When Ed Jackiewicz met Tera Trujillo in spring 2015, she was studying at a desk she’d carried to the corner of the California State University, Northridge soccer field, in a “time out” of sorts, unable to practice because she’d just earned a D in an economics class.

Jackiewicz, the chair of California State University, Northridge’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, is also CSUN’s faculty athletics representative — he’s an outside observer, someone not of the athletics department who helps promote the academic success of student-athletes on campus. With coach Keith West’s support, Jackiewicz struck up a conversation with Trujillo, and decided her grades weren’t reflective of her abilities. He invited her to his office for a conversation.

Trujillo confessed that she’d picked her major — journalism with a sociology collateral — because she was a good writer and figured she would excel at it, not because it was her passion. Her passion was planet Earth, and being outside, and learning about the environment and humanity’s impact on it.

Thanks to that step outside the world of athletics, Trujillo ’17 changed her minor to geography, and is now pursuing a master’s in geography at CSUN with the goal of becoming an environmental researcher and professor.

“My entire life I was solely focused on soccer and sports,” Trujillo said. “Ed magically popped into my life and helped me find my direction.”

Trujillo’s story is a dramatic example of the great outcomes from a CSUN mentoring program called the Under Armour Faculty. The Under Armour Faculty members —who each get a special Under Armour polo in honor of the university’s sponsorship deal with the apparel company — is a group of 17 faculty members from majors and departments across campus who serve as a resource for more than 350 CSUN student-athletes.

Jackiewicz and the Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Brandon Martin, are currently recruiting new members, who can guard against the tunnel vision that can arise in college athletics due to the focus student-athletes often have on their sport. Incentives of the job include athletics gear, free access to games, and, in some cases, the chance to travel with the teams.

“It’s all about having different perspectives,” said Martin, who worked with Jackiewicz to develop the program. “We want our student-athletes to widen their scope and have a full understanding of what their options are beyond athletics. The Under Armour faculty have done an outstanding job of getting student-athletes to understand their potential and to fully maximize their identities as students.”

Under Armour Faculty members can answer questions about what majors best fit interest levels, what classes to take for a particular major, and what activities and internships will provide the best preparation for life after sports. For example, if a student was interested in majoring in psychology, that student can be connected with a psychology professor.

Once a month, the faculty members also host a themed breakfast focusing on one of the university’s colleges. Student-athletes can learn about majors and careers, and ask questions to learn how to pursue careers in related fields.

“College is the time to explore different things, to find another passion in life,” Jackiewicz said. “Our goal is to prepare student-athletes for life beyond athletics, because that’s where most of them are headed. We want them to be able to have those conversations while they’re here. ‘It’s OK to have more than one passion. Find something you like maybe not as much as sports, but close to that.’”

Beginning this year, 10 or so faculty members also serve as mentors to about 80 freshman student-athletes. Each mentor has eight or nine students, and holds monthly meetings to talk to students about life in general or to answer specific questions.

Jonathan Martinez, an assistant professor of psychology, was one of the first professors to join the program. He often talks to the student-athletes about time management and the importance of self-care. He said these talks have given him perspective on all the obligations for student-athletes as well as students in general.

“When we were trying to schedule meetings it was a challenge,” Martinez said. “I would say, ‘Send me your practice schedule, send me your weight schedule, send me your class schedule,’ and I would see, ‘Oh, wow, they only have an hour on Monday.’ So I needed to be flexible with when we could meet. As a professor, it’s good for me to gain perspective. They have a lot on their plate. They’re trying to do the best that they can.”

The original idea for the Under Armour Faculty program, according to Jackiewicz, came from CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison, who is a member of the NCAA Board of Governors and was a faculty athletics representative at Florida State. The program was originally modeled after one at Georgia Tech, but Jackiewicz and Martin continue to make changes to fit CSUN’s needs.

The Under Armour Faculty program has earned recognition from NCAA president Mark Emmert, who in April wrote a letter to Jackiewicz which said, “The efforts to build students’ academic confidence and to use athletics as a tool for engagement highlighted a deep commitment to the mission of college athletics — using sports as a pathway to opportunity for students.”

Martin said he envisions the program evolving from informal meetings into a faculty leadership academy, where student-athletes can receive instruction, mentoring and post-collegiate support.

“We want to have the best faculty engagement program in the country,” Martin said. “We’re on our way to that. The Under Armour Faculty program has, without question, aided in our pursuit of comprehensive excellence.”

For more information about participating in the Under Armour Faculty program, contact Ed Jackiewicz at ed.jackiewicz@csun.edu.

CSUN students and staff plant trees in the Sierra Quad, during the annual Earth Fair in April 2017.

California State University, Northridge has earned another stellar ranking from the nation’s largest organization for sustainability in higher education.

In November, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) ranked CSUN among the top 10 for master’s degree-level institutions in its Sustainable Campus Index.

The recognition marked the second year in a row AASHE has honored CSUN for its efforts and achievements in sustainability. In 2016, the association awarded CSUN a gold rating in its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). The gold rating was the highest in the California State University system at that time, and the first year the university had completed the very complex and rigorous STARS application.

The Princeton Review also uses the STARS ratings as a basis for their lists of “Green Colleges,” and the Sierra Club uses the ratings for its list of “Cool Schools.”

The new Sustainable Campus Index recognizes top-performing colleges and universities in 17 different categories of sustainability related to academics, engagement, operations and administration. The lists are based on institutions’ STARS ratings. CSUN was one of three CSUs in the top 10, along with Sacramento State and Humboldt State.

“Having CSUN mentioned and recognized in the AASHE Sustainable Campus Index is a great honor, and something that we are very excited about,” said CSUN Director of Energy and Sustainability Austin Eriksson, who spearheaded the STARS application. “CSUN is one of only three CSUs included in the top 10 master’s institutions. This not only shows the commitment level and action at our institution, but also in the CSU system. We look forward to the release of the 2018 report and hope to see our campus rise in the rankings.”

More than 750 colleges and universities in 24 countries have registered for the STARS rating system, according to AASHE. Of those, more than 380 institutions have achieved a platinum, gold, silver or bronze rating, or recognition as a “STARS Reporter.”

CSUN scored highly for its curriculum aspects, including the large number of courses that address sustainability issues, as well as the myriad ways students can explore sustainability as interns, in research and with campus-improvement projects. The campus also scored well in the area of campus engagement, including peer-to-peer education and student ambassadors through Associated Students Recycling. In addition to energy efficiency, highlights of campus operations included grounds management such as drought-tolerant landscaping.

CSUN distinguished itself from other universities and achieved the gold rating by focusing campuswide on sustainability efforts, campus officials said. The STARS application involved a survey with hundreds of questions that required about six months of data gathering to complete, Eriksson said. About 50 people across campus gathered the required information.

The university’s next step is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of its climate action plan, according to Eriksson.

In 2016, President Dianne F. Harrison joined a group of 10 university presidents in signing a pact as part of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, working with the nonprofit organization Second Nature. Through this commitment, the presidents pledged to improve their universities’ practices to reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases as well as adapting to a constantly changing climate.

To read AASHE’s Sustainable Campus Index report or for more information about the rating system, visit the association’s website. To learn more about campus sustainability efforts, visit the CSUN Sustainability website.

Less than 20 feet underwater, California State University, Northridge marine biologist Peter Edmunds could see the damage two back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes — Irma and Maria — had inflicted on the coral reef near the Caribbean island of St. John last September.

A once-vibrant reef was now littered with broken coral, the remains of soft sponges and soft coral ripped from their homes on the ocean floor, and 5- to 10-ton boulders that had been tossed about as if they were pebbles. Going deeper underwater, the signs of destruction were less obvious but could still impact life on the reefs for generations to come.

