When the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB) hosted its 29th annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium in Santa Clara earlier this year, it featured approximately 690 participants and 290 posters from 22 of the 23 CSU campuses.

California State University, Northridge’s very own Aaron Miller ’13 (Biochemistry) took home the prestigious Crellin Pauling Student Teaching Award, earning a $2,000 scholarship for his work in CSUN’s General Chemistry labs.

Miller said the award honors the memory of the late Crellin Pauling, a researcher and professor at University of California, Riverside and a strong advocate of teaching science. Pauling was also the youngest son of Linus Pauling, one of chemistry’s forefathers.

Winning the award meant a lot to Miller, particularly because teaching was not something he initially intended to pursue.

“Going into [my master’s], teaching was on the back burner. It was never something I had planned, but my first semester I applied to teach two courses,” Miller said. “I fell in love with the interactions I had with my students.”

Miller’s accomplishments did not go unnoticed. He said many universities offered him admission, but he decided to complete his master’s degree at CSUN because of the hands-on experience he knew he would receive there.

“At some of the bigger universities, they only allow their post-docs or Ph.D. levels to really get the hands on,” he said. “[At CSUN], my research advisor, Dr. Paula Fischhaber, was very comfortable with me developing my own project.”

However, Miller didn’t pick CSUN solely to develop his own project. He said he also chose to remain a Matador because he loves the community and enjoys its diversity.

“Growing up, I played team sports so I had friends from all over — different nationalities, everything like that,” Miller said. “Where I grew up wasn’t diverse, so I didn’t get that cultural diversity, which is important in science because we need to get the best out of every mind from every different walk of life.”

Leaders from California State University, Northridge joined their colleagues from CSU campuses around the Golden State to promote the merits of a college education, during Super Sunday church services on Feb. 26.

Super Sunday is one of the culminating events for Black History Month. Since 2005, the CSU has partnered with California churches serving predominantly African-American congregations, to connect with black families, potential future college students and parents. CSUN Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students William Watkins spoke at Living Praise Worship Center in Chatsworth.

“We want them to understand that college is reachable and obtainable, and that the mission of the CSU system — certainly more than other educational systems in this state — has an objective of access and really is an affordable education,” Watkins said. “We at Cal State Northridge, like our other [CSU] institutions, care deeply about getting students to success.”

Farrell Webb, dean of CSUN’s College of Health and Human Development, also spoke at services at H.O.P.E.’s House Christian Ministries in Granada Hills. On Feb. 12, Deb Wallace, CSUN associate vice president of financial services, spoke at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Oxnard. The overarching goal for each speaker and the initiative as a whole is to encourage college preparation, enrollment and increase graduation rates of African-American students.

The churches opened their doors to the speakers to share messages about the importance of a college degree, for high school-age young people thinking about the next step, of which there were many in attendance.

“It was a rewarding experience to partner with Bethel AME and share in the responsibility of preparing students for college,” Wallace said. “I was also inspired when I heard stories from former CSUN graduates who are sharing the message about the CSU and its commitment to a quality education for all.”

Though he is in his first year at CSUN — he had spent the previous two years at California State University, Los Angeles, and 19 years before that at Kansas State University — Webb jumped at the chance to connect with the local community through the inviting and lively congregation at H.O.P.E.’s House.

“I felt welcomed and empowered by the congregation to tell of my own journey,” Webb said. “They were supportive and made me feel a part of their family. I was deeply impressed by what the church does for the Northridge community, from reaching out to our students for spiritual nourishing to actually providing food for our food pantry and nourishing their bodies. H.O.P.E.’s House lives up to its word!”

Watkins emphasized that it takes more than just the individual student’s will and drive to attain college success. When a young person reaches graduation, there are many people who have contributed to that accomplishment, he said.

“That really involves a partnership between families, supporting communities like church institutions — and the university to collectively support students in accomplishing their graduation goals and objectives,” Watkins said. “It really is that continuing message that this is the place, this is the goal, and we want to inspire young people to aspire to achieve those outcomes.”

For more information about CSUN’s student outreach programs or annual Super Sunday events, visit the campus’ Office of Student Outreach and Recruitment Services (SOARS).

Hundreds of students from San Fernando Valley middle and high schools spent weeks exploring topics ranging from the science of dance and dizziness to cinnamon’s potential effectiveness as a natural pesticide.

Hundreds of San Fernando Valley middle and high school students will present their research findings at CSUN’s 22nd annual Student Research Poster Symposium on Saturday, March 18. Photo by Lee Chool

The students will present their findings at California State University, Northridge’s 22nd annual Student Research Poster Symposium on Saturday, March 18, at 1:30 p.m. in the Grand Salon of CSUN’s University Student Union, located on the east side of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. The event is free and open to the public.

The symposium showcases students’ scientific research published in CSUN’s annual New Journal of Student Abstracts. This year’s journal featured more than 200 abstracts by middle and high school scientists. The journal has been published for the past 21 years as a collaboration between CSUN, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and private school teachers to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for K-12 students.

“The goal of the event is the same goal as the journal, and that is to showcase student research,” said CSUN biology professor Steven Oppenheimer, who created the symposium. “The United States needs top research scientists, and we hope that these events and the journal will help interest students in science research and motivate some of them to go into careers in science research.”

Oppenheimer’s work received national recognition when former President Barack Obama presented him a U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2010.

Teachers and students are encouraged to independently, collectively and voluntarily participate in the poster symposium by researching a scientific topic of their choice. Terri Miller, a retired LAUSD health and science teacher, has encouraged her students to publish in the journal and take part in the symposium for 17 years.

Miller currently volunteers at Saint Catholic of Siena, running a research club that helps students participate in the research symposium.

“I think it makes science more exciting for them,” Miller said. “They get to see the rewards of their hard work. They get to see it in print. They get to see it get published. They actually get to go to a beautiful place like this and present.”

Every year, Miller’s classes voted as a group on a research topic in which springtails (collembolans) — six-legged organisms closely related to insects — are used as test subjects for six weeks. During poster presentations, students showcase their abstract, problems, hypotheses, materials and methods, graphs and data, and their conclusion.

“They’re thankful for the opportunity, the publishing and the experimenting,” Miller said. “They’re very grateful and they have fun. You do all that hard work and somebody appreciates and recognizes it. They get all this recognition and they love it. We’re trying to turn students onto science and we can’t do that without some good enthusiasm.”

