CSUN biology professor Jonathan Kelber makes cancer cell samples to analyze in his lab. Photo by Lee Choo.

This summer Jonathan Kelber, an associate professor of biology at California State University, Northridge, traded the palm trees of Northridge for the ivy of Cambridge, Mass., and the hallowed halls of Harvard University. The CSUN researcher and mentor had a rare (for college professors) opportunity for professional development and to become a mentee himself for 12 weeks, serving as a visiting professor in the Department of Cell Biology and and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Harvard Medical School.

In May, the American Society for Cell Biology Minorities Affairs Committee awarded Kelber a visiting professorship, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award sent Kelber to work with Joan Brugge, one of the world’s foremost cancer researchers and director of Harvard’s Ludwig Institute.

The grant program is designed to partner cell biology faculty from minority-serving institutions such as CSUN with established researchers at larger “R1” institutions — schools classified as doctoral universities that engage in extensive research. The visiting professorship aims to establish pathways for collaboration on grants and publications, Kelber said.

The other coup for the CSUN community, he said, is that Brugge will visit CSUN to give a guest lecture sometime this academic year.

“Work from Dr. Brugge and her trainees over the years has undoubtedly transformed cancer research,” said Kelber, who returned from Brugge’s Harvard lab on Aug. 25. “Early in her career, she identified a protein called Src kinase. Kinases are enzymes that catalyze different processes in the body, in cells. This discovery was huge, as Src kinase is a major culprit in many, many cancers. So, discovering that protein laid the foundation for a lot of research from her own group and others.”

Starting in late May, Kelber spent the summer working in Brugge’s lab on new avenues of research that complement the ongoing work in his CSUN research lab in Chaparral Hall, which includes a team of biology undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral trainees.

“It was very exhilarating — it was nice for me to go back [to Harvard] and be in that environment, where everyone’s thinking at a very, very fast pace about these critical problems in the field of oncology,” he said. “It ends up being very productive.”

Kelber and his summer collaborators aimed to develop a system to study how breast cancer cells interact with non-tumor cells. As they manipulated various cell combinations and treated the cells with different anti-cancer drugs and therapies, Kelber, Brugge and their Harvard colleagues found that all the non-tumor cells surrounding the cancer cells they studied were co-opted and “used as shields,” Kelber said.

“We found that the presence of these non-tumor cells completely prevents the drugs from working,” he said. “Next, we want to determine why — what is changing in these cells, so we can possibly identify new vulnerabilities in these [tumor] cells that could either re-sensitize them to approved therapies, or that could be used as new targets to kill the tumor cells directly.”

Some unexpected benefits of his summer at Harvard, Kelber said, were the professional relationships he was able to forge with the staff of “junior scientists” training in Brugge’s lab — scientists doing postdoctoral programs who are on a path to start their own research labs at other institutions.

The summer was especially busy, as Kelber balanced the new research onsite at Harvard with managing and overseeing projects, progress and personnel in his CSUN lab via email and Skype.

In 2015, Kelber and his CSUN team identified a critical “support wall” gene in breast cancer called PEAK1. They published the results of their research in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One and Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC) journals. These reports were the first ever to show that the PEAK1 gene is essential to tumor cell stability at the earliest stages of aggressive breast cancer metastasis.

Metastasis is the process of cancer cells moving from their original source — in this case the breast — to other parts of the body through the bloodstream and forming malignant tumors elsewhere. (In January 2017, the NIH awarded Kelber and his team $1.46 million over the next four years to support their ongoing studies of PEAK1 in this context.)

When Kelber established his lab at CSUN in 2012, his team also took on some serious challenges related to pancreatic cancer, including how it forms, therapy resistance and metastatic progression.

“One of the things about pancreatic cancer that makes it so deadly is that it’s rarely detected early,” Kelber said of those research efforts. “It’s one of very few cancers that have a five-year survival rate that’s less than 10 percent (at less than 7 percent for pancreatic cancer). This means that within five years of being diagnosed, nearly 95 percent of patients will die. Unlike breast cancer, which is commonly diagnosed early — and if so, the survival rate is nearly 100 percent — pancreatic cancer is both difficult to detect early and to treat or cure even when detected early.”