Researchers became forensic ecologists as they mapped the damage done to St. John’s reef by two back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes. Photo courtesy of Peter Edmunds

Edmunds essentially became a forensic ecologist on a short research expedition that he and geologist Howard Lasker of the University at Buffalo made in mid-November to the waters of the Virgin Islands National Park, part of the U.S. National Park Service. They made the trip to study the hurricanes’ impact on the coral reef near St. John when the storms tore into the region just four months ago.

“The key issue now is how many corals are going to succumb to their injuries over the next year, and how many corals were killed as a direct result of the storm,” Edmunds said. “If we were only able to come back next summer, then we wouldn’t really know what died because of their injuries caused by the storm, and what died from progressive injuries.

“It’s like being a forensic ecologist,” he said. “Basically, we’re walking around a murder scene, and we’re trying to figure out who did it, who crawled away and who survived.”

Edmunds and Lasker received a RAPID grant program from the National Science Foundation (NSF) program for this particular research project. Their team included CSUN marine biology graduate students Ashley Potter and Sigfrido Zimmerman. Their research was conducted in collaboration with scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the National Park Service.

Edmunds and Lasker spent last summer doing research at the reef and did not expect to return until the summer of 2018. The NSF grant provided them a rare opportunity to document the impact of the hurricanes before too much time passed and their ability to assess the damage diminished.

“Some of the effects were exactly as we had predicted,” said Edmunds, who has spent 31 years studying St. John’s reef. “Giant waves do terrible, destructive things to coral reefs in shallow water. Everywhere we looked 20 feet or less under the water, there was extensive destruction: Sand scour. Broken coral. Soft sponges had been ripped off the bottom. Soft coral had been ripped off the bottom. In a few places, unbelievably, large granite boulders just rolled over.

The researchers found sand scour, broken coral, soft spongers and soft coral ripped from the ocean floor and boulders tossed about. Photo courtesy of Peter Edmunds.

“In shallow waters, what we found certainly lived up to our expectations — holy, moly, this was bad news,” he continued. “But when we went deeper, it became more nuanced. It was still beautiful. There were corals, sea fans and some fish swimming around. Then you would look more closely, and you would see tumbled corals and missing corals in spots where you had seen corals just three months before. There were changes, but there certainly was a tremendous amount still there. I think it’s very encouraging.”

While encouraged, Edmunds noted the ecosystem was now more vulnerable.

“For one, there are a very large number of underwater projectiles now lying on the ocean floor that could cause damage,” he said. “It certainly wouldn’t take much for a future storm to pick up those pieces and pound them against the rest of the remaining reef. In that sense, the reef is more prone to physical damage… There are a lot of hammers sitting on the sea floor, ready to be picked up and thrown against the anvil.”

Edmunds had the opportunity to study the same reef in 1989, following Hurricane Hugo.

“At that time, I saw a lot of damage,” he said. “A lot of the boulders and corals that were broken off by that storm I thought were fine because that was 30 years ago and they are now concreted to the sea floor. Yet, with the most recent storms, some of the same boulders that were broken off 30 years ago became suspended in a water column and started moving around and turning over and pounding on the reef.”

Edmunds said people cannot expect coral reefs to respond to hurricanes the way they did 30, 50 or even 100 years ago.

“They are not the same reefs they were then,” he said. “And 100 years ago, the capacity of the reef to re-glue itself back together again was very much more well-developed than it is currently. Today, the cement that holds the pieces of the reef together is beginning to disappear. Once things are broken, there is less cement to hold them together, and the pieces have more of an opportunity to be shaken up and smashed together. That accentuates the danger from storms.”

Edmunds said what remains of the St. John’s reef is still quite beautiful, populated with an abundance of coral with the ability to reproduce, if given time. The problem, he pointed out, is what were once rare occurrences — Category 5 hurricanes — are expected by climatologists to become more frequent.

When it comes to the reefs, Edmunds said, the question is not “Are reefs going to disappear?” The bigger question is, “In what form will they exist?”

The variable is the planet’s changing weather patterns, he said.

“Based on what we know now, one can certainly identify the potential winners and potential losers among the corals on the reef,” he said. “The difficulty is that the ground rules under which the supposed winners and losers operate are changing. Who would have ever thought we’d have two back-to-back category 5 hurricanes? I am less convinced that just because you survived the last 20 years it’s a good indicator that you are going to survive the next 20 years. In my mind, who clearly are the winners and who clearly are the losers becomes much more uncertain.”

For more on what happened to the coral reef off St. John, see the below video from the University at Buffalo or visit the University at Buffalo media release.

It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The first of two planes had just crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Ringo Chiu ’01 (Special Major) was sitting in a photography class at California State University, Northridge. That day, he and two classmates decided to go directly to New York City.

“My two friends and I drove 50 hours from Northridge to New York,” he said. “When we made it to NYC, we decided to get closer to the scene. Once we made it, the three of us parted ways into the chaos.”

A decade and a half later, the memory is still vivid for Chiu.

“Because of the tight security, I had to have my [camera] equipment hidden away and disguise myself as a volunteer,” he said. “I was able to shoot the scene from a very close distance, on top of a building.”

In the midst of the smoke, rubble and broken windows of surrounding buildings, Chiu captured the aftermath, both physical and emotional, of the World Trade Center attacks.

It was a defining moment for Chiu, who has since shot thousands of photos professionally, including nearly 15 years as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Now, his innovation, dedication and extensive portfolio have been celebrated locally. In June, the Los Angeles Press Club named him one of eight SoCal Journalists of the Year for 2017.

Chiu said he is thankful for his CSUN education, where he learned to be a better photographer because professors emphasized that he had to be good at photographing all things, not just specializing in one area. A prolific photojournalist, Chiu’s portfolio features more than 2,000 photos. He has covered sporting events, natural disasters and protests — to name a few — and he’s captured influential figures such as David Beckham, Vin Scully, Kobe Bryant, former President Barack Obama and United States Sen. Kamala Harris.

Born in mainland China and raised in Hong Kong, Chiu got his start in photojournalism at age 19, when he landed a job at the Hong Kong Express newspaper, assisting the paper’s staff photographer from 1989-90.

“I would develop the film for the photographer and then make the prints,” said Chiu. “This was really good experience for me, because I could see the negatives, see different photographers with different styles and learn from them.”

In 1995, his dedication to his photojournalism career landed him the position of chief photographer at Sing Tao Daily, the biggest paper in Hong Kong at the time, he said.

The award-winning photographer met his wife, Kam Ho ’00 (Management Information Systems), in high school. The couple married in Oct. 1995 and moved to Los Angeles in December of that same year, to pursue their dreams of higher education. At first, Chiu faced many challenges, including a language barrier: He did not speak English.

Once in LA, he and Ho enrolled at Santa Monica College, both eventually transferring to CSUN in spring 1996.

Chiu enrolled in what is called a “special major,” a major designed to meet the academic needs of CSUN students whose educational goals require study in three or more academic disciplines. These needs must also be unachievable within the framework of existing majors or minors, or within 120 units.

For him, those disciplines were photography, English and journalism. Chiu said he still fondly remembers his time on campus.

“I’m glad I came here,” he said of CSUN. “My professors helped me so much, and the students and staff here are really amazing.”

Since he had comprehensive professional experience by the time he enrolled at CSUN, Chiu was able to work with professors to establish a unique curriculum and take classes in different areas.

Covering the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, is still one of his most memorable experiences.

“The self-motivation of having traveled from LA to NYC without having been assigned to [cover] the historic tragedy [made] me very proud that I made the journey,” he said.

But if there were one thing he could add to his portfolio, Chiu shared, it would be a solo shot of Obama.

“I saw Obama a lot, but it wasn’t personal,” he said. “Obama is very casual, and I believe if we had a photo shoot, he would have a lot of emotions and actions for me. It would be fun.”

For aspiring photojournalists, he offered the following advice:

“Before you choose photojournalism, you really need to think about it a couple of times,” Chiu said. “The future is tough. You must have the passion. It’s not an easy job, [and] you have to give up a lot of personal time — but it’s a fun job.”