To view students’ published abstracts, visit the website  http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029.

Hundreds of high school students visited California State University, Northridge for a day of learning and a college campus experience during the annual Harambee High School Conference.

In celebration of Black History Month, the Department of Africana Studies hosts various events around campus throughout the month of February, including the Harambee conference — where CSUN’s Office of Student Outreach and Recruitment Services and the Harambee Student Association invite predominantly African-American students to speak with current CSUN students and faculty about their experiences in college. This year the conference’s theme was Africana Studies 360° — Black Synergy.

The conference welcomed students from 20 high schools across Southern California to experience the daily life of a CSUN student. This year’s participating high schools included Birmingham Charter, Lancaster, Northridge Academy and Village Christian.

At the opening session, Associate Vice President for Student Access and Support Services Dwayne Cantrell greeted students, chaperones and CSUN volunteers before sending students off for a host of scheduled workshops.

“This conference is all about encouraging you,” Cantrell said. “As you’re here today, I want you to consider yourself as college students. We want you to think at a higher level, to conduct yourself at a higher level. We want you to learn and be inspired. … You have passion, you have a voice, you are old enough right now to start tapping into that. Be aware of allowing people to put you in a box of who you are — start learning who you are and letting your voice be heard.”

After the introductory remarks, students were grouped together and invited to various rooms in the East Conference Center of CSUN’s University Student Union (USU). The sessions included a discussion about campus life with a panel of three CSUN students involved in the African-American community.

The CSUN student panelists discussed reasons they decided to go to college, the challenges they faced once here and their paths to success. Student panelist Saacha Bracy, an Africana Studies major, spoke about her trouble with time management when transitioning to college life and how she found a sense of community among her classmates.

“Here at CSUN, there’s not that many black students, but we have a strong community,” Bracy said. “That’s something I really enjoy about college. The sense of community — we’re all here for each other, we’re all going through the same struggles — to have that support system we have among each other.”

The participating high school students took a lunch break before returning to the USU rooms for a series of lectures by CSUN faculty.

Ninth-grade high school student A.J. Oden said this type of conference gives high school students insights into college life.

“Your background could be similar to theirs [college students], and you can kind of see where you are heading,” Oden said.

Oden said she liked that the conference gives students like her an opportunity to witness campus life firsthand — by seeing how things work at a university, and learning that there are different groups and communities for everyone on campus.

California State University, Northridge civil engineering students are inviting students at local elementary, middle and high schools to join them on Saturday, March 18, as they celebrate the life-changing structures created by engineers.

            CSUN Dreams Big event — which includes hands-on activities that offer insight into what engineers do and a special screening of the film “Dream Big: Engineering Wonders of the World” — was created to break through the hesitancy many people have about delving into the world of engineering, and invites young people, particularly women and people of color, to consider an engineering career. The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the Valley Performing Arts Center, located at the southern end of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

“CSUN Dreams Big is designed to show the public what engineers do and how we have the ability to shape the future,” said CSUN civil engineering senior and event organizer Joseph Hicks. “The event is meant to showcase CSUN engineering and will feature more than a dozen student projects and displays.”

S.K. Ramesh, dean of CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, called the event “a wonderful opportunity to get young people excited about engineering.”

“To screen ‘Dream Big’ here — at the university campus that offers high-quality accredited programs in engineering and computer science, and truly serves the community that surrounds it — is a great opportunity to show young people that they, too, can make a difference through exciting careers in engineering,” Ramesh said. “It happens every day right here at CSUN.

“The screening is especially meaningful for me since I represented IEEE — the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, one of the largest professional technical societies, with more than 400,000 members worldwide — along with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and other societies in November 2015 at the National Academy of Engineering to create the hands-on activities to accompany the screening of the film,” he added.

Created for the big screen, “Dream Big” explores the world’s greatest modern engineering marvels, from the Shanghai Tower in China to the world’s tallest suspension bridge in France. Viewers will have an opportunity to learn about basic engineering principles, the role of engineers in the overall design and build process, and how engineering is an interactive process of identifying problems and creating sustainable solutions.

CSUN engineering students will be hosting a series of interactive activities beginning at 4:30 p.m. in the Valley Performing Arts Center’s lobby to underscore the film’s message about the value and accessibility of engineering.

Among the activities is the construction of a 3-D model of a watershed and experiments to see how human and natural activities affect it, offering insight into water-resource engineering.  Participants will get the chance to be structural engineers when they build a large-scale model of a cable-stayed bridge that is assembled like a real one, with bridge segments hanging from two towers.

Those interested in environmental engineering can help design a process to treat water contaminated with acid and oil.  To get a taste of geotechnical engineering, participants can build a mechanically stabilized earth wall out of construction paper to retain 500 pounds of earth.

CSUN engineering students, who organized the event, also are taking part in a panel to talk about the film. The screening is expected to take place at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the screening are available through Ticketmaster and at the Valley Performing Arts Center Box Office. Use the coupon code “DREAMBIG2” on the Ticketmaster website to purchase tickets for $2 each.

California State University, Northridge’s Department of Central American Studies (CAS) will host several events March 14 and 15 as part of the CAS Annual Symposium on Migration, Culture and Memory.

The CAS Annual Symposium kicked off on Monday, March 13 in the Flintridge Room at the University Student Union (USU). The inauguration will include opening remarks by renowned Los Angeles activist Angela Sanbrano and a screening of a documentary on the life of indigenous water rights activist Berta Cáceres, who was murdered in Honduras last year.

This year’s event will also serve as a networking opportunity for students, according to Beatriz Cortez, chair of the Department of Central American Studies.

“The event brings together scholars, artists and activists and gives students the opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary discussions about the transnational dimensions of Central American culture,” Cortez said.

Attendees can expect to see a variety of nationalities and disciplines represented at this year’s event, Cortez said.

“The symposium will include an array of international scholars, artists and critics specializing in diverse disciplines as well as activists,” she said. “The participants in the symposium will be coming to CSUN from from Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States.”

The symposium will continue with a series of panels on migration, art, memory and identities in Central America. These panels will take place on Tuesday, March 14, in the USU Thousand Oaks Room and Wednesday, March 15, in the USU Flintridge Room. Both events will be from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Cortez said this year’s event is especially pertinent due to the country’s current political and social climates.

“This event is of pressing relevance,” she said. “It’s timely at this moment in history and it will offer a space for dialogue to our university community regarding issues of migration and social justice.”

