the stereotypes that millennials worked for fun and not for a living.

“The series is significant because it counteracts the false portrayal of young working people prevalent in society, which pretends they like flexible schedules, live at home with their parents,” said Benavides. “El Nuevo Sol portrayed a completely different reality, where young workers face unpredictable schedules, contribute financially to their household’s expenses, are victims of wage theft, either by not being paid overtime or by being forced to work off-the-clock.”

The inspiration for the project came out of a research report by the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, “I am a #YoungWorker.” The multimedia report combined data, stories and images by millennials about young workers’ struggles, dreams and hopes for the future.

The “I am a #YoungWorker” report showed that less than one percent of millennials spend their money solely on recreational activities, while 32 percent contribute financially to their households. The study also said that nine out of 10 young workers do not have a set work schedule, and a third have been victims of wage theft — by being denied overtime pay or forced to work off-the-clock.

CSUN journalism senior and project editor Pilar de Haro. Photo Credit: Pilar de Haro email.

“A lot of our students, including myself, resonated with the key points that came out of that report,” de Haro said.

The team of student journalists and alumni crafted the series from February 2016 to May 2016, to show the struggles of millennials in the 21st century economy.

“We’re not one story,” said de Haro. “We’re not one voice. We are many different individuals that come from different backgrounds.”

NAM is a nationwide association of more than 3,000 ethnic media organizations, representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Its awards celebrate outstanding journalism on issues ranging from the environment, health and education to politics, immigration, sports and arts and culture.

Benavides created the Spanish-language journalism program and the core courses for

the minor in interdisciplinary Spanish-language journalism in 2003. The minor became official in 2007.

El Nuevo Sol is a multimedia website produced by the students in CSUN’s Spanish-language journalism program. Established in 2003, El Nuevo Sol has three main goals: contribute to a better and more accurate news coverage of Latino communities in the United States, including young Latinos in Southern California; provide a platform for students in the program to disseminate and showcase their journalistic work; and practice a socially responsible journalism that reports accurately and from a critical and independent perspective, providing meaningful context to stories usually ignored or underreported by mainstream news organizations.

For the first time since 1979, a total eclipse of the sun was visible from the continental United States. Six CSUN professors from the Department of Physics and Astronomy traveled to the path of totality in late August to observe the highly anticipated solar eclipse.

Faculty who participated in the event included Wladimir Lyra, Debi Prasad Choudhary, Damian Christian and Cristina Cadavid. The professors traveled to states like Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon. Each of these states had cities that were on a path of totality, or the 70-mile-wide cross-section of the U.S.

Lyra, an exoplanet astronomer, astrobiologist and applied mathematician, traveled to Casper, Wyo. to attend AstroCon 2017, a conference for astronomy amateurs and enthusiasts. While at the conference, Lyra set up a simple star spotter to view the eclipse.

“The star spotter is usually used to see sun spots, but it’s really great to watch the sun wax and wane,” he said.

He also gave a talk at the conference titled The Europa Clipper Mission, which was about the Jet Propulsion Lab’s mission to Europa, the ocean-bearing moon of Jupiter.

The talk garnered the attention of the media and Lyra received an invitation to be interviewed on The Cosmic Perspective Radio, which airs on WPKN in Connecticut. The Daily News was also impressed with Lyra’s talk and featured a photo gallery on AstroCon. To see the story, please click here.

Debi Prasad Choudhary also was an attendee at AstroCon 2017, but his mission was to include CSUN students at the event. To this end, Choudhary brought one CSUN student with him on the trip.

“I wanted students to get that knowledge and unique data,” he said.

Potential students who work with Choudhary are involved in using the telescope to observe space. Choudhary said the student he worked with rehearsed watching the eclipse every day in the months leading up to the eclipse.

Students interested in joining Choudhary in his research can email him at debiprasad.choudhary@csun.edu.

Faculty member Damian Christian is adept in stellar and solar astronomy. Christian and his team of researchers traveled by car to Sun Valley, Idaho and ventured almost 1,000 miles away from CSUN to snap the clearest and most precise images of the eclipse and the sun.

That weekend, Christian also attended a meeting called High-Energy Astrophysics division, which assists and promotes the advancement of research and the dissemination of knowledge about high energy events, particles, quanta, relativistic gravitational fields, and related phenomena in the astrophysical universe.

“Their program included a viewing of the eclipse,” he said. “My team also presented our research on black holes, and it worked out well that we could do both.”

California State University, Northridge marine biologist and coral reef expert Peter Edmunds has found a bit of hope among the coral reefs near the island of Moorea in French Polynesia.

Scientists were worried that the El Niño of 2016 would devastate coral reefs along its path in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea with its higher water temperatures. While that proved true for many reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia, Edmunds and a team of CSUN biology graduate and undergraduate students found that not only did Moorea’s reefs survive, but the effects of El Niño coincided with the recruitment of new corals to the reef.

“In the case of Moorea, coral recruitment in the El Niño year of 2o16 was basically the highest we’ve recorded in the past decade,” Edmunds said. “Part of the take-home message is that there are multiple voices in the scientific community, and many of those are describing the devastating effects of El Niño — but the key is we can’t paint the picture with a single color. While El Niño was very bad in many locations, Moorea tells a slightly different story.”

Peter Edmunds heading out to do research on the coral reefs of French Polynesia near Tahiti. Photo courtesy of Robert Carpenter.