To browse Chiu’s extensive portfolio, please visit https://ringochiu.photoshelter.com/index/C0000ess5a2r237s.

Each month, California State University, Northridge faculty and staff receive funding from outside organizations to support unique programs and cutting-edge research facilitated on campus. Below are a list of the individuals who received awards in December 2017.

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Crist Khachikian (Department of Research and Graduate Studies), Carrie Saetermoe (Department of Psychology), Gabriela Chavira (Department of Psychology) and Maggie Shiffrar (Department of Psychology) received $5,268,455 from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in continued support of a project entitled “BUILD@CSUN.”

Julie Coveney (Center for Assessment, Research and Evaluation) and Akanksha Bedi (Department of Management) received $18,398 from the Youth Policy Institute in support of a project entitled “Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood Community Survey.”

Nicholas Kioussis (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $140,000 from UC Los Angeles in continued support of a project entitled “NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Translational Applications for Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems (TANMS).”

Igor Beloborodov (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $140,000 from UC Los Angeles in continued support of a project entitled “NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Translational Applications for Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems (TANMS).”

Maria-Rita D’Orsogna (Department of Mathematics) received $125,000 from the US Army in support of a project entitled “Predicting and managing migration: insights from age-structured, game-theoretic, and network models.”

Gary Chapman (Department of Physics and Astronomy) and Debi Prasad Choudhary (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $29,448 from the University of Colorado in continued support of a project entitled “Solar Spectral Irradiance Iyman Alpha Magnesium and Sigma K (SSIAMESE).”

Li Liu (Department of Computer Science) and Nathan Durdella (Department of Education Leadership and Policy Studies) received $99,000 from the Disability Communications Fund in support of a project entitled “Expanding the Pipeline: Training Future Professionals with Accessibility Mindset.”

Emily Russell (Department of Child & Adolescent Development) received $69,891 from Jumpstart, Inc. in support of a project entitled “Jumpstart- Northridge.”

David Moguel and Monica Garcia (Department of Secondary Education) received $20,885 from Cal State University, Long Beach Research Foundation in support of a project entitled “LINKED LEARNING AT CSU NORTHRIDGE: Credential, Master’s and Ed.D. Programs.”

David Boyns and Douglas Kaback (Department of Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing), and Jeanine Minge (Department of Undergraduate Studies) received $5,000 from Campus Compact in support of a project entitled “Stories That Connect Us.”

A team of NASA scientists that includes CSUN astronomy professor Wladimir Lyra, has discovered evidence that disk patterns, often indicators of the formation of new planets, can form on their own. Image courtesy of NASA.

Peering far out into the universe, astronomers and astrophysicists look for markers — indicators such as patterns in disks of dust — that might indicate the formation of new planets. Recently, however, a team of NASA scientists that includes California State University, Northridge astronomy professor Wladimir Lyra, has discovered evidence that these disk patterns can form on their own, fed by gas and dust, without the presence of planets.

“In 2013, we discovered that there are features we can explain that do not require planets,” said Lyra, who is also an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. “The hypothesis before that was that if you saw anything out of the ordinary, you attributed that to planets. We showed that the interaction between gas and dust by itself can create rings and arcs. Our hypothesis is now one of the leading contenders.”

Alexander Richert, a doctoral student at Penn State University, is the lead author on the new study, which builds on previous simulations created by Lyra and Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Kuchner presented the findings of the new study on Jan. 11 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. The study includes a new factor in disk pattern formation: radiation pressure created by starlight.

“We’re exploring what we think is the leading alternative contender to the planet hypothesis, which is that there’s an instability in the gas and the dust that makes a disk naturally form the patterns,” Kuchner said.

The instability occurs when high-energy ultraviolet starlight strips electrons from clumps of dust grains. Those electrons collide with and heat nearby gas. As the gas warms, pressure increases and traps more dust, which in turn heats more gas. Lyra and his collaborators called the resulting cycle photoelectric instability (PeI). Simulations created by Richert, Lyra and Kuchner show it can eventually create some of the patterns associated with planets.

Wladimir Lyra

Exoplanet hunters watch stars for a few key signs that there might be planets in orbit, such as changes in the color and brightness of the starlight. For young stars, which are often surrounded by disks of dust and gas, scientists look for patterns in the debris that might be caused by an orbiting world, such as rings, arcs and spirals.

“Carl Sagan used to say, ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,’” Lyra said. “I feel we are sometimes too quick to jump to the idea that the structures we see are caused by planets. That is what I consider an extraordinary claim. We need to rule out everything else before we claim that.

“For a long time, people were assuming there were planets even though they didn’t see planets,” he continued. “We also observed huge spiral patterns, like you see in galaxies – those beautiful arms. Alex [Richert] showed that those spirals can be reproduced.”

Lyra and Richert began their collaboration in 2013 while Lyra was a postdoctoral scholar at JPL. Later that year, Lyra and Kuchner found that PeI could explain the rings seen in disks. The researchers modeled how radiation pressure and PeI can affect the movement of dust and gas when working in tandem. They found that the way PeI manifests in different patterns also depends on the physical properties of the dust and gas.

The 2013 simulations of PeI explained how dust and gas can interact to create rings and arcs, such as those observed around the star HD 1414569A. By including radiation pressure, the team’s 2017 models show how these two factors can create spirals like the ones observed around the same star.

“We are advancing the goal of turning these observations into probes [for] planets,” Lyra said. “We are also helping to find planets, because we are improving on our theoretical understanding — to finding planets and isolating planet signatures from the noise.

“As with many theories, the way we built it has been incremental. With this paper, we’ve added another layer.”

Lyra, Kuchner and Richert said that next, they hope to factor in other variables in their simulations, such as turbulence and different types of dust and gas, as well as how those factors might contribute to pattern formation around different types of stars.

Lyra noted that one of his graduate students at CSUN is working on these models, exploring what happens when a gas planet interacts with dust.

“This has been very rewarding, because we are [building] a theory from scratch,” Lyra said of the work with his student researchers and NASA colleagues. “Sometimes we find something entirely new. With the rings, it was exactly that.

“In a way, it is a bit like sailing as an explorer,” he said. “Columbus sailed west to reach India, and he found the Americas. It is a bit like that — you set sail and you think you know where you’re going, and you end up at a completely new place.”

Nearly five years ago, a motorcycle accident left Jeff Hider with no movement from about his hips down. He thought he would never be able to ride a bike or a motorcycle again.

Following the accident, he was visited in his room at Northridge Hospital Medical Center by a representative from the Triumph Foundation — a nonprofit organization based in Santa Clarita that provides exercising opportunities to individuals who have spinal cord injuries and disorders. During the visit, Anthony Orefice showed Hider a photo album of all the physical activities that are possible in a wheelchair, including scuba diving, water skiing and skydiving.

For Hider, who’d once dreamed of riding down the West Coast on a touring bicycle, the obvious place to start was on hand cycles — three-wheeled bikes propelled by arm movement.

“Wind in my face was something I really liked,” Hider said. “On the hand cycle, I can get that. It feels like you’re going really fast because you’re inches off the ground. It’s fun.”

Now Hider, who served as a Marine line mechanic for the helicopter squadron at Camp Pendleton, hopes to share the hand cycling experience with injured veterans and other San Fernando Valley residents who could benefit from the experience. He will serve as a coach in a series of free hand cycling clinics and riding sessions as part of new program called Valley GO! that was developed by California State University, Northridge and the Triumph Foundation.

The hand cycling clinics will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Feb. 2, March 2, April 6 and May 11 at Balboa Park.

The clinics will be beneficial to both new riders and experienced riders, said Bordin Endinjok, a kinesiology student who will coordinate the clinics.

“It can be as challenging as they want it to be,” Endinjok said. “You’re not going to be injured. This is something you can ease into and develop.”

Valley GO! is targeted to veterans with spinal injuries or other disabilities that affect balance, but it is open to anyone in the community. The idea is to provide hand cycling equipment and the expertise of knowledgable trainers.