For more information, visit the symposium’s website, email Beatriz Cortez at beatriz.cortez@csun.edu or contact the Department of Central American Studies at (818) 677-2736.

California State University, Northridge kinesiology professors Victoria Jaque and Paula Thomson take readers into the minds, hearts and bodies of performing artists with their book, “Creativity and the Performing Artist: Behind the Mask.”

Thomson and Jaque created the book to show readers how the mental, emotional and intellectual parts of the brain intertwine with a performing artist’s body.

“What’s really cool about psychophysiology is that the mind and the body are one. They’re not separate things,” Thomson said. “What happens in the body affects the mind; what happens in the mind affects the body. We look at those interactions.”

The pair was inspired to write the book when Thomson stumbled across an article that stated performing artists were psychologically imbalanced due to their artistic nature.

“When I started reading the literature, it said that performing artists are not creative because they’re interpreting creative people’s work — not generating it,” said Thomson, a respected dancer and choreographer. “The literature also said that artists in general, including performing artists, are crazy. They have more bipolar disorders. This made me angry because as an artist myself, I did not experience that. Artists are passionate and sensitive. They aren’t crazy.”

Determined to prove the articles false, in 2005 Thomson and Jaque began analyzing a decade’s worth of data.

“This is really what we do now, linking these connections between mind and body. What people experience performing or doing stressful tasks,” said Jaque.

Victoria Jaque

The book is a synthesis of current research in the field of neurobiology and psychophysiology.

“Everything we said is supported by empirical research. It’s academic, but it’s written so that non-academic and academic performing artists will find it useful as well,” said Thomson.

“We wrote on creativity theory, the neurobiology of performance and psychophysiology,” Thomson continued. “We looked at human development, and how early artists develop and play. We looked at personality, and all the different emotions. Later in the book we looked at psychopathology, then illness and injuries, and career patterns.”

The book showcases images of CSUN faculty, alumni and current students who were theater, music, dance and opera artists, throughout their book, giving readers a visual experience of when the mind and the body connect as one.

The book’s topics include creative theory, biology, development, emotion and performing artists’ professional realities. The book also suggests that getting a degree in the arts can facilitate successful careers after graduation by having a “portfolio career” — where an artist works multiple part-time jobs that, when combined, equal the pay of a single, full-time career.

Paula Thomson

Thomson and Jaque emphasized the usefulness of portfolio careers while an artist pursues a main career in their chosen field. Readers are provided facts that show how portfolio careers can provide artists with diversified skills in multiple job settings, which could bring them lifetime and financial benefits.

“In the book, we try to normalize a portfolio career because some actors have to work as a waiter and then they get the title, ‘waiter/actor,’” Thomson said. “Nothing is wrong with that. It’s changing that negative mindset.

“We’re hoping that each performing artist can find themselves in the book and then when you go ‘Behind the Mask’, it’s like you’re the performing artist who goes behind your own mask,” she added.

For more information or to purchase the book, please visit http://bit.ly/2jWbSBs. The Department of Kinesiology is housed in the College of Health and Human Development.

The Family Focus Resource Center (FFRC) at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has entered into a $476,175 contract with the North Los Angeles County Regional Center — a nonprofit organization that provides and facilitates support services for individuals and the families of people with developmental disabilities — to create a Family Empowerment Team in Action that will help underserved populations access the regional center’s resources.

The team features faculty members and students from CSUN’s Master of Social Work program and Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing working with an FFRC coordinator and a regional center representative to directly assist clients. It also will provide cultural sensitivity training for vendors of the regional center, as well as advocacy training to encourage clients to seek educational services. The program began in December 2016 and represents a collaborative effort between the regional center and CSUN’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Michael D. Eisner College of Education.

“There are many families that encounter barriers in getting regional center services, and we believe they really need our help within their communities,” said Michael Spagna, dean of the Eisner College. “Our immediate goal is to work in partnership with the regional center and to get [their clients] access to these services.”

Stella Theodoulou, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, said universities have a duty to serve their local communities.

“All too often, universities occupy space within a community rather than being part of it — producing research that is often abstract or global in effect,” Theodoulou said. “At CSUN, we have a faculty who realize that the community matters as much as academics, and that our resources and skills are invaluable to making our community a better place for all who live in it.

“Our college is extremely proud to be part of this cross-college collaboration with the Eisner College,” she continued. “It is a fine example of what we do best here at CSUN in terms of giving back to the community that we are a part of.”

Spagna said collaboration between the Eisner College and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences “comes naturally.”

“This is just a natural interaction between us. It’s a dynamic partnership, and I attribute a lot of that to Dean Theodoulou’s leadership,” he said.

The regional center receives funding through the State of California, the California Department of Developmental Services and other sources, including the Federal Government. The center serves residents of the Antelope, Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys. While its services are typically low cost or free, a 2011 Los Angeles Times article reported discrepancies in regional center spending that suggest Latinos and African-Americans are underserved compared to whites and Asians.

CSUN’s new Family Empowerment Team in Action will aim to narrow the gap in services provided to those ethnic groups. Racial discrimination is not the cause of the service disparity, according to the FFRC. Instead, low-income status, transportation issues and language barriers prevent Latinos and African-Americans from obtaining regional center aid, officials said.

“We want [Family Empowerment Team in Action] to really empower families and address the problems that separate them from our services,” said George Stevens, regional center executive director. “If we can help them deal with these life challenges, we can better serve them. When you consider [CSUN’s] resources, it’s a natural choice to partner with.”

The regional center will identify eligible families and refer them to a coordinator at CSUN. Once a family is approved, the team will develop a personalized plan and dispatch a CSUN social work intern to meet at their home, where the intern will explain the program’s requirements.

After securing the clients’ written consent, the intern will continue to meet with the family and track their progress until their needs are fulfilled. These progress reports will be collected and analyzed by a team of CSUN faculty members to ensure progress is made. Clients can cancel their agreements and withdraw from the program at any time.

The Family Empowerment Team in Action program also will provide cultural sensitivity training to regional center vendors and advocacy training to center clients. The advocacy training is designed to empower families to seek regional center services and not feel overwhelmed by developmental disability diagnoses. The cultural sensitivity courses will provide regional center employees with communication skills that foster cultural inclusivity and account for nuanced differences that influence how people interpret certain language.

“Oftentimes, providers use incorrect terms and come off as cold or unsupportive, so we want to provide them with the skills to better connect with the people they serve,” Spagna said.