On Aug. 30, the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports (by Nature Publishing) published the group’s pancreatic cancer study demonstrating that a new gene, ITGA1, may be used to detect the earliest stages of pancreatic cancer and as a target to prevent the progression of this deadly disease. This most recent report was the culmination of five years’ work by Kelber’s lab trainees, including primary authors Armen Gharibi (now working at Thermo Fisher Scientific in LA) and Sa La Kim, a 2017 CSUN Presidential Scholar and past participant in CSUN’s Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program. This year, Kim is continuing her research on ITGA1, as part of her graduate studies at CSUN under Kelber’s guidance, before applying to M.D./Ph.D. programs.

California State University (CSU) engineering students are invited to participate annually in the General Electric Digital (GE) Predix Competition, in San Ramon, Calif. In July, eight CSUN engineering and computer science students placed third in the competition, with the guidance of advisor and electrical and computer engineering professor Vijay Bhatt.

CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science was granted $10,000 by GE Predix to fund their project for the competition. Predix is a cloud-based [data analytics] software.

The aim of the competition is to drive innovation, create opportunities for the students to learn about new technologies, and engage engineering and computer science programs across the CSU in the computer engineering industry.  

THE BUSINESS PLAN

Bhatt and the students wanted to create a unique business plan for the campus. The team decided to design a software tool that could help the existing chiller system be more efficient for the air conditioning on campus. A chiller system is a water cooling system used for air conditioning plants, using cold water and air, according to Bhatt.

“The big water chillers are used for the cooling systems on campus,” Bhatt said. “There are six of them, and the electricity bill for that comes in at hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

“The issue aligned with the campus’ sustainability mission and should make a difference,” Bhatt continued. “This project was very interesting [because] we tried to predict the usage of water chillers on campus.”

The team brainstormed about how to make chillers more sustainable by partnering with staff and faculty from the CSUN Institute for Sustainability, to find ways to use data analytics and weather information. The sustainability staff provided historical and current data about use of chillers on campus and other vital parameters. Next, the engineering students created an algorithm, the blueprint for writing a program, which the students applied in Predix.

When the software program regurgitated the data, the CSUN team determined which chillers should be used and how they could be optimized to reduce electricity use, according to Bhatt.

The team discovered that if the university used their model, they could save CSUN approximately $72,000 for excessive usage.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

“Our third-place win shows the strength of our computer science and engineering department,” said computer science major and Predix team member Roberto Gonzalez. “[We] pushed the limits to optimize the chiller system, and that ensured our win for CSUN.”

It was CSUN’s first time reaching the top three — and a $2,500 prize — out of eight CSU campuses.

TEAM BUILDING

Haiping Chen, a CSUN computer science major, noted the challenges of delving into the university’s chiller electricity bill.

“We were looking at … how long [it would have taken] the school to equalize the money they are investing in the system,” he said. “We presented [our research] to a panel of judges, and they were impressed at how well we budgeted. If we invested a certain amount of money, we always asked what the benefits were.”

The team spent three months preparing for the competition, and the students devoted many hours of time outside class learning how to use the Predix software. It paid off with the top-three finish, prize money and a tour of GE Digital’s office. Organizers also gave each student participant a “souvenir” light bulb.

The CSUN students noted that they got a laugh out of TSA security officers when they passed through airport security, each with a lightbulb, on their way back to Los Angeles.

CSUN’s GE Predix project will continue during the 2017-18 academic year, when team members aim to create an app for chiller management and the campus’ Physical Plant Management.

At this year’s California State University, Northridge eLearning Showcase, faculty demonstrated how technology can enhance the learning experience of students in the classroom. Presentations included Abraham Rutchick’s Hybrid 2.0: Real-time Online Section (ROS), Kaitlin Bahr’s BioStatsBuddy app and Sally Spencer’s Interactive Simulations: Bridging the Gap Between Course and Career. In this series, CSUN Today profiles each of these projects. This story explores assistant professor of psychology Stefanie Drew’s video iPads in Large Classes: Increasing Student Engagement.

It’s won acclaim on campus and recognition from industry leaders since debuting in 2013, but in the past academic year, the myCSUNtablet initiative really has gained traction among faculty and students at California State University, Northridge.