The Valley GO! program is a collaboration between CSUN’s Center of Achievement through Adapted Physical Activity and the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing, as well as the Triumph Foundation. To facilitate the clinics, CSUN will hire six students to assist.

The program is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The grant covered the cost of two hand cycles, payment for student trainers, as well as the costs of Triumph Foundation trainers and transportation of about a dozen cycles to the clinics.

“I think it’s important because sometimes there’s a lack of opportunity for hand cycles compared to regular bicycles,” said Teri Todd, director of the Center of Achievement through Adapted Physical Activity at CSUN, who is co-principal investigator with sociology professor David Boyns. “It’s going to benefit our community, our veterans, and our students.”

Andrew Skinner, co-founder of the Triumph Foundation, emphasized that the clinics are open to all community members, including those who are not veterans and those without disabilities.

“A lot of people come out and fall in love with the hand cycles even if they don’t have a quote-unquote disability,” Skinner said. “They find it preferable for their lifestyle. You might find [you like] it better than riding a regular bike.”

To participate in the workshops or for more information, contact Teri Todd at teri.todd@csun.edu.

For more information about the Triumph Foundation, visit https://triumph-foundation.org.

The world of higher education is changing rapidly.

Faculty members face increased pressure and accountability for student learning and to be more responsive to student needs and challenges, California State University, Northridge President Dianne F. Harrison noted in her keynote address at the annual Faculty Retreat. The very goals of higher education have changed, shifting from “broadening intellectual horizons” to emphasis on new pedagogy and helping learners use knowledge toward innovation, Harrison said, citing a Chronicle of Higher Education article, “The 21st-Century Academic.”

These pressures on faculty — along with challenges presented by CSUN’s student success initiative called Matadors Rising — make it imperative for faculty members to feel a sense of community at the university, Harrison said.

“Creating a sense of belonging and a culture of support at CSUN is essential to helping all of us make sense of this new world and the new demands being made on faculty and the university,” Harrison said. “We owe it to each other — we cannot assume business as usual. Faculty well-being — and belonging — is just as important as student well-being.”

Harrison emphasized the importance of faculty success initiatives in a speech titled “Are Students the Only Ones Who Need to Feel They Belong?,” at the Jan. 16 retreat held at the Skirball Cultural Center. About 130 faculty attended the retreat, which was an opportunity for faculty members to relax and learn strategies for professional growth, which also will benefit students.

The event opened with a welcome from Faculty Senate President Adam Swenson and event co-chairs Kim Henige and Elizabeth Sussman. Vice Provost Stella Theodoulou discussed early gains, as well as challenges ahead, in the Matadors Rising student success initiative. Matadors Rising is a localized approach to the California State University Graduation Initiative, aiming to increase graduation rates and reduce the time it takes to complete a degree.

One of the goals of the Faculty Retreat, Swenson said, was to encourage faculty members to network within their departments as well as across disciplines. Networking will help faculty members benefit from the expertise of colleagues who have faced similar challenges and problems, and who can share tips about what works and what does not.

“We wanted to focus on helping people network,” Swenson said. “The more people they know on campus, the easier it is to figure out how to do great work.”

CSUN’s student success initiatives, which have boosted graduation and retention rates since their launch in 2016, include emphasis on mentorship and campus activities to give students a sense of community.

Similarly, faculty members are more likely to succeed if they feel part of a university community that understands and responds to their needs, Harrison said. A lack of sense of belonging can also create chronic stress and even mild depression, or result in a premature departure from the university, she said.

“We are all human, and it’s inevitable that our everyday experiences and challenges on and off campus will have an impact on us, unintentionally affecting our relationships and, ultimately, the experience of our students,” Harrison said.

CSUN has implemented programs to recruit, retain and mentor new faculty, such as a New Faculty Orientation Program, a Faculty Success Program that provides support for balancing workload and productivity, and a Solo Success Workshop that provides a faculty cohort for underrepresented groups to address their unique concerns. Harrison also endorsed lifelong mentoring programs to ensure the success of senior faculty.

The Faculty Retreat itself helps foster a deeper sense of connection, Harrison said.

“Your attendance today already underscores your commitment and engagement,” she said. “I ask all of you to help spread your enthusiasm and dedication to your colleagues in your departments and around campus. Let’s have a ‘We Belong to CSUN’ campaign that we are proud of and does important work.”

For a transcript of President Harrison’s remarks, click here.

Students, faculty and staff across California State University, Northridge are taking part in a host of trailblazing programs, initiatives and competitions. From cutting-edge research labs to technology integrated across the curriculum, innovation permeates the campus, and CSUN officials are expanding and enhancing those initiatives to further infuse innovation throughout the university in 2018 and beyond.

In recent years, competitions such as the annual CSUN Bull Ring and Fast Pitch New Venture Competitions have taken root, giving   CSUN student entrepreneurs the opportunity to receive feedback from established professionals and mentors.

CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison has praised pioneering students including those who have developed applications to improve accessibility and quality of life for people with disabilities, as part of technology and entrepreneurship competitions. In the university’s second annual Fast Pitch competition, undergraduates Edgar Limon, Arvin Flores and Jasmine Beeman developed “smart script” internet code to help people with visual impairments better navigate websites. The university also hosts annual student “Jam” competitions where undergraduate and graduate students compete to create the best mobile app (AppJam), produce virtual and augmented reality projects (VARJAM), and manipulate, analyze and visualize data (DataJam).

“Bull Ring, Fast Pitch, DataJam, AppJam and VARJAM exemplify the innovation and forward thinking that lead to student opportunities,” Harrison said. “These competitions are an opportunity for students to flex their creative muscles, to push their natural skill set and to collaborate with a team. These are all factors in preparing our students for rewarding and impactful careers.”

The Bull Ring is CSUN’s own version of Shark Tank, hosted by CSUN’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics. The Bull Ring serves as a launch pad for new ventures from CSUN students, while providing access and exposure to mentors, coaching and potential investors. The event was made possible through a gift from CSUN alumnus Jeff Marine and his family. Winners receive a grand prize of $20,000, $10,000 for second place and $5,000 for third place.

In the Fast Pitch competition, sponsored by the Nazarian College, participants compete for $4,000 to fund their business ideas. The student teams are evaluated and awarded first, second and third place — receiving $2,000, $1,000 and $500, respectively. Attendees also crown an “Audience Choice” winner, who receives $500.

In April, CSUN students and faculty came together for the first time to experience the world of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) at the Information Technology-sponsored VARJAM competition. During VARJAM, the 10 competing student teams demonstrated the VR and AR projects they had been working on since early March to fellow CSUN students, faculty and judges from various VR companies within the technology industry. Student Miranda Taylor took first place for her “Adventure VR” program that helps those with mobility challenges experience nature by bringing it to them.

“It was great to see CSUN students consider such innovative and real-world applications for the use of virtual and augmented reality,” said Hilary J. Baker, CSUN vice president for information technology and chief information officer.

The winning teams were selected based on the judges’ evaluations of the students’ creativity and innovation, the effective use of VR and AR technology and the multimedia presentation’s quality. The university is planning to launch CSUN’s first AI (Artificial Intelligence)-JAM in spring 2018.

These efforts reflect the university’s responsibility to be innovative, inspire innovation and stimulate economic prosperity, officials said, for Los Angeles (the nation’s second-most populous city) and Los Angeles County (the nation’s most densely populated county, and one of the world’s largest economies). While many students are drawn to competition, others draw inspiration from the mentoring, technology and resources that are provided in and out of the classroom.

CSUN is planning a new maker space, which officials called the CSUN Creation Hub, potentially for the Delmar T. Oviatt Library. Equipped with tools to help innovators design, make and present prototypes and models — as well as space to work, meet and collaborate — this planned facility will be a hub of innovation and ideas.