The team will employ two graduate student interns in its first year, but CSUN faculty plan to add six additional interns and several undergraduate assistants the following year.

The current contract is for two years, but Stevens said he hopes the program will receive additional funding if it is successful.

“I hope we’re able to show major success in supporting families and get this funded even further,” Stevens said. “The goal is to help as many people as possible.”

For more information about the Family Empowerment Team in Action, please contact the Family Focus Resource Center at family.focus@csun.edu or (818) 677-6854.

The Delmar T. Ovitatt Library and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) partnered up again to bring California State University, Northridge a Pi Day celebration on March 14.

Attendees experienced a multitude of activities, including a three-dimensional printer, more than 15 flavors of free pie, a “making pie” demonstration and networking with CSUN organizations such as CSUN Women in Science, Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research (BUILD PODER) and CSUN VEX Robotics Club, colloquially known as the Matabots.

CSUN Women in Science had participants use pi to find the volume of live sea urchins—which they had at their table in a small bowl of water. CSUN Women in Science also had dry urchins and wanted participants to guess how many urchins (live and dry) would fit into the pie they had at the table.

BUILD PODER, a research program for undergraduates funded by the National Institutes of Health, had a table encouraging students to apply to the program in January 2018.

Gabriela Rivera, a public health major and member of BUILD PODER,  advised students to consider being involved in research.

“Although we may have come to college to have fun, we ultimately came to receive higher education,” Rivera said. “BUILD PODER offers a community of emotional and financial support as well as personal growth.”

The CSUN VEX Robotics Club, which recently won a robotics tournament held at University of Southern California, showcased its robot and let audience members control the robot.

Adrian Castellon, president of the CSUN VEX Robotics Club, encouraged students of all majors to think about joining the Matabots.

“Our team is actually composed of different majors. We are not limited to just mechanical engineering or electrical engineering, or even just engineering,” Castellon said. “We have members who are majoring in merchandise, marketing and a journalism major.”

Although the Oviatt Library and WISE sponsored this event, Alexandria Chavez, a WISE intern, was largely responsible for organizing this event and hoped that attendees had fun.

“I hope that everyone had fun while learning about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

Children spend too much time in front of a screen and too little time exploring nature and having in fun the great outdoors. That imbalance can contribute to bullying, illness, depression and attention deficits.

Scott Sampson

California State University, Northridge’s next Education on the Edge speaker will discuss ways to reconnect children with nature. Scott Sampson, dinosaur paleontologist and host of the PBS TV series “Dinosaur Train,” will talk about “How to Raise a Wild Child” — from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, April 3, in the Northridge Center of the University Student Union, located on the east side of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

He also will present “Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent” to students from the CHIME Institute’s K-8 charter school and Vaughn Next Century Learning Center from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on April 3 at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima.

“I’m personally excited that Dr. Sampson is coming out to the CSUN community to speak with students during the day and adults at night,” said Wendy W. Murawski, executive director and Eisner Endowed Chair of CSUN’s Center for Teaching and Learning. “My own son is a dinosaur enthusiast, due in part to Dr. Sampson’s great work on the PBS series ‘Dinosaur Train.’ As much as I love that TV show and found it educational, however, I know I also will be joined by many educators and parents alike in the evening, as we all learn more about how to get our kids away from screens and back to nature.”

Sampson is a dinosaur paleontologist, science communicator, museum executive and advocate for connecting people with nature. He is president and CEO of Science World at TELUS World of Science, one of Vancouver, British Columbia’s most popular cultural attractions and a recognized leader in science learning.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Sampson previously served as vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He is best known as “Dr. Scott,” host and science advisor of the Emmy-nominated series “Dinosaur Train,” produced by the Jim Henson Company. He has published numerous scientific and popular articles, and he regularly speaks to audiences of all ages on a range of topics.

Sampson is author of “Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life,” and, most recently, “How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature.” Tapping into the latest research findings summarized in “How to Raise a Wild Child,” he will offer advice to parents, educators and others interested in mentoring strong bonds between children and nature.

Recent research indicates that experiencing nature is essential for healthy growth. Regular exposure to natural settings can relieve stress, depression and attention deficits. It can reduce bullying, combat illness and boost academic scores. Studies indicate that abundant time in nature can yield long-term benefits in children’s cognitive, emotional and social development.

The Education on the Edge series is free and open to the public. However, reservations are required. For more information and to reserve a seat, visit www.CTLsampson.eventbrite.com.

CSUN’s Center for Teaching and Learning is the research, collaboration and professional development arm of the Michael D. Eisner College of Education. Faculty from departments across the college are conducting cutting-edge research and professional development to better address the needs of schools, as they work in collaboration with K-12 teachers and administrators and community members.

Matadors Malachia Hoover ’14 (Cell and Molecular Biology) and Brenda Velasco are matriculating at Stanford University to pursue their Ph.D.s. Both students are part of National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research programs at California State University, Northridge.

Hoover, who is part of the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program, said receiving acceptance letters from Stanford, University of Southern California and Yale, among others, validated her hard work.

“I feel like [the acceptance letters were] confirmation that all of my hard work was finally being recognized by major faculty and top-tier universities,” Hoover said.

Hoover’s CSUN mentor, Jonathan Kelber of the Department of Biology, has known Hoover for more than four years and said that she stood out as a student because of her numerous publications.

“Malachia has already had co-authorship on one paper, she’s had first authorship on another paper, she’s got a second first-author paper that we’re working [on], and she’s going to be on at least two [more],” Kelber said. “She’s been very prolific in terms of research productivity, which made her an outstanding applicant.”

Velasco, who is in the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program, said she was really nervous during the application process and was excited to find out she was accepted into Stanford, University of Michigan and University of California, San Francisco.

“I [thought] ‘what if I don’t get in? What am I going to do next?’ I was really nervous to not get in anywhere, so I was really excited when I got in,” Velasco said. “I’d be the first person in my family to be getting a Ph.D., so I’m hoping that’ll help motivate my younger cousins to try to go to college, even if they don’t get a Ph.D.”

Mary-Pat Stein of the Department of Biology mentors Velasco in the MARC program and has known Velasco since 2013. Stein said Velasco stands out because of her efficiency and determination.

“She’s efficient and very effective in the lab, and she is somebody who wants to succeed. It’s just written all over her face,” Stein said. “She came to me and wanted to do this. She just keeps pushing herself. That’s somebody who really deserves every accolade we could possibly shower upon her.”