Edmunds has spent decades studying the reefs around Moorea, recording their health and the vibrancy of the reef’s life and surrounding ocean waters. That familiarity placed Edmunds in the perfect position to assess the impact of El Niño of 2016.

He headed a one-year National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID-funded research project to see if the rising water temperatures would affect the growth rate and arrival of coral larvae to the reefs of Moorea. The results of his study, “Unusually high coral recruitment during the 2016 El Niño in Moorea, French Polynesia,” was published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) One, the international, open-access, online scientific journal.

“This study presents a hopeful possibility for future coral reefs in a warming ocean,” said Dan Thornhill, a program director in the NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research at NSF’s Moorea Coral Reef Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. “Resilient corals that don’t bleach or die when stressed, and numerous young corals, keep reefs healthy and vibrant.”

Edmunds said his research team directed a lot of uts focus into why the coral reefs of Moorea appear to be resilient.

“We went into the El Niño year thinking, ‘Moorea has been pretty darn resilient when devastated by cyclones and coral-eating sea stars, but El Niño is going to be particularly bad in 2016,’” he said. “Coming so soon after the major cyclone in 2010, we feared the effects would be very bad.”

Edmunds’ knowledge of the area and its history provided a perfect opportunity to try to answer that question within the framework of the Moorea Coral Reef Long-term Ecological Research Site, which is shared with the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“This is exactly why long-term studies of coral reefs are so important,” he said. “The only way we know that these disturbances have these effects and can evaluate the magnitude of the effects is because we’ve got the history that we can go through and use to assess the changes.”

Edmunds said there are two possible reasons why Moorea’s reef colony survived El Niño as well as it did.

“Despite the forecast for very warm water in Moorea, the warming of the seawater was much more moderate than people had expected,” he said. “El Niño created a very clear signal. If you looked at 2016, it was very different from other years, but in Moorea it wasn’t sufficiently different to create high temperatures that were catastrophic for corals.”

Another critical factor lies in the area’s history, he said, pointing to the reef’s “remarkable” recovery from an infestation of crown of thorns sea stars and the cyclone in 2010. Covered in long, poisonous spines, the sea stars are a well-known and voracious predator of corals.

“It’s like [the reef] was riding a wave of coral recovery, and it had reached the peak of the wave when El Niño struck,” Edmunds said. “That wave of success allowed the corals to survive through El Niño.”

He drew the analogy to a relatively healthy person who comes down with a severe illness. A healthy person is better able to survive the illness because his body is better equipped to deal with the assault than someone who is not as healthy. The same applies to coral reefs, Edmunds said.

“In the reverse, in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, I think the coral community there has taken a nose dive,” he said. “They were getting toward the bottom of trough and then, boom, they have been hit by two Category Five hurricanes. The responses to the disturbances in St. John are going to be very, very different.

“Whether they are on the crest or in the trough — whether they are healthy or they are debilitated —  has a huge impact on how the reefs are going to respond to these disturbances,” Edmunds said.

The next step, he said, is understanding “why Moorea and the reefs that surround it were doing well when El Niño came?”

Edmunds said the obvious answer may lie in the fact that there are not many people who live in the middle of the South Pacific in French Polynesia. But at this stage, that is only a hypothesis, one that he invites other scientists to explore.

Of the 1,586 films submitted to the 44th annual Student Academy Awards, only 85 — or 5 percent — advanced to the semifinals. Two of those films were made by students in California State University, Northridge’s Department of Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA).

It’s the first time that two CSUN students have advanced to the competition’s semifinals. Recent graduate Martin Ibarra ’17 (Cinema and Television Arts – TV Production) produced and directed the documentary Serve, one of the semifinalists, which he originally created for his Directing the TV Documentary course.

The film is “about the collaboration of volunteers working in the kitchen and food bank at Meeting Every Need with Dignity (MEND), a poverty agency in Pacoima, and the recipients of these services,” Ibarra said.

“I wanted to focus on this topic for various reasons, but what was most important to me was to bring more recognition to MEND,” he added.

Ibarra couldn’t have completed the project without his fellow Matadors, he said. His collaborators included David Lyons, associate producer; Jake Heitmann, writer; Josh Bantay, director of photography; Ricardo Garcia, production and post production sound; and Jenifer Becerra, editor.

“This was a team effort in every aspect, and I wanted to tell them all the news [that the film was a semifinalist] immediately, to share the moment with them,” Ibarra said. “That includes our thesis professor Thelma Vickroy, who guided and supported us in ways that not only enabled us to fine-tune our film, but to grow as filmmakers.”

Ibarra’s project stood out because of the documentary’s unique style and the team’s dedication, said Vickroy, a CTVA professor and head of the Electronic Media Management CTVA option at CSUN.

“Martin and his team chose to do this project in the documentary genre of observation,” Vickroy said. “This style of documentary is one that does not have interviews or voice-over narration. It requires students to film many weeks with the selected subject and have many hours of footage to organize and edit.”

Vickroy also pointed out that the recognition is a big accomplishment for the CTVA Department.

“CTVA documentary students completed this work from conception to the final project in 15 weeks,” Vickroy said. “Other schools’ students have more than one semester to work on their documentaries.

“They competed and were semifinalists with the best film schools in the country,” she added.