This past fall, CSUN also launched its new entrepreneurial program, Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Site Program, which helps students undertake the challenge of customer discovery — a process that incorporates customers early in a business development process. In support of promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at CSUN, in March 2017 the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the university’s I-Corps Site Program a $500,000 grant over the next five years. The grant will provide up to 30 teams with $3,000 each to explore an idea, product or service in the STEM fields.

The teams consist of an entrepreneurial lead, typically a student or postdoctoral fellow; an academic lead, typically a staff or faculty member; and an industry mentor, who can be a non-CSUN affiliate. Officials said they expect the I-Corps program to improve the teams’ innovative start-up companies.

The Nazarian College has been at the forefront of entrepreneurship and innovation, with programs such as LACI@CSUN, a partnership with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, an on-campus incubator that promotes innovation and entrepreneurship, and myriad CSUN student competitions such as Fast Pitch and the Bull Ring. These newer developments complement existing programs such as the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the Ernie Schaeffer Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

“This program has received tremendous feedback with the participation of 13 teams, represented by more than 30 people, in disciplines as diverse as healthcare, software, food and social enterprise,” said Tim Tiemann, managing director of the CSUN Innovation Incubator. “Through I-Corps, students will be able to intuitively seek out practical and effective customer discovery techniques, giving their creative potential the best chances for market success.”

These programs led Bixel Exchange to rank CSUN one of the top schools producing tech talent in the Los Angeles area. In its inaugural ranking in mid-November, Bixel’s Sector Report on the IT Industry named CSUN No. 2 for bachelor’s degrees and No. 3 for master’s degrees. Bixel Exchange is a center for innovation and technology based at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Small Business Development Center. The organization seeks to support startups and helps connect entrepreneurs and students with investors.

“The ranking is an external validation that we’re a leader in preparing our students for important and relevant careers in our region,” said Deborah Cours, interim dean of the Nazarian College. “Employers repeatedly tell us that our graduates hit the ground running, are resilient, have a strong work ethic and are prepared to apply the knowledge they have learned in college.”

Recent graduate Rafael Muñoz ’17 (Computer Information Technology) agreed. Through his work in CSUN’s Layer 8 Computer Security Club (and his work as a student employee in the Information Technology division), Muñoz enhanced his skills in cybersecurity and landed a job as a security assessment engineer at Technicolor, the Burbank-based entertainment and media company, after graduation. Muñoz took advantage of the innovative resources CSUN offered, he said, and he recommends future Matadors do the same.

“CSUN didn’t only help me get my degree, it also helped me to move forward, network and participate in conferences and events,” he said.

For more information on the New Venture Competitions, visit the Bull Ring and Fast Pitch websites. For more information on CSUN’s I-Corps program, please email research@csun.edu. Learn more on DataJam. Check out all the VARJAM competition submissions by students on Portfolium.

Open science is a movement to make all scientific research, data and dissemination accessible online to all levels of an inquiring society, including amateurs and professionals. 

The open science and open access movements promote sharing the underlying research, materials and results of a scientific experiment with public audiences, so the research and results can be easily evaluated or replicated.

Recently, educators, scientists and researchers gathered for The Oviatt Library Open Access: Open Science and The Future of Research and Education symposium, in the Jack and Florence Ferman Presentation Room of California State University, Northridge’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library.

“Science should be reproducible, that is what we [researchers and scientists] are taught,” said Abraham Rutchick, a CSUN professor of psychology, in his presentation, “Open Science: A (slightly) Personal History.” “A core principle of science is that if you do it [once], more or less the same thing should happen again [if the experiment is repeated].”

Rutchick conducted research on behalf of the Center for Open Science, a national nonprofit organization that concentrates on “increasing the openness, integrity and reproducibility of scientific research.” In his presentation at CSUN, he highlighted the evolution of open science and reproducibility with respect to the field of social psychology.

The Open Access and Digital Publishing team of librarians at CSUN’s Oviatt Library helped plan the event. Library Dean Mark Stover helped kick off the festivities and award ceremony with opening remarks.

“I hope that all of us will learn more about the open access movement and why it’s so important for the future of scientific communication and publishing,” Stover said. “We need more openness and transparency.”

Open access refers to free, online public access to scholarly and scientific works in journals and university repositories. CSUN ScholarWorks Open Access Repository (SOAR) provides a sustainable and scalable platform for the long-term access and preservation of digital resources.

CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison was the first California State University president to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in 2013, encouraging the free and open dissemination of research and scholarship. Later that same year, CSUN became the first CSU to host a Faculty Senate-sponsored open access resolution forum.

Steven Oppenheimer, CSUN emeritus faculty and legendary biology professor, received the Oviatt Library Open Access Award, which was presented during the recent symposium. The award was granted to Oppenheimer for his contributions to the world of science and education.

Oppenheimer has been involved with CSUN for more than 40 years and impacted thousands of students with his scientific inquiries. His passion for science has helped introduce these inquiries to new generations of future scientists, researchers, doctors and teachers.

Over the course of his prominent career, Oppenheimer earned more than $7 million in funding for research and training grants, which primarily benefit students. For the past two decades, Oppenheimer has acted as editor for The New Journal of Student Research Abstracts, which showcases the published work of thousands of student researchers in grades K-12.

“This is one of the top libraries anywhere in the country,” Oppenheimer said. “It’s really an honor to be honored by this specific [Oviatt] Library, one of the best anywhere.”

The symposium also included a keynote presentation by Sean Grant, behavioral and social scientist for Rand Corporation, on “How to do Transparent, Open and Reproducible Research.” A professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Grant specializes in the advancement of the overall transparency, openness and rigor of intervention research for supporting evidence-based policy and practice.

“It is not just researchers who we need to consider in this movement, but all the stakeholders in the scientific ecosystem,” said Grant. “There are many movements … within science that make science more credible, useful and reliable. Open science is but one of the key aspects of this revolution.” 

To learn more about CSUN’s ScholarWorks Open Access Repository (SOAR), please visit https://library.csun.edu/SOAR.

From childhood to adulthood, the average person recalls the most common fire safety training they receive: Stop, Drop and Roll. However, it isn’t often that anyone looks at the effectiveness of such training, until the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation (AARBF) — a foundation dedicated to reducing burn injuries — contacted a pair of California State University, Northridge (CSUN) professors.

Ellie Kazemi

With the goal of decreasing the number of people affected by burn injuries across the United States, psychology professors Ellie Kazemi and Andrew Ainsworth collaborated with AARBF to secure a $401,912 Fire Prevention and Safety grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to evaluate current fire prevention and safety messaging.

“The Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation is proud to have been awarded a Fire Prevention and Safety grant from FEMA and to partner with the California State University, Northridge,” said Jennifer Radics-Johnson, executive director of AARBF. “The work that we will be able to accomplish with this grant is groundbreaking, and will change the way we provide fire and burn safety [education] nationwide.”

Ainsworth and Kazemi are working with AARBF to analyze how fire prevention and safety education is currently provided, and how organizations evaluate the effectiveness of their educational programs.

“We want to assess if people respond in the manners in which they have been trained or educated [in fire safety],” Kazemi said. “There is the message: ‘Stop, Drop and Roll,’ and then there is engaging in these behaviors when your clothes are on fire. Our job is to help fire prevention and safety education experts across the nation look at how they are delivering their messages and to see if it’s effective.”

Andrew Ainsworth

The professors are using the two year grant in a series of phases. The first phase is to send out surveys and then conduct phone interviews with fire prevention and safety education experts to document the current methods being utilized. The next phase is to meet with experts in focus groups to discuss how educational practices and assessments can better target behavioral outcomes. The last phase will be to develop strategies and share the results with fire prevention and safety education experts across the country, such as AARBF, fire departments state fire marshal offices, burn centers and hospitals.

“A lot of places do not directly assess whether people are actually leaving with the information, or whether they actually understand how to do what they’ve learned,” said Ainsworth. “That’s why we were brought in as the behavioral scientists and evaluation team: to help participants develop methods to ensure behavioral change.”