MariaElena Zavala, director of the MARC and RISE programs, said, “It is a great privilege to help students achieve their academic and professional goals.”

Both Hoover and Velasco felt that CSUN’s MARC and RISE programs provided them with opportunities to help them achieve their goals.

Velasco emphasized the influence that the MARC program had in her professional development as well as the help she received during the application process.

“If it wasn’t for the MARC program, I don’t think I would have been prepared to go into a Ph.D. program or even apply to a Ph.D. program because I had no one to teach me,” Velasco said. “No one in my family knew how to do it, so not only did MARC provide the funding, they provided me with the ability to do research and the professional development to learn how to do research.”

Hoover stressed the financial help RISE offered during her work as a graduate student, but also pointed out the integral role her community played in supporting her dreams.

“Being part of the RISE program was a huge help,” Hoover said. “They were able to support me, so I didn’t have to [be a teacher’s assistant] as much or work off campus. This helped a lot because it allowed me to focus on my research.

“My community (including family, friends, and community members) played a big role in my Ph.D. application process,” she added. “They helped me raise $1,500 through GoFundMe. That helped me pay for all the application costs.”

Hoover and Velasco are both in the biological sciences, for which Stanford “pretty much funds everything,” Velasco said. “Your tuition is paid for, your health insurance is paid for and you get a stipend, which should be enough to cover your meals and your housing.”

Hoover and Velasco will be starting their path to a Ph.D. in the fall of 2017 and left current undergraduates at CSUN with words of encouragement.

“We need more scientists that come from minority backgrounds,” Hoover said.”[Anyone] can be a scientist through hard work and mentorship.”

“Don’t be afraid to do things outside of your comfort zone,” Velasco added. “Always reach for the sky.”

Parents searching for innovative summer programs can now register their children for a creative, fun and unforgettable learning experiences at California State University, Northridge.

CSUN’s summer camps offer children the opportunities to discover a new love for learning, design robots, explore the world of culinary arts, dabble in the art of pottery, develop rock climbing skills, attend field trips and engage in new sports.

Registration has opened for the university’s Summer Academic Program for Elementary School Students (SAPESS) offered to children in grades entering kindergarten through five. The kindergarten class is held in the same classroom all day at the Children’s Center, where students participate in age-appropriate activities that cover all the academic subject areas.

Students in grades one through five rotate through four different classes each day. The classes include language arts, math, science, and arts and crafts.

SAPESS coordinators Phil Shaffer and Jill Frieze said each class offers a variety of fun, creative, and hands-on activities. All classes are taught by credentialed teachers and students are supervised by experienced teacher assistants, many of whom are also credentialed.

Frieze and Shaffer said each week focuses on a different exciting theme.  The five themes are “Superheroes and Villains,” “The Four Elements,” “Fun and Games,” “Dr. Seuss,” and “To Infinity and Beyond.” Teachers collaborate to plan and incorporate these themes into the subject areas. The projects are all high-activity based. There is no testing, no homework, and no workbooks.

For more information, visit the SAPESS website.

For middle and high school students the Summer Academic Enrichment Program (SAEP), is designed to help the student develop a passion for learning, as well as earn high school credit.  The SAEP’s enrichment program (not for credit) is for middle school students and the academic program is for high school students offering high school courses for credit. The courses include algebra II, geometry, chemistry, health and SAT prep for Mathematics and language arts.

The enrichment program, for students in grades six to eight, offers them courses in language arts, computers, foreign language, mathematics, science, visual and performing arts, leadership skills and study skills. For more information, visit the SAEP website.

SAEP and CSUN’s robotics club and engineers teamed up to offer a robotics camp. The camp will start June 12, and end June 16. During the week, students will learn how to create a VEX robot, which will then compete with robots built by other students. For more information, visit the SAEP robotics camp website.

SAEP also is partnering with CSUN’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences to offer a new culinary camp for students in grades sixth to ninth. The camp will run June 12-16. Students will get hands-on experience while learning about food science and nutrition. The half-day camp will be taught by students in CSUN’s Marilyn Magaram Center for Food Science, Nutrition and Dietetics. For more information, visit the SAEP culinary camp website.

CSUN’s Sunny Days Camp, a program for elementary school students age 4 to 11, is also open for registration. The program offers a variety of activities, ranging from field trips and sports play, rock climbing and group dance activities. The camp offers nine weeks of camp sessions from June 11 to Aug. 12. For pricing information on full and half-day camps, visit the Sunny Days website.

Sunny Days also offers leadership opportunities for older campers age 15 to 18 with its Junior Counselor Program. For more information please call or email camp director Jeremy Hamlett at (818) 677-3617 or jeremy.hamlett@csun.edu

For kids interested in staying active, Matador Athletics offers camps in soccer, tennis, softball, volleyball, basketball and baseball. Children and teens who live with disabilities will be accommodated in the baseball camp, according to coach Riley Goulding.

“We can accommodate children who live with disabilities based on their needs. We would love to have everyone out there,” said Goulding.

For more information, visit the athletics camp website.

For teens interested in theater, CSUN’s award-winning Teenage Drama Workshop (TADW) offers students in seventh through twelfth grade a chance to be trained and taught by theater professionals. For six weeks, students will engage in intensive training in dance, acting, costume design, lighting and sound design.

“Teenage Drama Workshop has a wonderful family and inclusive spirit,” said director, Douglas Kaback.

This summer, students enrolled in TADW can participate in the plays, “Into the Woods Jr.” and “Disney’s, The Lion King Jr.”

TADW will also offer performances to accommodate families with children with disabilities.

“We also do a special performance called our sensory friendly performance,” said Kaback. “Sensory friendly is a different kind of way of presenting the show. We’re particularly focusing on families who might have children on with special need. We try to make accommodations so it’s open and friendly and not harsh in lighting or sound effects.

For more information, visit the TADW website.

California State University, Northridge’s Friends of the Oviatt Library hosted Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and UCLA’s Aratani Endowed Chair, on March 17 to talk about Executive Order 9066.

Executive Order 9066 was signed and issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. The order resulted in the forced internment of Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast, many of whom were U.S. citizens.

According to Hirabayashi, more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans (primarily first and second generation) from the mainland went through the internment camps. However, Japanese descendants all over the world were subject to discrimination.