To call attention to new tools available, assistant professor of psychology Stefanie Drew earlier this year presented what’s available in iPad technology for CSUN students and faculty members in her video. 

The myCSUNtablet program aims to engage CSUN students with digital learning material at reduced costs — as opposed to sitting in traditional courses and purchasing textbooks. ​myCSUNtablet enables students and professors to have a better interaction during and outside of class.

Drew, who uses myCSUNtablet in some of her psychology courses, said that iPads allow her to offer more in-class assignments.

“It’s far easier for students to upload assignments in class, since the iPad is already linked up to [Canvas], the campus’ learning management system,” Drew said. “I can do more engaging activities, and we don’t lose time writing down ID numbers.”

She explained that to involve her students in class, she leaves blanks in her notes, which they fill out together during class time, and she plays games on Kahoot! — a website where an unlimited number of “players” are asked questions about the class subject in a game-like learning environment.

“By filling in the blanks, [students] are physically doing active learning, which the literature shows is more effective for students to learn, as opposed to passive learning,” Drew said. “There are a number of apps we use to engage with material, as well as online resources such as the resource Kahoot! It’s almost like a game show, which students really enjoy.”

Students who are unable to make her on-campus office hours can use their iPads to engage with her through Zoom, a video chat app, Drew added. Zoom allows users to share documents and make comments on those documents, much like what would happen during in-person office hours.

“I can now Zoom with any of my students,” she said. “I still have my regular office hours, but not everyone can make it to campus then, [especially those with longer commutes]. I’ve had Saturday night office hours because students have their iPad, and [all they need is WiFi].”

Dominic Ceroni ’16 (Psychology), a student in one of Drew’s iPad classes, said he enjoyed the integration of iPads in his class for more than one reason.

“[Having an iPad in the classroom] creates an innovative and interactive experience for every single person in the class,” Ceroni said. “This is something that is especially useful when you’re in a class of 200. It makes you feel more involved and a part of the learning experience. I would without a doubt recommend the class to any fellow student.”

Some argue that having technology in the classroom is distracting, but Drew points out that this isn’t necessarily the case.

“There’s a misconception that [technology] is going to distract students and take away from their learning,” Drew said. “Being distracted in class is nothing new, even before iPads. I purposely do multiple activities in every class, so it’s very hard for [students] to do something else because they have to be engaged with the material.”

The myCSUNtablet initiative won the national Apple Distinguished Program award in 2015 and the Apple Distinguished School Award in 2017.

CSUN is also helping combat the expense of the technology. Currently, the classes that use iPads and the myCSUNtablet program are in CSUN’s Departments of Biology, Journalism, Kinesiology, Psychology, Physical Therapy and Public Health, and several in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Students within those departments have a few options for getting an iPad to use in class. They can arrange a payment plan with University Cash Services that includes the cost of the iPad in their tuition, and take the tablet with them when they graduate.

This is not an affordable option for every student, however, so there are also tablets available to be checked out at the Delmar T. Oviatt Library. Students can borrow these tablets at no charge for seven consecutive days, and take the tablets with them to class.

Additionally, some of the departments that participate in the myCSUNtablet initiative also have tablets that students can check out. Drew said that the array of options for obtaining a tablet was necessary since CSUN “wanted to make sure that every student has that option, one way or another, to have that device in their hands.”

The brain is the foundation for learning. Like a sponge, it soaks up knowledge in various ways. Whether we read a textbook, solve a mathematical problem or watch an educational film, our individual brains perceive, interpret and process information differently than any other human on the planet.

California State University, Northridge’s next Education on the Edge speaker, Katie Novak, will discuss Universal Design for Learning. Photo Credit: Katie Novak’s Twitter.

California State University, Northridge’s next Education on the Edge speaker will discuss an approach to curriculum that minimizes educational barriers and helps students utilize their abilities to absorb knowledge. Katie Novak, assistant superintendent for the Groton-Dunstable School District in Massachusetts, will discuss Universal Design for Learning (UDL) — a framework that helps improve teaching and learning for all people.  The event will take place Thursday, Sept. 21, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Northridge Center of the University Student Union on the east side of campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

Novak will talk about how UDL’s structure aims to eliminate barriers to learning, such as a student’s reading comprehension, difficulty working alone or deciphering abstract concepts. Novak also will discuss how UDL helps teachers redesign a flexible curriculum that can be used with all types of learners, addressing a student’s current knowledge and developing their skills and enthusiasm for learning as it supports and challenges them.