After the evaluation is complete, AARBF, Ainsworth and Kazemi plan to create a set of standardized training and assessment procedures that can be adopted and implemented by fire

safety experts nationwide for use with participants of all age groups. The results are intended to measure behavioral change and save lives.

“This is an amazing opportunity because as behavioral scientists, we can look at this from a [behavioral] lens and add some insight,” said Ainsworth. “If [fire prevention and safety methods] can be improved, we can make a big difference.”

When staff at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica see the yellow school bus pull up in front of their theater, they know exactly who will be getting out of it: Hawthorne High School theater students. They come off the bus one by one, dressed in their finest attire — at the behest of Estella Owoimaha-Church ’10 (Africana Studies).

“By our third field trip, the people who ran the theater were like, ‘Oh, Hawthorne High is here,’” Owoimaha-Church said. “My kids got off the bus and were like, ‘What? You know us?’ And a lady commented, ‘Yeah, you’re the kids who always dress up so nice!’ There was a sense of pride among my kids.”

To Owoimaha-Church, it’s essential to represent Hawthorne High in the best possible way, including being dressed to a tee at the theater.

Her dedication and love for her students, combined with the experiences they share, earned the English and theater teacher a spot as a finalist for the 2017 Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize, also known as the Nobel Prize of Education. The $1 million prize is presented to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to their profession.

California State University, Northridge alumna Owoimaha-Church has done just that.

Made for Education

Since she was in her teens, Owoimaha-Church knew she was destined to be an educator. She thought she would move into education policy or advocacy, but students she worked with as an undergraduate inspired her to pursue a teaching career.

“While I was at CSUN, I was a college mentor and advisor for GearUp Project STEPS, which is a partnership between CSUN Student Outreach and Recruitment and North Hollywood High School. I got to work with students from sixth grade to their freshman year of college,” Owoimaha-Church said. “The year I was applying for my graduate program, I had decided to focus on policy, but my kids were like, ‘No, Miss! You should go in the classroom.’ It was because of them that I decided to be in the classroom full time.”

In her four years as an English teacher at Hawthorne High School, Owoimaha-Church has revitalized the theater department, increased student participation, increased graduation rates and improved reading and writing skills.

The theater students at Hawthorne have turned it around in large part because of policies that Owoimaha-Church implemented, including grade and attendance checks.

“I have been and am really hard on them,” Owoimaha-Church said. “If I get a bad grade check, I ground them.” She calls it “grounding” because she takes away privileges from kids who don’t submit satisfactory grade checks. If half or more of her theater students are grounded, Owoimaha-Church turns rehearsals into study hall.

When she wanted to take her kids on field trips, Owoimaha-Church realized that many of them couldn’t go because they had terrible attendance records.

“I started cracking down on attendance: You’re not going to the Pantages [Theater] if you didn’t go to class,” she said. “Attendance began to improve, and grades [continued] to improve.”

Thanks to Owoimaha-Church’s new policies, students excelled and the Hawthorne theater kids began to break barriers.

“This is [the theater department’s] fourth year in existence,” Owoimaha-Church said. “This will be my fourth group of seniors who graduate. Last year was the first year all of our seniors graduated. This year marks the first year that every single one of my seniors applied to a four-year school.”

Relating to Students

It wasn’t easy, she said, because the students suffered from apathy after being told they wouldn’t graduate on time. It’s a position Owoimaha-Church knew well, which helped her relate to students at Hawthorne.

Born and raised between Inglewood and South Los Angeles, Owoimaha-Church moved to the San Fernando Valley when she was in high school. She enrolled at North Hollywood High School, where she struggled to graduate on time due to personal matters.

“At some point in high school, with everything I was going through — my mom was in prison, I was raising my younger brother — high school wasn’t easy,” she said. “I started screwing up 10th and 11th grade. My teachers did stuff for me that my parents weren’t able to do: they took me to New York to experience Broadway for the first time, they took me to England to experience the West End [theaters], [they paid] for my college applications.”

Owoimaha-Church knew she had made the right career choice as she remembered all the teachers who helped her during the toughest years of her life. The personal struggles she faced nearly prevented her from graduating from high school, but her teachers never gave up on her — and she never gave up on herself.

“My teachers [held an intervention] for me. They said, ‘you’re going to get it together or else.’ And I was in the room crying,” she said. “I promised to get it together, and they sent me back to class. I made up all my classes and brought up all my grades in time to graduate. I owe them everything, and the only place I could even make a dent in that debt is by dedicating my time in the classroom.”

Owoimaha-Church’s high school teachers had a tremendous impact on her future, a pattern that continued with her professors at CSUN.

“[My] most influential professor while at CSUN was Dr. Karin Stanford. She has been a mentor to me and, to this day, is still one of the most important people in my life,” Owoimaha-Church said of the Africana Studies professor. “She has a way of pushing students to do things we assumed we were incapable of doing. If not for her, I wouldn’t have traveled to Atlanta as a sophomore in college to present my research findings in front of a bunch of experts. Time and time again, she pushed and provided opportunities like this.”

Owoimaha-Church said she loved everything about Stanford — especially that the professor “went above and beyond to help retain students of color and young women looking to navigate higher education and sustain themselves while in college.”

Still a Winner

The Global Teacher Prize nomination came at a point in her career when Owoimaha-Church was feeling particularly demoralized and unsure if her efforts were appreciated, she said.  As a finalist, she was flown to Dubai to collaborate with other finalists in her cohort, as well as finalists from previous years.

Owoimaha-Church completed the application for the Global Teacher Prize in October 2017. Two months later, she got a phone call during her sixth period class while she was with her students. She didn’t recognize the phone number, so she ignored the call, but the same number then called her classroom landline to tell her she’d been chosen as a finalist.

“I was so shocked and overjoyed and so very confused. My kids got worried and asked me what was wrong and I told them [I was a finalist],” Owoimaha-Church said. “They all started screaming with excitement. And then the voice on the phone was like, ‘So, can you send a photo now?’ And I did.”

Though she did not win the $1 million prize, Owoimaha-Church said she still considers herself a winner.

“We got a video [message] from Prince Harry — Prince Harry! I was like, ‘Prince Harry’s talking to me. Prince Harry knows who I am,’” Owoimaha-Church said, laughing.

“He sent me a video to tell me I lost, but I got to go to Dubai,” she added. “I didn’t win the $1 million, but I get to be a part of this network of the best teachers in the world. It was the most liberating and validating experience of my life. That was the real prize.”

Each month, California State University, Northridge faculty and staff receive funding from outside organizations to support unique programs and cutting-edge research facilitated on campus. Below are a list of the individuals who received awards in January 2018.

—

Scott Kleinman (Department of English) received $80,700 from University of California, Santa Barbara in support of a project entitled “WhatEvery1Says.”

Douglas Kaback (Department of Theatre) received $1,500 from the Valley Cultural Center in support of a project entitled “Owensmouth Arts Nexus.”

Rafi Efrat (Department of Accounting and Information Systems) received $15,000 from Friends of the Family in support of a project entitled “The CSUN VITA Clinic @ Friends of the Family.”

Danielle Bram and Regan Maas (Department of Geography) received $925,000 from the California Department of Water Resources in support of a project entitled “NHD/WBD Statewide Update Project 2.0.”

Shiva Parsa and Jina Gonzalez (Department of Educational Opportunities Programs) received $30,000 from the Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation / Pritzker Foster Care Initiative in continuing support of a project entitled “San Fernando Valley Scholars Network.”

Dean Elizabeth Say (College of Humanities) received $71,061 from University of Pennsylvania in continuing support of a project entitled “Hispanic Serving Institutions: Pathways to the Professoriate.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $62,611 from the LA County Department of Children and Family Services in support of a project entitled “Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, Intervention and Treatment (CAPIT) – San Fernando Valley.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $61,810 from the LA County Department of Children and Family Services in support of a project entitled “Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, Intervention and Treatment (CAPIT) – West San Fernando Valley.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $72,418 from the LA County Department of Children and Family Services in support of a project entitled “Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, Intervention and Treatment (CAPIT) – Santa Clarita Valley.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $520,000 from the LA County Department of Children and Family Services in support of a project entitled “Adoption Promotion and Support Services (APSS) – SPA 2”

James Flynn (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) received $25,000 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in support of a project entitled “Extended Experimental Battery Life Tests Aboard CSUNSat1.”