“[Internment camps and forced removal] happened from 1941 to 1946. We have to remember that there were Nikkei, or people of Japanese ancestry, brought in from territories like Hawaii and Alaska,” Hirabayashi said. “There were also Japanese Latin Americans subject to kidnapping, and even orphans were pulled into this operation.”

Hirabayashi used the 40-minute lecture to speak on how and why mass incarceration happened. He began by talking about national security during World War II and how the United States handled what the American government perceived as a threat.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, G-2 Army Intelligence and the Office of Naval Intelligence began surveillance on Japanese-Americans,” Hirabayashi said. “Each agency independently began to develop lists of people and organizations that were seen as suspicious. Visiting Japan, having visitors from Japan or even doing things that were considered Japanese — these were all bases to be put on a list.”

These lists, Hirabayashi said, were compiled during World War II, but were put together prior to U.S. involvement. After the country’s involvement, according to Hirabayashi, protocol changed.

“The justice department consolidated these various lists and picked up around 1,000 [people], primarily men, primarily first-generation leaders of the Japanese community,” Hirabayashi said.

“A lot of Japanese-American newspapers, schools, banks and enterprises were shut down. The FBI was empowered to do search and seizure because it was a question of national security,” he added.

Hirabayashi also noted that there were “key officials who doubted the necessity for the internment of Japanese-Americans.

“J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, felt [the agency] had all the bad guys after the initial roundup after Pearl Harbor,” Hirabayashi said. “Francis J. Biddle, the U.S. attorney general, felt that these policies were unconstitutional. Even Eleanor Roosevelt tried to convince [FDR] otherwise.”

Hirabayashi concluded the lecture by outlining three factors that led to the passing of Executive Order 9066.

“It was racial stereotypes that led to prejudice and discrimination,” Hirabayashi said. “It was also the crisis, the war, which led to the climate of fear; and it was, perhaps most notably, the failure of political leaders to put a stop to the discrimination.”

According to recent studies on college dropouts, approximately 70 percent of Americans enroll at a four-year institution of higher education, but less than 50 percent will graduate. In fall 2016, the California State University system launched Graduation Initiative 2025, a statewide and systemwide, ambitious benchmark that aims to increase graduation rates for CSU transfer students and first-time freshmen.

Targeting first-time freshmen, the California State University, Northridge Michael D. Eisner College of Education joined forces this year with Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) Los Angeles, a locally based nonprofit that has worked to foster greater education equity since 1999. The CSUN-Project GRAD partners aim to build a communication pipeline of sorts — a two-way pipeline — between high school teachers and university professors. The organizers behind the new initiative unveiled in spring 2013 a one-of-a-kind in California, fourth-year math course — Transition to College Math and Statistics (TCMS) — to prepare LA high school seniors for college-level math.

Ford Roosevelt, CEO of Project GRAD, partners with CSUN and LAUSD to help high school students succeed in math. Photo courtesy of Ford Roosevelt.

Project GRAD Los Angeles President and CEO Ford Roosevelt explained that lack of academic readiness leads many first-time freshmen to be unprepared for college-level math and English classes — forcing many into remediation classes, after they score low on the CSU English Placement Test and the Entry Level Mathematics exam between high school graduation and the start of freshman year.

“If high school students take remediation courses and don’t do well, their life in college is at risk,” Roosevelt said.

According to Project GRAD, more that 60 percent of high school seniors in the northeast San Fernando Valley place into remediation classes in math, English or both after taking the placement exams for the CSU system. If the students don’t pass their remediation courses within the first year, they are “stopped out” of the CSU and must attend community college to catch up. Only then may they return to the four-year university, which creates a major obstacle for many students, Roosevelt said.

“If we intervened earlier and trained [high school] teachers to have a course that would teach a little bit differently the critical thinking skills students need when they take the [placement] tests, they might do better,” he said.

Easing the Transition to College-Level Math

In 2013, in collaboration with LAUSD, CSUN and Project GRAD, the partners tested a 10-week pilot course for the TCMS course. The partners found that seniors who took the course achieved a 37 percent passage rate on the placement tests, compared to a 22 percent passage rate for those who did not.

“From that point, the course was expanded into a full-year course, approved by the CSU and [University of California] to satisfy a ‘C’ requirement of the ‘A to G’ course requirements,” Roosevelt said. “In the most recent academic year, the third year of full implementation in seven LAUSD schools, the success rate has risen to 61 percent of students needing either none or one remediation course only. Students may complete this required course in the summer before they enroll at CSUN. The district has reached out because they liked the results and now would like to roll this out at all LAUSD high schools — 160 [schools] in the next two years.”

So far, the optional math courses are available at seven high schools: San Fernando High School; Arleta High School; Sylmar High School; the Academy of Scientific Exploration, the Arts Theater Entertainment School and the Teacher Prep Academy at Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academies; and at the Los Angeles Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles.

“CSUN is the lead agency training the teachers. It’s a pretty big deal and can really change the conversation of what kids need to do to get ready and go right into college-level math,” Roosevelt said. “There’s a lot on the table, but CSUN — and particularly professor Katherine Stevenson — have been amazing partners to help make things come to fruition.”

The 23-university CSU system spends about $90 million a year on remediation courses — an amount CSUN and Project GRAD are now trying to re-allocate into college-level instruction courses at LA high schools.

“There is a lack of communication between different segments — high schools, community colleges, CSUs and UCs,” said Katherine Stevenson, professor of mathematics and director of Developmental Mathematics at CSUN. “If there is no communication and if we don’t understand what the different expectations are, then it seems like we have actually built a gap in our system. If you want high school teachers to listen to college teachers — and college teachers to listen to high school teachers — the only way you can achieve that is to have an authentic task that everybody is engaged in.

“We have an interest in having students arrive [at the university] and not need to have developmental math (remediation courses),” Stevenson said. “That is what we’re going to be looking at as our gold standard. Hopefully, [students] place into college-level mathematics and quantitative reasoning courses, and they are successful in those classes — that’s the absolute goal.”

Beyond Math: Fostering a Sense of Belonging

Roosevelt said the initiative soon will target a similar preparation course for English and involve local community colleges in the partnership.

“We bring together CSUN’s best faculty to collaborate on best practices in teaching and professional development for the high school teachers, and to create a cross-level dialog between college instructors and high school instructors — to learn from each other,” he said.

Another target for the professors and other educators involved is the range of social and emotional issues students face while taking remedial college courses, such as self-doubt and the uncertainty of belonging.