Serve was also selected for screening at the Highland Park Independent Film Festival on Oct. 7 in Los Angeles, where the film was awarded the Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film, in the Cinematic Spotlight Shorts Program group of the festival.
The second semifinalist, Ben-Dod Sheli (Hebrew for “my cousin”), was written and directed by CSUN senior Daniel Yonathan. Yonathan said the film is about pain and hatred, and was inspired by a trip he took to a war-plagued Israel in 2014.

“I became fascinated with hatred,” Yonathan said. “I became fascinated with, ‘Why are we so OK with killing people?’”

The 20-minute fictional film is centered on the lives of two cousins with pained hearts, planning to kidnap and kill citizens who they think are threats to society. The duo flags down a cab, only to find themselves ambushed by another pair of men, also with pained hearts, that kidnap the cousins and want to hurt them because of their beliefs and values.

The film’s goal was to shine a light on human beings’ unwillingness to consider another person’s point of view, Yonathan said.

“The movie is about hate on both sides and about the conviction of being right,” he said. “Naturally, I believe we all walk around thinking that we are right. Everyone thinks that what they’re doing is the ‘good thing.’ This movie is not about politics, nor land, nor history. It’s truly about the notion that people hate each other because of their beliefs.”

The student-director said he also wanted to highlight his colorful characters and show that high-stress situations aren’t mechanical.

“I’ll be watching a movie and think, ‘That’s not how real people would act,'” Yonathan said. “I’m sure if I was in that situation, whether the attacker or one being attacked, I’d be flustered, I’d repeat things, my logic would deceive me, I’d be paranoid and nervous. I wanted to show that. These aren’t the archetypal guys on the news. These guys are brothers, cousins. They have families. They might have school tomorrow morning.”

In a larger sense, Yonathan said, hidden in the movie’s subtext, the film demonstrates that the things that divide us — our pain, our beliefs, our idea of being right — is, ironically, what makes us so similar.

Emmy-winning CTVA professor Nate Thomas served as Yonathan’s faculty mentor and said that he was impressed with the student-director’s storytelling abilities, a quality that’s integral to filmmaking.

“Being a part of the media isn’t just for entertainment purposes,” Thomas said. “Film and media are so pervasive in this society that you have a responsibility as a filmmaker to tell a story. Daniel is a perfect example of that.

“Daniel and some of our other filmmakers are young,” he continued. “To tell these kinds of stories, they’re really quite mature in that sense. The students are telling real stories, stories that affect them, and I’m really impressed by the intensity and authenticity of the story Daniel has told.”

The participating students expressed their gratitude to CSUN’s CTVA Department and said their classes prepared them for high-level work.

“Taking courses like Editing with [professor] Deb Diehl, Documentary Traditions with [professor] Maria de las Carreras, Advanced Film Sound with [professor] Fred Ginsburg and Thesis Documentary with [professor] Thelma Vickroy truly shaped me into the filmmaker I am now,” Ibarra said.

For 10 years, California State University, Northridge students in the Center for Visual Communication (VISCOM) have gotten a jump on life as graphic design professionals.

Working for real-world clients on projects with real budgets, these students brainstorm and sketch ideas, field customer service calls, pitch concepts to clients, and refine their work until clients say it’s ready for launch. From kickoff through final invoice, students handle all aspects of a project, and they hear critiques from mentors and industry professionals along the way.

In the program, founded by CSUN professor and alumnus Dave Moon ’89 (Graphic Design), students have designed a website and packaging for an award-winning dessert store, created motion graphics for an international luxury hotel chain, produced holiday videos for the LA Philharmonic, and developed branding and print design concepts for clients around the world.

“There’s something addictive about problem-solving,” said Karina Schink, a senior English major who took a project management job with VISCOM in early 2017. “That’s the joy of it. You try to figure out how to solve problems and how to make people happy, and also be proud of what you’ve created.”

Now based in room 409 of the CSUN Art and Design Center Room, VISCOM started as an on-campus agency with five art and design students and two faculty advisers. A decade in, the program has impacted hundreds of students— including about 40 currently active members — across multiple disciplines, including students majoring or minoring in computer science, cinematography, journalism, English and more.

The result: a network of current and future professionals who help one another succeed on the path to a professional career.

“It was a little ahead of its time,” said Joe Bautista ’01 (Graphic Design), VISCOM director since 2015. Moon, his former professor, recruited Bautista at the dawn of the program. “Now you see all these centers and institutes with active learning environments, especially from the art and design area. There wasn’t anything like it at the time that was project based, client based. We’re basically running a business on campus. The way this place functions is no different than agencies I’ve worked for in the past.”

VISCOM was created as a path to success. Moon, then serving as interim dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication, wanted to use the campus’ varied student resources to create artwork for clients. He wrote a proposal for then-Provost Harry Hellenbrand, who immediately supported the concept, then took his idea to contacts in the business community. The president of a local bank stepped up and wanted to help students succeed. He asked: “What do you need?”

“I need clients,” Moon replied. Soon, VISCOM was designing the bank’s website.

Bautista, a part-time CSUN faculty member at the time, helped recruit the first five students and has worked with Moon ever since. The two CSUN alumni have continued to use their contacts to bring in work, leaning on the Northridge Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. With an established history, former VISCOM students working in the industry pass along leads.

“The projects their agencies can’t bring in because they’re too small are the perfect size for us,” Bautista said.