Durul Ulutan (Department of Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Management) received $8,542 from Klune Industries in support of a project entitled “Continuous Improvement Project Phase 1: Programming of Robot Arm.”

Regan Maas (Center for Geographical Studies) received $17,955 from the LA County of Public Health Programs in support of a project entitled “Zika Virus Vulnerability Analysis.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $553,760 from the California Office of Emergency Services in support of a project entitled “CalOES RAPE CRISIS PROGRAM VN16.”

Wladimir Lyra (Department of Physics and Astronomy) and Luca Ricci (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $46,180 from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in support of a project entitled “Witnessing the Origin of Solar System Analogues with the ngVLA .”

Nicholas Kioussis (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $132,996 from University of California, Los Angeles as supplemental support of a project entitled “NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems TANMS.”

Nicholas Kioussis (Department of Physics and Astronomy) received $30,000 from Toshiba in support of a project entitled “Voltage Controlled Magnetic Anisotropy of Heavy Metal/FeCo/MgO heterostructures.”

Jeanne Robertson (Department of Biology) and Sarah Wenner (Department of Biology) received $7,500 from the Coastal Southern California Science and Learning in support of a project entitled “Identifying conservation units of Blainville’s horned lizard (Phrynosoma blainvillii) in urban Southern California.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $292,556 from the California Office of Emergency Services in support of a project entitled “CalOES RAPE CRISIS PROGRAM NW16.”

Shari Tarver-Behring (Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling) received $2,500 from the LA Chamber of Commerce in support of a project entitled “Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership.”

Richard Moore (Department of Management) received $80,985 from the California Legislative Counsel Bureau in support of a project entitled “Legislative Counsel Management Training.”

To empower black youth, organizers of California State University, Northridge’s Black Youth Guidance Forum provided students, parents, educators and advocates with free information about pursuing higher education, overall health and wellness, literacy and leadership development.

The third annual empowerment outreach event, held Feb. 10 in the Northridge Center of the University Student Union (USU) featured interactive panels, workshops, keynote guest speakers and ​Black Panther​-inspired dances.

“The Black Youth Guidance Forum was developed to bring the campus and community together to address educational disparities of access and retention for communities of color,” said Cedric Hackett, a professor in CSUN’s Department of Africana Studies and director of the university’s DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement, who organized the event. “We need to provide our students, especially in the African-American community, the opportunity to gain access to post-secondary education. This event provides a vehicle for families to understand educational process within a university environment.”

More than 200 people of all ages attended the Feb. 10 event, titled Black Youth Guidance Forum: Healthy Habits and Literacy Imperative. The forum also highlighted educational and cultural endeavors for students, parents and teachers in grades K-12.

Keynote speaker Dale Allender, assistant professor in the Sacramento State Department of Teaching Credentials, addressed the complex negative health impact of racism on people of color, and he described models of resistance in modern pop culture.

Allender delivered a speech titled Leveraging the Complex Negative Health Impact of Everyday Racism on African Americans. In his speech, he discussed new research findings that indicate the poor health effects on people of color that result from racist encounters, experiences and environments.

“What we [researchers] are understanding increasingly is that the traumatic [experiences] of our ancestors … also affect how we handle stressful situations,” Allender said. “Practicing healthy habits, diet and exercise are important for us, both cognitively and emotionally.”

By including parents, educators, counselors and administrators, the forum provides a service to cultural and educational institutions throughout the diverse community of Los Angeles County.

Other speakers included: CSUN professors Allen Lipscomb, Aimee Glocke and Shartriya Collier-Stewart; Pastor Andrea Humphrey of Hope’s House Ministries; and Principal Josephine Stevens of Topeka Charter School.

The event also included a health, resource and advocacy fair, which featured nonprofit organizations, financial literacy support programs, military information and businesses owned by people of color.

The forum ended with a CSUN student panel showcasing student reflections, talents and passions. Meya Holmes, an economics major minoring in dance, performed a hip-hop dance selection to two of Kendrick Lamar’s tracks from the new Black Panther movie soundtrack album.

“I was excited to share my art because I knew there would be young people [in attendance] who I could potentially inspire to dance or use dance as an outlet,” Holmes said.

The Black Youth Guidance Forum, which celebrates CSUN’s Black History Month, was organized in partnership with the university’s DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement, BUILD PODER, Educational Opportunity Programs, USU, Office of Student Affairs, Department of Africana Studies and California Credit Union.

For more information about the DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement, please visit www.CSUN.EDU/DHIAA.

At 24, Tracie Karasik had just landed a job as an account services representative for a media company. Just one day in, she had a realization.

“I was only there for one day, but it was like I had an epiphany — so the next day I quit and told them I was starting my own business,” said Karasik ’11 (Multimedia Production). 

In 2012, with her parents’ encouragement, Karasik started her own media company, TLKmultimedia. The firm helps individuals with their photography, filming and media consulting needs and provides training for individuals learning to be technologically savvy with Apple products. She previously had worked at other media companies and decided that she was more than capable of running her own business.

That epiphany, on the heels of her graduation from California State University, Northridge, led Karasik down a career path that recently earned her the National Association of Women Business Owners – Ventura County chapter’s 2017 Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The award recognizes a young entrepreneur who has made extraordinary contributions to her field. After winning the prestigious award, Karasik was overcome with emotion.

“I didn’t think I was going to win it at 29,” she said. “I won something that is recognized. I was overcome with tears — it was a very powerful moment.”

The Westlake Village resident started her journey at Moorpark Community College, exploring her passions and changing majors multiple times. 

“I had an idea of what I wanted to do,” Karasik said. “I wanted to pursue film and really made sure that I was focused on my academics.”

After two years of community college, Karasik decided to attend CSUN to pursue a Cinema Television Arts bachelor’s degree with an emphasis in Multimedia Production. “My dad is a CSUN [alumnus],” she said. “It was just such an easy place where I could balance school and my job at the Apple store.”

The best parts of CSUN were the campus atmosphere and the community, Karasik said. She made friends here and found mentors with whom she is still close.

“I still have a professor that I keep updated [on] what I am doing,” she said. “She came to my award ceremony, and it was just so great having her there.”

Karasik advised current CSUN students to establish relationships with mentors on campus.

“Finding those mentors who continue to push you and can teach you things is incredibly important,” she said. “Students need to be reassured that they are capable of doing things.”

Karasik is looking ahead in her business. With her brand, TLKmultimedia, gaining popularity, she said she hopes to expand her company.

Throughout the world, bee colonies have been devastated by a parasite called the Varroa mite. These mites – which are visible to the naked eye – leach on to bees, and have devastated honeybees since the late 1980s. The treatments for this parasite vary; however, recent studies have shown the Varroa Mite have built up a resistance to the treatments.

Rachel Mackelprang, professor of biology at California State University, Northridge, who conducts studies on microbial communities, has been working to figure out if these treatments are affecting the symbiotic bacteria in the bees’ guts, which may negatively impact their health.

Mackelprang stressed the importance of understanding the current treatment and human intervention. “Bees pollinate many of our foods crops,” she said. “They’re important pollinators of flowering plants.”

Mackelprang started her study in May 2017 and is close to uncovering data from recent experiments. She explained that this study could lead to new discoveries. “We are in the preliminary stages of this study,” she said. “There’s a never-ending list of things we can do and learn from this study.”

“I am interested in whether human interventions, and/or environmental factors impact the beneficial bacteria that colonize the bee gut,” she said. “Examples [of potential factors] include mite treatment, supplemental feeding with sugar water, changes in seasons, and increasingly dry and hot weather patterns.”