“Every student who comes to the CSU and certainly to CSUN is capable of getting through their developmental math requirements,” Stevenson said. “The [test scores] don’t indicate if they belong to the university. The students belong here — and their grades just give them information for their next step. We’ve been working very hard on making that explicit [to them].”

The partnership with Project GRAD developed independently from the CSU 2025 Graduation Initiative, but it will be a major step toward higher graduation rates, according to Michael Spagna, dean of the Eisner College.

“CSUN has had a long-term commitment to building partnerships with local schools in the community,” Spagna said. “It is through these partnerships that the university promotes student success, emphasizing college preparedness and career readiness before individuals ever make the decision to come to our campus to pursue their dreams.”

CSUN’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library. Photo by Lee Choo.

Copyright can be an intimidating legal issue for creative-minded people. A thorough understanding of its intricacies can prove invaluable to visual artists’ success.

The Delmar T. Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge will aim to foster greater understanding of this topic during its annual copyright symposiumon Wednesday, April 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Jack and Florence Ferman Presentation Room, located on the garden level in the Oviatt Library. This year’s event, dubbed “Visualize This! The Creative Side of Copyright,” will focus on informing visual artists how to effectively navigate copyright law.

National and regional copyright experts will spend the day discussing best practices and topics, including intellectual property, the continual growth of online access to photography and digital media, and fair use — the right to legally use copyrighted material without paying or securing permission from the copyright holder, in certain circumstances. Speakers also will address how copyright applies to more recent creative innovations, such as 3-D printing technology.

“We hope that attendees will gain confidence in understanding copyright and fair-use guidelines [for] using visual images in their scholarly works,” said Dean Arnold, the Oviatt Library’s music and media supervisor.

Featured speakers will include Kenneth Crews, a practicing attorney and faculty member at Columbia Law School; Martin Brennan, a copyright and licensing librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles Young Research Library; CSUN English professor Charles Hatfield; Todd Bigelow, a lecturer in CSUN’s Department of Art; and CSUN art history professor Peri Klemm.

The symposium is free and open to the public. Guests are encouraged to RSVP on the library’s website by Friday, March 31. The Oviatt Library is located at the center of the CSUN campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. Visitor parking passes are $8 and can be purchased on campus or online at the Permit Store.

For more information or to RSVP, please visit the symposium’s event page at http://library.csun.edu/events/copyright-2017 or contact Dean Arnold at (818) 677-2211.

Embracing a new sustainability curriculum, San Fernando Valley elementary, middle and high school students collectively measured different amounts of energy used around their schools, installed low-flow devices to help save water and helped establish community gardens at their schools to help with waste and food issues.

Around 1,400 students who participated in the curriculum will present their environmental conservation projects at California State University, Northridge’s Family Earth Day Celebration. The event takes place in the Matadome and on the East Field on Saturday, April 29, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Matadome and East Field are located on the east side of campus near the intersection of Plummer Street and Zelzah Avenue.

For the past two years, CSUN’s Institute for Sustainability has collaborated with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) on sustainability curriculum for students in grades K-12. This year, the LADWP is working with 36 teachers from 19 different schools throughout the San Fernando Valley. Each classroom has participated in educational field trips to power and water treatment plants, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and Discovery Cube.

“Family Earth Day at CSUN is an event where students will display projects they have been implementing into their schools and showcase their knowledge about sustainability issues to parents, other students, council members, school board members, principals and the community,” said Institute for Sustainability project coordinator Kiana Lucero.

Lucero said groups of students worked on different environmental projects.  Some students studied “kill-a-watt” meters to test different electrical appliances that determine which devices use the most energy. Students also conducted energy audits and recorded how much energy is used around their schools to try to find ways to reduce energy consumption.

Other student groups focused on water usage by conducting water audits with flow bags that show the amount of water that flows from their sinks and showers. Students installed low-flow devices in their homes and at school to help save water.

Some students focused on waste and food issues and created community gardens to practice growing herbs and vegetables in water.

“It’s important for kids to show what they’ve learned and also learn from others around them. They will be able to walk around to see the other projects and see what other teachers and classrooms have been working on,” said Lucero.

The students will receive a “Green Ambassador” participation certificate for their work. Each teacher will select three students per classroom who showed the most enthusiasm, were innovative or who saved the most energy and water to receive a $20 gift card.

The event also will include about 20 outside organizations, such as Grid Alternatives, Green Planet Aquaponics, 5 Gyres, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pick my Solar. These organizations will provide environmental information and promote green lifestyles.

There will be performances from Theatre of Will and interactive presentations from The Wildwoods Foundation. Theatre of Will will perform water-themed songs and dances that discuss the history of water in Los Angeles and promote water conservation. The Wild Woods Foundation will give an interactive presentation that creates a replica of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. CSUN planetarium and sustainability campus tours will also be available.

The first 100 families who register for the event will receive free parking. To RSVP for the event please click here.

For more information, please email, sustainability@csun.edu or call (818) 677-7710.

California State University, Northridge is encouraging newly admitted freshmen, transfer students and their families to attend Explore CSUN to receive financial aid information, tour the campus and attend multiple workshops.

Explore CSUN, an event organized by the Division of Student Affairs and Student Outreach and Recruitment, is an open house event that offers incoming CSUN students insight to campus life and resources. The event will take place on Saturday, April 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This year’s event will feature a variety of workshops that range in topics such as how to make a successful transition to becoming a CSUN student, how to access the Disability Resources and Educational Services, as well as information on the International and Exchange Student Center.

The event will also provide admitted students and family members with campus tours, opportunities for discussions with current students, alumni and one-on-one time with representatives from CSUN’s nine colleges, Admissions and Records and Financial Aid and Scholarships.

Juana Maria Valdivia, Director of Student Outreach and Recruitment, said Explore CSUN has been around for more than 20 years, though its size, schedule and name have evolved.

“Twenty years ago we had open house, but it was nothing like what we have today,” Valdivia said. “It’s evolved based on the number of students we have. Back then, open house was an 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. program. Three years ago, we saw a massive number of students wanting to come to CSUN, so we said ‘let’s make this more like an actual open house.'”

This year’s event is also different from previous years’ Explore CSUN events because it will offer the financial aid workshops in Spanish.

“We know that students who are the first in their family to go to college have parents whose primary language is not English,” Valdivia said. “We are [offering] the financial aid workshops in Spanish instead of having all of our sessions in English.”