On a recent Thursday, four VISCOM alumni who work at or have interned at Yahoo! stopped by to meet current students. The alumni reviewed the students’ work, offered insights into the creative process, and provided tips on how to land a job and how to thrive.

One of those alumni was Jazmin Orozco ’17 (Graphic Design), whose experience with VISCOM helped her land an internship and then a full-time job at Yahoo! Her responsibilities as a product designer include working on the company’s Denali open-source framework, which helps Yahoo!’s engineering teams develop internal platform products faster.

“VISCOM was the thing that set me apart,” Orozco said. “If I had just been in graphic design classes, there’s no way I would have been prepared for [the job]. Classes are safe — there’s no one who’s going to change their mind at the last minute, there’s no one who’s going to argue with you about your design. If it hadn’t been for VISCOM, I don’t think I would have been ready for my job, and I don’t think I would have been considered.”

The program has evolved with the industry. Students now often major in business marketing, with their interests — and VISCOM’s work — increasingly focused on brand strategy and big-picture storytelling. This focus helps students increase their value in the marketplace, where individuals who produce great designs alone have been commodified and can be hired inexpensively.

To that end, Moon in 2017 launched a new student-run consulting venture, RADIUS, to work in concert with VISCOM. Based next door to VISCOM in room 410 of the Art and Design Center, RADIUS diagnoses a client’s competitive landscape and develops a strategy that VISCOM then executes. RADIUS is designed to help students become more than “stuff makers,” Moon said, and lets them develop integrated marketing campaigns.

VISCOM helped Jamie Cristal Joaquin ’13 (Graphic Design) realize she could earn a living while pursuing her passions, she said. Joaquin came to CSUN as a pre-med psychology major, but kept taking art and design classes, until Bautista recruited her to his team. Soon, she’d switched her major and aced an internship at Yahoo! — to the point that the company hired her before she’d graduated. Now, she provides art direction and style guidelines for Facebook.

“I was always told, ‘You’re great at art, but it’s just a hobby — you can’t make a living off that,’” Joaquin said. “Now I’m working in Silicon Valley with some of the smartest people in the world.”

Such success stories are VISCOM’s primary purpose, Moon said.

“I don’t try to keep talent here,” Moon said. “If I have a really incredible talent, I try to help get the talent out of here. Our job is to put them in the best situation.”

Before taking over the play-by-play duties for CSUN Baseball in 2016, Ross Porter spent nearly three decades announcing Los Angeles Dodgers games alongside legendary broadcaster Vin Scully.

In early October at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (formerly the Valley Performing Arts Center), Porter took center stage for An Evening With Ross Porter, taking guests down memory lane while reminiscing about his legendary career. The Matador Band and Matty the Matador welcomed fans to the event and guests in attendance included CSUN baseball student-athletes, CSUN Baseball Head Coach Greg Moore, the Soraya Executive Director Thor Steingraber and other campus administrators. CSUN Baseball fan and frequent broadcast booth visitor Richard Kaufman ’77 (Music), who also wrote the CSUN fight song, served as host for the evening, which benefited the nonprofit organization Stillpoint Family Resources.

Here are some of Porter’s reflections on memories and people that he shared during the evening.

On his new family at CSUN:

“It has been a great thrill for me to not only resume my announcing, but to be associated with this program, this great university, Greg Moore and these players. Coach Moore is one of the finest individuals I’ve ever met, and it’s been a thrill to be associated with him.”

On his routine broadcasting for the Dodgers and CSUN and how he prepares for games.

“When I started with the Dodgers in 1977, I realized I did not have the library of stories as Vin Scully had. I thought to myself ‘I love numbers.’ Somebody once said baseball is the soul of statistics. I thought to myself, ‘What if I do something that’s a little unusual?’ So I began putting into a bluebook that I kept the individual matchups: Dodgers vs. the Reds; Don Sutton pitching; Pete Rose batting. How did they do? Rose went 1-for-4 with a double. Every night I’d update the book. I’d refer to the book and use stats a lot. Over the years I drew some criticism since I probably overdid it. I was so proud of my research that I wanted to use it. Of course, I’m one of the the maybe top 2 million notetakers of all time. I read a lot of articles, a lot of magazines and what I did was, anytime I’d see something on a player or team, I would write that on a sheet of paper. It could be something like a person on the Philadelphia Phillies caught a 400-pound tuna in the ocean. I’d write that down and keep it in my Phillies file for the next time the Dodgers have it. Now, it’s so easy because of the internet to pull these things out.”

On Kirk Gibson’s legendary walk-off home run against the Oakland Athletics in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

“I went down to the bottom of the Dodger clubhouse to get ready for the postgame show since it looked like they were going to lose. Gibson, who had two bad knees and wasn’t playing in the game, was sitting on the trainer’s table with his shirt off. He’s looking up at the television monitor and Vin Scully says on air to [announcer Joe] Garagiola, ‘Joe, I’ll tell you one guy who won’t be playing tonight for the Dodgers, he can barely walk. That’s Kirk Gibson.’

“Gibson heard it and yelled to the Dodger clubhouse attendant Mitch Poole to tell [Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda] that he can play. Mitch comes back saying that Tommy wants him to get dressed and ready, but don’t show yourself so the Oakland manager doesn’t know you’re available. Before the game, Dodger scout Mel Didier, who was scouting Oakland for three weeks, told the hitters that on a 3-2 count, Dennis Eckersley will throw you a backdoor slider.