​If you ever walked past the Botanic Garden or the Orange Grove to get to one of your classes you might not have noticed the beehives that Mackelprang has placed on campus. There are five hives at the heart of Mackelprang’s research. The hives on campus are made up of Italian honeybees, ​which are know for being docile. The hives are surrounded by fences for extra protection ​​​– posing no threat to students, faculty or staff.

Since 1879, backyard beekeeping was banned in Los Angeles. This came from  incorrect research that said bees damaged fruit crops and put people in danger. The measure proved to have the opposite effect. It was not until October 2015 that this legislation changed and Mackelprang gained the freedom to pursue her study.

Eight years ago, Mackelprang would visit her father in Spokane, Wash., and help him keep his own personal bee hives. From this experience she created the idea for her study. “My dad kept bees in his backyard, and I enjoyed it,” she said. “I thought it would be interesting to combine this enjoyment and my expertise in microbiology into a research project.”

Some of the funding for this study comes from Mackelprang’s own personal funds. She harvests the bees’ honey ­­— with help from a few biology students — and plans to sell the product in collaboration with CSUN’s Marilyn Magaram Center, an organization focused on food science, nutrition and dietetics. Mackelprang and her students’ suit up in white bee suits, veils and gloves to work and harvest the honey. “We’re harvesting the honey and bottling it,” she said. “It will enter the market soon.”

The importance of protecting bees in the ecosystem is crucial, said Mackelprang. She hopes to spread the word to members of the community that if they see a bee colony, they should not try to kill the bees.

“Call a beekeeper rather than an exterminator,” she said. “They will remove the hive and re-home the bees.”

Mackelprang noted that it’s important to support an environment that’s friendly to bees — including avoiding the use of pesticides, and planting flowers and shrubs that attract pollinators.

“Select bee-friendly plants like lavender, sage, rosemary, sunflowers, California poppy or California buckwheat,” she said. “These plants will attract honeybees and other important pollinators.”

For more information on beekeeping and the importance of pollinators  please visit these resources.

Conversations about such issues as violence, guns, climate change, ethical behavior, fake news and social media seem to be getting louder and more vitriolic, with people more entrenched in their silos than ever before.

Hoping to cut through the noise and get people to pause and think about what is being said and the type of person they want to be, California State University, Northridge Jewish studies

Jennifer Thompson. Photo by Lee Choo.

professor Jennifer Thompson has created a website that encourages visitors to consider whether they are “good” people and prompts them, using the foundation of Jewish ethics, to think through social problems and come up with solutions.

“Thinking about who we are and how we can be better is a good step to being a better person,” said Thompson, CSUN’s Maurice Amado Assistant Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement. “It’s when we don’t think about it that we are in trouble.”

The website, “Jewish Ethics Here and Now,” grew out of an online course on Jewish ethics that Thompson teaches at CSUN. As she and her students engaged in a number of lively discussions about contemporary issues using Jewish ethics scholarship as the foundation, she realized that regardless of one’s religious beliefs, the teachings provide a basis for talking about today’s volatile issues, Thompson said.

“The students, most of whom were not Jewish, said the course really changed their perspectives and helped them solve problems in their own lives,” she said. “It gave them a way to reason through things and draw on resources when they encountered a problem at work or had a conflict with a partner.”

Many of the ideas, Thompson said, cross religious boundaries and focus on individual behaviors and how to treat people — and the environment around us — with respect.

“It’s a way of engaging with others about what can be volatile issues, such as gun control, in a more thoughtful way,” she said.

Thompson said the many texts on the website reflect a rabbinic tradition of having more than one answer to a question.

“There can be multiple answers to an issue,” she said. “An answer that we may think is wrong today, perhaps we should hold on to because it may be right later.”

The goal of the website, she said, is to encourage visitors to think about the issues that seem to dominate society today, “and our responsibility as individuals for the other people around us.

“We need to find ways to think through our responses in what can often turn into heated conversations, so that what we say is defensible and has integrity with the rest of our own beliefs,” Thompson said.

She encouraged website visitors to take on an assignment she created for her students in which she challenged them to make some small change in their lives for one week to reduce their carbon footprint. Along with reading about and discussing Jewish ethical perspectives on climate change, the students reflected on how hard it was to make small changes in their own lives and how doing so impacted them personally.

“Just being conscious of the actions you take every day and the impact those actions have can be transformative for some people,” Thompson said.

The Maurice Amado endowed professorship in CSUN’s Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program was created in 2011 with the understanding that whoever holds the position would teach and engage in scholarship drawn from the heritage of Sephardic, Ashkenazic and other Jewish traditions. The Amado Professor also teaches courses that explore the Jewish ethical approach to communal and political challenges.

Thompson said the website is a natural complement to the endowment’s goals, offering its visitors a way to thoughtfully explore the pressing issues that seem to dominate the airwaves today.

Lilia Gonzalez

Campus Compact — a Boston based non-profit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education — has announced the 268 students who will make up the 2018 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. Among them is California State University, Northridge graduate student Lilia Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, a part-time blogger for “La Comadre”— a blog to create knowledge about the challenges faced by people of color and the significance of education for social transformation — and a formerly incarcerated individual who served a four-year sentence on a non-violent conviction, is being honored by Campus Compact for her efforts to help others like her go to college.

After her release from incarceration, Gonzalez co-founded Revolutionary Scholars — an organization and space that provides support for students impacted by the criminal legal system and creates pathways for formerly incarcerated individuals to pursue higher education.

“We are building a prison-to-school pipeline through recruitment, retention and advocacy,” Gonzalez said. “My aim is to challenge societal norms concerning systems impacted people, specifically students impacted by issues of mass incarceration, imprisonment and detainment of any kind.

“My goal is to bridge the popular academic theoretical discourse of mass incarceration with one that is grounded in the lived experiences of CSUN students and people from surrounding communities,” she added.

CSUN president Dianne F. Harrison said Gonzalez uses organizing and activism to make her presence felt.

“Lilia entered higher education overcoming many obstacles, but she persevered, demonstrating resilience and commitment,” Harrison said in a statement to Campus Compact. “Her lived experiences as a formerly incarcerated student motivated her to transform higher education. Lilia labors against the dehumanization of incarcerated people and toward changing the narrative from her embodied knowledge.”

The Newman Civic Fellowship, named for Campus Compact co-founder Frank Newman, is a one-year experience emphasizing personal, professional and civic growth. Throughout the fellowship, Campus Compact provides a variety of learning and networking opportunities, including a national conference of Newman Civic Fellows in partnership with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The fellowship also provides fellows with access to apply for exclusive scholarship and post-graduate opportunities.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to celebrate and engage with such an extraordinary group of students,” said Andrew Seligsohn, president of Campus Compact. “The stories of this year’s Newman Civic Fellows make clear that they are bringing people together in their communities to solve pressing problems. That is what Campus Compact is about, and it’s what our country and our world desperately need.”

The Newman Civic Fellowship is supported by the KPMG Foundation and Newman’s Own Foundation.

Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1000 colleges and universities committed to the public purpose of higher education. Campus Compact supports institutions in fulfilling their public purposes by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility. As the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, we provide professional development to administrators and faculty to enable them to engage effectively, facilitate national partnerships connecting campuses with key issues in their local communities, build pilot programs to test and refine promising models in engaged teaching and scholarship, celebrate and cultivate student civic knowledge and develop collective capacity. For more information visit www.compact.org.

California State University, Northridge’s Sundial has been a part of the campus since it was known as San Fernando Valley State College. When the first issue was published in the spring of 1957, the publication did not have a formal name. The cover showed a large black question mark, with a call for students to help think of a clever name.

Over time, the name of the publication varied, from The San Fernando Valley Campus State Standard, Daily Sundial, State Sundial, Valley State Sundial and finally to what is now known as The Sundial. ​Its first issue covered stories such as Delmar T. Oviatt, the college dean at the time, welcoming students back from break, and various stories on local activities.