Valdivia pointed out that Explore CSUN is a great way for first-generation students and their parents to get acquainted with the campus as well as the resources CSUN has to offer.

“One of the things that we’ve done since the inception of [Explore CSUN] is offer Spanish tours,” Valdivia said. “We are very fortunate to have ambassadors that can lead these tours in Spanish.”

Those who register for Explore CSUN will be given a complimentary parking pass. Attendees can arrive at any time between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. For more details about this event, please visit Explore CSUN.

California State University, Northridge biology professor Cindy Malone is developing a free, online biology course that covers high school biology curriculum to help high school students prepare for college-level biology majors.

The online class, Biology Open Online Prep Sessions (B-OOPS), is a massive open online course (MOOC) currently being offered to several Biology 100 and 101 students along with a few 9^th grade students who are giving Malone feedback on the course’s effectiveness.

Once it is ready, Malone plans a soft rollout of the course, offering it first to CSUN students, before opening it up to all students across the country and beyond through the Canvas.net MOOC system.

CSUN biology professor and creator of Biology Open Online Prep Session, Cindy Malone.

The course gives students the option to control what, when and how they want to learn. B-OOPS targets students who want to expand their biology knowledge, refresh their memories about the academic material or utilize the course as a tutorial guide if they are struggling in biology.

“B-OOPS will be open to anyone in the world,” said Malone. “People who use the MOOC do not have to complete the entire course. If they want, they can just look through some of the sections. They don’t have to go through everything.”

Malone is currently working on enabling the course to give high school and transfer students CSUN life science general education credit. Students considering biology as a major can use the course to gain in-depth knowledge of their high school biology curriculum and it may help them decide if biology is the field they want to study in college, Malone said.

The course is free, but to receive academic credit, CSUN students must access the quizzes and the ebook at a set price of $57.

“People who do not plan to attend CSUN but are still interested in taking the course, can receive the same informative and educational benefits from the class without CSUN course credit,” Malone said.

“Our current Biology 100 curriculum [at CSUN] is almost identical to high school biology content, just with more in-depth thinking and higher-level evaluation,” said Malone. “When students take B-OOPS they can perfect their studying style.”

The online course is based on Malone’s textbook “Biology Now,” which features adaptive learning methods, benchmark assignments, flashcards, animations and quizzes. Tutorials and classroom lectures created by Malone are included in the course modules.

Although there are a few recorded in-class lecture videos in B-OOPS, the class primarily features quick videos on course topics.

Malone has anecdotally found that in an online course, long lecture videos were not as useful in helping students retain what they learned from textbook reading. Malone said that social scientific studies showed that short tutorials were more effective than long recorded lectures.

According to Malone the demands of the course are similar to courses with a traditional, in-classroom structure but it allows students to take the class at their own pace.

“It is extremely important to read the book, do the assignments and develop your own learning style with this voluntary course,” said Malone. “The course is a lot of work, but it should be more fun than work. We’re trying to get more relevance and a little more fun into biology. This course could help anybody, but people really have to put in the time to gain the knowledge that they wish to receive.”

For more information on release dates and registration for B-OOPS, please contact cindy.malone@csun.edu.

Emily Iland’s autism quest started like many mothers’ struggles: at home, with her oldest son, Tom.

A mother of three who had just moved to Santa Clarita following her husband’s job transfer, Iland found herself fighting for 9-year-old Tom, who had stopped speaking for about three months when he was a preschooler. She fought to get him the special education help he needed as he entered a new school district in Santa Clarita, as she and her husband faced new and daunting parenting challenges.

“What I discovered is you’ve got to advocate for your kid, or they’re not going to get what they need,” said Iland ’07 (M.A., Special Education), ’09 (Post-Master’s Certificate, Education Therapy). “So, I educated myself to become my son’s advocate — and then I started helping other people. I started helping people I’d never met before and I noticed that not everyone was getting the help they needed.

“You fight on the inside: You have to fight with yourself, within your own family and on the outside too,” she said of parenting a child with autism. “It’s overcoming a struggle. It’s a challenge that you have to step up to, or else. I was a shy person. But I realized that I needed to be educated about autism, about treatments and education so I could always base everything on facts — as a mother and as an advocate. Because you can’t argue with facts. Facts help people get along.”

Inspired and driven, Iland enrolled in the master’s program in special education at CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education. As president of the Autism Society of Los Angeles and a professional advocate — helping hundreds of families in Santa Clarita through the special education process in schools — she came to CSUN armed with questions and concerns.

“I felt like more education would help me address issues like the underrepresentation of Latino families in the disability services community,” said Iland, who had double majored in Spanish and political science as an undergraduate at Marquette University in Wisconsin. “I had a lot of Latino friends, and I saw that I was able to get my kid what he needed, but there were these Latino families not getting what they needed. It was a question of equity.”

At CSUN, she wrote her thesis on Latina mothers who have children with autism.

“I asked the moms in my study, ‘What’s getting in your way? Why can’t you get what your kids need?’ Here [at CSUN], I’ve had a wonderful environment and support to investigate those questions. You have to know what the problem is before you can solve it.”

She found that the language barrier was not the Latina mothers’ primary obstacle: It was an information gap.

“It was some cultural things, as well — feeling ashamed of your child, not having family support. Not knowing where to go or how to navigate the system. And language came after that,” she said.

In 2010, the college asked Iland to return to campus to teach, after the state passed a law requiring special educators who had not had training on autism as part of their credential to take nine units of classes. Now, Iland is hard at work off campus and still focused on Latino families whose children have autism. She’s part of a team implementing a two-city study to test the effectiveness of a new education program, in which promotoras — specially trained Latina mothers of children with autism — bring in-home parent education to those with newly diagnosed children.

Iland is also well-known for her work around autism, safety and police, including BE SAFE the Movie. Her most exciting new project, though, is a book she’s writing with son Tom, now 33. Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from CSUN’s David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, at the same time his mom was earning her master’s.

“Tom and I were here at college together. I was able to see his struggles as a young adult, trying to become more independent, finding his place in the world,” she said. “Our book is called, Come to Life: Navigating the Transition to Adulthood. It’s [about] taking control, taking responsibility, even if you have a disability. Even people who aren’t able to be super independent should have choice in their life and should have a voice.

“We’re often so focused on academics, we’re not helping young people come to terms with their own identity — to accept their strengths and their challenges.”