“Eckersley, Hall of Fame relief pitcher for Oakland, gets the first two outs and it looks like the Dodgers are dead. Mike Davis got a walk and when he went to first, Gibson went up to bat. The first two pitches were strikes and he was in trouble. Davis proceeds to steal second base. Then it’s two balls and two strikes, then three balls and two strikes. Gibson stepped out, thought about what Didier said, stepped back in and what did Eckersley throw him? A backdoor slider. Gibson looked like he took a one-handed swing out of the ballpark and everyone goes wacky. That was the only at-bat Gibson had in the World Series and it was voted the No. 1 sports moment in Los Angeles sports history.”

On working with Hall of Famer Vin Scully.

“I’ve said this about Vin, here’s the man who was the most popular man in the state of California. He was once asked to run for governor and he told the political chairman to give him 48 hours to think about it. He told me after about five seconds he made up his mind, but wanted to be polite to the man. I saw Vin Scully in every situation he could be in. I saw people come up to him, ‘Mr. Scully can I have your autograph? Mr. Scully can you pose for a picture with me?’  Never, ever did I see Vin Scully rude to another person. We know he’s the greatest baseball announcer ever, but he was also and still is a tremendous human being.”

On the LA Times’ Story about Porter during his first year at CSUN in 2016.

“When [CSUN Associate Athletic Director, Strategic Communications] Amy Millstone told me the LA Times was running the story on me on the front page, I said ‘In the sports section?’ she said ‘No, the front page of the LA Times, unless Donald Trump says something outlandish and then you’ll get bumped.’ Fortunately, he didn’t and I was on the front page. Greg Moore had the front page framed for me and now it’s sitting on the wall in our home.”

Porter also spent time talking about StillPoint Family Resources, an organization founded by his son Ross Porter and his wife Jennifer that helps special needs families.

For more information about CSUN Baseball, please visit www.gomatadors.com. For information about how to donate to Stillpoint Family Resources, please visit this website.

On average, buying white seabass from the local market will cost you $20 to $35 a pound. Twenty-seven years ago, that wasn’t the case. In the 1980s, over-fishing of white seabass depleted California’s coastal waters of the fish, forcing its market price to skyrocket.

As the fish population started rebounding in the mid-1990s, California State University, Northridge biology department chair and professor Larry Allen began a study along the Southern California coast in the Channel Islands, San Diego and Santa Barbara, focusing on the white seabass (Atractoscion nobilis).

California State University, Northridge biology professor Larry Allen. Photo Credit: CSUN staff website.

Allen, biologist Edwin Leung — a CSUN alumnus — and a team of researchers measured year class strength, a summary of the reproductive success of a species from a given year, to determine its relationship to the catches from recreational and commercial fishing.

Their published findings in the Journal of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife could potentially save the fish from fishery extinction and provide a more sustainable, price-balanced economic commodity for the public.

“Promoting sustainability is the way to avoid over-harvesting, and it has an economic importance,” Allen said. “Measuring and studying how successfully the white seabass reproduce over the years helps promote sustainability, because you’re able to sustain the fishery over longer periods of time by taking the correct amount of fish.”

In order to calculate the age of white seabass, the scientists sectioned their ear bones (otoliths) and counted the rings found in them that reflected the age of the fish. From the age structure of samples, the year class strength was determined and compared to the commercial fishery landings over a 15-year period.

The study concluded that the year class strength significantly predicted commercial landings of white sea bass 11 years later. Therefore, it takes 11 years to grow to the size where they can enter the fishery and can be sold in the market.

With more than a decade of lagging, this tight relationship helped the researchers predict how successful future catches would be, based on how many fish are in each “year class,” or age group.

“California fisheries’ managers can now predict commercial landings of white sea bass based on how many babies survived 11 years earlier,” Allen said. “We found that by sampling the younger stages, such as the 1, 2 and 3-year-olds quantitatively, we could easily estimate their year class strength.

“People can catch more fish when these strong year classes are coming through,” he continued. “Managers also can predict when the catches may start declining — you can monitor it in an effort to prevent over-fishing, by matching how many fish survived their first year versus how many the recreational and commercial fishermen are taking 11 years later.”

What the CSUN research team learned may lead to good news at the seafood counter when visiting your local market, in the not-too-distant future.

For more information on the study, please contact larry.allen@csun.edu.

The CSUN team that won recognition from Campus Compact for their effort to bridge divisions among people. From left, Jennifer Skornik, Doug Kaback, David Boyns, Jeanine Mingé and Briauna Johnson. Photo by Lee Choo.

Campus Compact — a Boston-based coalition of more than 1,000 colleges and universities, committed to the purpose of higher education — has awarded California State University, Northridge a $5,000 grant from its Fund for Positive Engagement, to catalyze experiments that bridge divisions among people and groups, both on campus and within the community.

CSUN was selected through a highly competitive process, out of nearly 300 applicants from public, private, two-year and four-year Campus Compact members. Proposals were judged based on the strength of the idea, its practicality and the degree to which it will be possible to measure success, among other criteria.

The grant, awarded to CSUN’s Office of Community Engagement and the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing, is one of 40 awarded to public institutions across the country. The funds will be used in support of the Institute’s project, “Stories that Connect Us: Resilience and Hope among Students of Opportunity,” which is designed to engage participants with unfamiliar perspectives. It’s also designed to foster empathy and understanding, and to develop positive relationships across differences to lift up common humanity.

“The purpose of our project is to create a forum where CSUN students can share their stories of hope and resilience, and generate dialogue on social justice issues, all without sidestepping the often challenging realities they face,” said David Boyns, director of the Institute.

The project will utilize Photovoice — a London based community engagement organization that uses photography for positive social change — by documenting photos taken by 30 to 50 CSUN students that represent four themes: 1) What does resiliency mean to you? 2) Tell a story about a time when you were resilient. 3) What does hope mean to you? 4) Tell a story when hope influenced choices you made.

The Photovoice images will be displayed at galleries, community centers and online. The photos will help to tell the stories of the projects participants while encouraging student action, according to Jeanine Mingé, director of CSUN’s Community Engagement.

“Telling stories creates social change. Stories humanize. Stories catalyze. Stories can help people rise. The Campus Compact Positive Engagement Grant has given us the opportunity to guide CSUN’s Bridge to the Future Students through the incredible process of storytelling and art making in order to empower, uplift and connect,” Mingé said.

The Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing is a collaborative of campus and community members committed to enhancing the health and well-being of individuals, families, organizations and communities within CSUN’s service region. The primary mission of the institute is to foster healthful living through community and campus partnerships.  For more information, visit http://www.csun.edu/wellbeing.

The Office of Community Engagement (OCE) at CSUN develops civic responsibility, integrates meaningful community service into our academic experiences, and sustains partnerships with our surrounding communities. OCE enriches scholarship; research and creative activity; enhances curriculum; prepares educated, engaged citizens; strengthens democratic values and civic responsibility; addresses critical social issues and contributes to the public good. For more information, visit: https://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/community-engagement.

The Fund for Positive Engagement is a direct response by Campus Compact to the divisive and destructive climate that took shape in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign. The purpose of the award is to bring people together across lines of difference.

Campus Compact is a leader in building community engagement into campus and academic life. For more information and a full list of recipients, visit http://www.compact.org/fund-positive-engagement.

Some of the highest-achieving California State University, Northridge students gathered in the backyard of the University House, home to CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison, to be recognized for their achievements at the Oct. 20 Northridge Scholars Reception. 

The students were part of the Northridge Scholars Program, a merit-based scholarship program that includes the University Scholarship and the Presidential Scholarship.

Of the 218 undergraduate students who applied for the University Scholarship this year, just 22 were selected. Each was awarded $7,500. University Scholars engage in scholarly development activities, such as attending conferences, as they deeply explore their field of interest.

Just 10 of 21 students who applied were awarded a Presidential Scholarship, which includes $10,000 and the opportunity to work on yearlong projects with faculty mentors.

The University Scholarship is funded by the Bayramian Family Scholarship Endowment. The Presidential Scholarship is funded by Associated Students, the Bayramian Family Scholarship Endowment, the Blenda Wilson Scholarship, the Diane Ryan Scholarship Endowment and the Medtronic Minimed Endowment.

The generous scholarships are critical to helping students succeed, Harrison said. She noted that prior scholars have graduated with honors and gone on to earn advanced degrees.

“When you think about what some of our prior scholars have accomplished, you can get inspired,” she told the students. “It sets you forward on a really good path.”

Harrison was joined by administrators, deans and faculty mentors who welcomed the accomplished students. The students represented eight of CSUN’s colleges. Their cohort included ten prior recipients, undocumented students and even a set of twins.

University Scholar Jean Pauline Serrano is a sophomore psychology major who aspires to earn master’s and doctoral degrees and to become a professor who teaches and inspires students. She was raised by a single mother and works three jobs: as a supplemental instructor at CSUN in statistics courses, as a private tutor for special-needs students in her neighborhood and as a sales associate at Adidas.

“The scholarship definitely lightens the load,” Serrano said. “It’s nice to be honored. It’s humbling. It feels like the school cares about the work we’re doing.”

Senior psychology major Natalie Rankin, a Presidential Scholar, is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico. Her work has concentrated on reducing discrimination toward minority groups, including using a video called Off the Streets for Good to put a personal — and local — face on the issue of homelessness. Rankin said she was honored to be able to continue her research with her mentor, professor Luciana Lagana.

After graduating from CSUN, Rankin said she hopes to one day become a bilingual psychiatrist who can serve the Latino population.

“I’m the first in my family to go to college,” Rankin said. “I hope to lead by example and show other minorities they can do this too. I was fortunate to have professors to show me I can do it. I’m really proud to be here.”

Associate Vice President for Student Access and Support Dwayne Cantrell recognized each of the scholarship recipients and asked them introduce themselves to those in attendance.

“I want to congratulate you on your work that you’ve done and your accomplishments so far,” Cantrell said. “We’re excited about what you are going to produce in the future.”

Harrison thanked the scholarship selection committees and faculty mentors who helped the students. She also encouraged the students to introduce themselves to one another, as they would likely find common ground with respect to the value they place on academic achievement.

“You represent many different disciplines and majors, and it is important to get outside of your scope of thinking and see what others are doing,” Harrison said. “We know that creativity is increased and enhanced when it’s multidisciplinary. Think of what you can do if you have all these great scholars around campus you can come to know, people doing these incredible things — and they’re right here.”

CSUN biology professor MariaElena Zavala (left) is seen here working with students in the MARC program. Photo by Lee Choo.

California State University, Northridge biology professor MariaElena Zavala has been named the first Latina Fellow of the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) in its 57-year history.

The ASCB is an international community of biologists studying the cell, the fundamental unit of life. Its members are dedicated to advancing scientific discovery, advocating sound research policies, improving education, promoting professional development and increasing diversity in the scientific workforce.

Zavala said she is honored to be named an ASCB Fellow.

“I think it’s important for people — especially young women and persons of color who are interested in the sciences — to see that there are places for them, that they too can be leaders in science,” Zavala said. “This honor isn’t just for me, it’s for all of us.”

In addition to being a Fellow of the American Society of Cell Biology, she is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and, last year, became the first Latina Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB).

“To be named a Fellow is a recognition of your research and the contributions you have made to a particular field of study,” Zavala said. “It’s nice recognition from your peers. But I am looking forward to the time when I’m not the first, but one of several Latina Fellows.”

Zavala, who has taught at CSUN since 1988, is the first Mexican-American woman in the country to earn a Ph.D. in botany. Since coming to the campus, she has played an integral part in building the national reputation of CSUN’s Department of Biology as a place where students, particularly those from underserved communities, thrive and successfully pursue advanced degrees at top-tier research institutions.
She has served as director of CSUN’s Maximizing Access to Research Careers Undergrad Student Training and in Academic Research (MARC U-STAR) program since 1990 and Research Initiatives for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) since 1993. Her work as a mentor and advocate for countless students who have gone through these programs earned her recognition from the White House. In 2000, Zavala received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from former President Bill Clinton.

Zavala’s research focuses on the manipulation of genes as a way to improve plant productivity by enhancing root growth. She also is studying ways to make beans more nutritious.

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month in early October, website NBC Latino named California State University, Northridge professor of Chicana/o studies Denise Sandoval one of the #NBCLatino20. All of the honorees “are fiercely proud of their heritage, which has guided their work and inspired their accomplishments,” according to the English-language website, which features Hispanic-oriented NBC content. The list includes professionals as disparate as supermodels, astronauts and chefs.

Sandoval ’95 (M.A., Chicana/o Studies) has been researching and curating exhibits on lowrider culture for more than 20 years. She most recently curated a lowrider exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum, which opened in spring 2017. The exhibit, The High Art of Riding Low, runs through June 2018 in the museum’s Armand Hammer Foundation Gallery.

Sandoval said she wasn’t expecting the honor from NBC, but she felt excited when she heard the news. The broadcasting company recognized the professor for her passion, vocation and skill sets.

“I am very honored to be among the group they chose for this year,” she said. “I strongly believe that I am one person among many who are using their voices and professions to contribute to a better and socially just world.”

The High Art exhibit already has logged more than 1 billion hits online — museum enthusiasts searching for the exhibit online and clicking on articles related to its pieces — Sandoval said. The exhibit features sculptures, paintings, installations and, of course, lowrider vehicles as art.

The term “lowrider” has a dual meaning, said Sandoval, who previously curated the Petersen exhibitions Arte y Estilo (2000) and La Vida Lowrider: Cruising the City of Angels (2007).

“[This exhibit] is bringing together two worlds that have really played a big part in my professional and personal life,” she said. “I’m trained in ethnic studies and Chicano studies, [so I see] my role as continuing to document our stories — our Chicano stories — in academia, but also always being connected to the community.”

Sandoval expressed gratitude for the support offered by the CSUN community.

“I am very proud to be part of a campus that values the scholarship and work of all the wonderful faculty, both inside and outside our campus,” Sandoval said. “CSUN is continuing to lead in the arts.”

Currently, Sandoval is on sabbatical, interviewing artists from the exhibit as part of a larger book project about The High Art of Riding Low. For more information about the exhibit, please visit petersen.org.

A California State University, Northridge professor of elementary education is working with the state Department of Education to increase local elementary students’ interest and achievement in science, technology, engineering, art and math — what educators call STEAM. Professor Susan Belgrad has partnered with participating principals and teachers since 2015 to apply curriculum and instruction that engages students in the real-life aspects of STEM learning.

In 2015, the state awarded CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education nearly $500,000 to advance science education for underrepresented minority students. Project partners include the Los Angeles County Office of Education and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) as well as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) organizations such as the DIY Girls, Sally Ride Science, Families in Schools and the Discovery Cube Los Angeles.

Along with colleagues Matthew d’Alessio from the College of Science and Mathematics, and Ray Brie and Nathan Durdella from the Eisner College, Belgrad invited five LAUSD elementary schools to participate in their “Achieve through PLCs” project. The CSUN team helped enhance science and engineering curricula and instruction at Victory Boulevard Elementary, Haddon STEAM Academy, Stanley Mosk Elementary, Plummer Elementary and Haskell STEAM Magnet.

A professional learning community (PLC) is a group of educators or administrators who meet regularly to share knowledge and collaborate to improve teaching skills and student academic performance.

To celebrate the culmination of the five-school project in October, Belgrad and CSUN colleagues and the Los Angeles County Office of Education officials invited LA-area educators to a regional conference for K-6 multiple subject teachers.

“The teachers and principals at our conference presented knowledge and strategies learned from our partners, to increase elementary student interest and achievement in STEM-integrated curricula,” Belgrad said.

“They are also addressing key ways to create STEM-focused professional learning communities that include teachers, parents and school leaders,” Belgrad added.

The conference featured an array of workshops, such as “Learning Through Robotics,” as well as hands-on projects such as “Waves,” where attendees had the opportunity to retrofit a wall to withstand an earthquake.

One of the most significant workshops at the conference, Belgrad said, was “How to Lead a STEAM Professional Learning Community.” Administrators at three of the five partner elementary schools shared stories to help attendees understand how to establish and maintain a professional learning community at their school.

Song Lee, vice principal at Haddon STEAM academy in Pacoima, shared her experiences with the project and talked about how the teachers use professional learning at Haddon.

“For us, a professional learning community is not just, ‘let’s get together and talk about a lesson,’” Lee said. “We actually have the lesson and demo for each other so we can get that constructive feedback.”

On Oct. 28, the Discovery Cube LA and CSUN celebrated their partnership by hosting the first of what Belgrad said she hopes will be a growing annual event. The event featured fun activities like a jumper obstacle course, as well as scientific experiments such as pH testing of different drinks. The Discovery Cube LA is located in Sylmar. For more information, please visit the DCLA website.

When medical issues forced Sarah Rivera to leave the Air Force, she felt like she’d lost her family.

The onset of an autoimmune disease in 2016 spelled the end of Rivera’s career at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, where she worked as an aviation resource manager. In that role since 2014, Rivera made sure pilots, air crew members and other personnel were up to date on their qualifications before missions. After her medical separation, she was suddenly forced to come to terms with the reality that she was no longer part of a military family where every person worked as one to defend the nation.

“That is your life,” said Rivera, now a junior Deaf studies major at California State University, Northridge. “That is pounded into your head every day: That man or woman standing next to you is someone you [would] give your life for, and they [would] give their life for you. You guys [would] go down together, you will fight together. And I don’t know how to go from being that connected to another human being to not having that connection anymore.”

She enrolled in CSUN in 2016. After a disorienting couple of months, Rivera discovered the place that made the campus feel like home: The Veterans Resource Center (VRC), which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary — just in time for Veterans Day.

The VRC, part of the University Student Union at CSUN, is a place where veterans can find a community of people who understand, no matter the military branch — whether they were on active duty or are currently serving in the National Guard or the Reserves. Two full-time staff members and a dedicated team of student assistants provide veterans academic, personal, professional and educational services. They help connect veterans with critical resources, including personal, professional and academic counseling, mental health services, emergency financial assistance, and other assistance that boosts the chances of success at CSUN.

“We are doing really serious, critical work,” said Patrina Croisdale, VRC coordinator since 2014. “The military teaches you to be tough and strong, that ‘suffer in silence’ mentality — ‘keep pushing on, accomplish the mission and move on,’ which is critical for the job they’re in. Student veterans need to understand that it’s OK to ask for help.”

The University Student Union opened the VRC in 2012 as a student-initiated peer mentorship program, where more established veteran students shared their experiences and tips with new student veterans. It has since evolved into a community, a safe space for individuals whose life experiences and academic challenges differ from those of traditional college students and most civilians.

When the VRC opened , an average of 18 students visited per day. That number has risen to about 68, Croisdale said. CSUN’s student population currently includes about 700 veterans, as well as at least 450 military dependents (children or spouses of veterans). Although most student veterans enlisted in the years after Sept. 11, CSUN has served veterans of all wars, including a recent graduate who served during the Korean War.

In 2016, the VRC began a program called Joining Forces, which provides training to create “veteran allies” among faculty, staff and other campus leaders. The idea is to introduce influencers to the challenges faced by veteran students. For example, National Guard members can be activated and called away for emergencies such as wildfires, and reservists must balance schoolwork with drill activities.

Although the current CSUN veteran population skews young, they still tend to be older than students who enroll right after high school, and often have responsibilities such as families, jobs and mortgages. Those who have been on active duty — especially service members who’ve been on combat deployments — have a perspective that most civilians don’t.

“They’ve been exposed to a lot of different parts of the world, a lot of cultures, a lot of international issues that the average citizen may not have at the top of their mind,” Croisdale said. “Younger college students don’t have that experience. Their conversations are very different.”

The VRC helped create a partnership with CSUN’s University Counseling Services and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Vet Center program, bringing two Vet Center counselors to campus to provide mental health services eight hours per week. The primary focus is students with combat experience, and those who have experienced military sexual trauma. Veterans can receive unlimited, free counseling through the program. CSUN and Cal Poly Pomona are the only two schools in the CSU system with such a program.

“We’re trying to improve the way people deal with mental health struggles,” Croisdale said. “That’s something we take really seriously in our center.”

Through the VRC, CSUN veterans and military dependents also can receive professional mentorship, participate in social gatherings and even receive emergency financial assistance.

Perhaps most important, the VRC has provided a community for students like Jon Eady, a transfer student in CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. As an Army National Guard specialist, Eady served as a field artillery radar operator. Without the VRC, Eady said, he might have felt a lack of connection on campus.

“It’s a place to unwind, to decompress,” Eady said. “I feel more comfortable knowing there’s a place for veterans to socialize and be veterans.”