“The idea for Universal Design for Learning is that you’re creating ways for all students to access curriculum and instruction, but you’re doing it proactively by designing it from the beginning,” said Wendy W. Murawski, executive director and Eisner Endowed Chair of CSUN’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which hosts the event. “With UDL, I think about my lesson and from the start. What if I have a student who wants to actively engage or who doesn’t read or hear well? What if I have a student who doesn’t like to work with other peers? With UDL, I’ll answer all my ‘what if’ questions.”

Instead of teachers focusing on how they are going to plan and teach a curriculum, they focus on who they are instructing. Novak will discuss how educators can use recognizable materials to help students learn and gain skills by utilizing graphics and animation and activating background knowledge and vocabulary.

“What works for one student may not work for another,” Murawski noted.

Novak is the daughter of two educators and was born and raised in Seekonk, Mass. She began the first two years of her teaching career in California as an English teacher for all grade levels at Northwood High School in Irvine and Big Bear High School in Big Bear City. She later taught seventh-grade English at Parker Middle School in Chelmsford, Mass. and later became the curriculum coordinator of the Chelmsford Public Schools in Massachusetts before taking her current position.

Novak also has authored the books “Universally Designed Leadership,” “UDL in the Cloud,” “UDL Now,” and “Let them Thrive.” She is an associate with the Center for Applied Special Technology — a nonprofit research and development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals.

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 the eventbrite website.

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, administrators and community members.

The center was established in the summer of 2002, thanks to a generous gift from the Eisner Foundation, the family foundation of Michael and Jane Eisner. The center initially focused on neurodevelopment and how knowledge of those constructs can be taught to teachers — and ultimately impact the way they teach and the way students learn. It has since broadened its scope. Faculty and affiliates are researching and analyzing multiple innovative approaches to teaching, counseling, educational therapy, administration and professional development. The center also offers speakers bureau that provides local schools and organizations an opportunity to bring these new approaches to their campuses. More information about the center can be found at the Center for Teaching and Learning website.

Univision Los Angeles, the California State University Chancellor’s Office and California State University, Northridge are teaming up Saturday, Sept. 23, to help thousands of young Latinos and their families discover paths to success at Feria de Educación, a daylong celebration focused on proving educational resources and information on building blocks for achieving academic and professional success.

The annual free event, part of Univision “Regresa a Classes” (Back-to-School) campaign. Through its award-winning corporate social responsibility platform, Univision Contigo, the campaign is focused on promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) building blocks, education, opportunities and careers for Latinos.

CSUN Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students William Watkins reads to a group of young people at Feria de Education 2016. Photo by Lee Choo.

The Feria has become one of the largest education fairs in the nation and is free for parents, students and educators. The event is scheduled to take place from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in areas and buildings around CSUN’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library, located in the heart of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. This is the second year CSUN has hosted the event.

“CSUN is proud to educate and uplift students from throughout Southern California, and we are happy to once again host this major educational event in partnership with Univision Los Angeles and the CSU,” said CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison, who will welcome the Feria’s attendees at 9:30 a.m. in front of the Oviatt Library. “For many, the Feria is the start for successful educational journeys, and I encourage families and students of all ages to join us and learn more about the resources, career paths and futures made possible by the life-changing impact of education.”

Since 2009, Univision Los Angeles has partnered with the CSU to host Feria de Educación on one of its campuses. This one-day education fair is filled with Spanish- and English-language workshops and other activities designed to give parents the tools to help their children achieve their educational and career goals, providing resources and valuable information on the full spectrum of education.

“Education is a powerful tool that not only opens the door to opportunity, but also empowers our youth to strive and reach for more across all areas of their lives,” said Luis Patiño, president and general manager of Univision Los Angeles. “We are extremely proud of the partnership with our Cal State universities and our joint mission of empowering and providing access to education for our Latino community.”

Workshops will cover such topics as how to create a learning environment at home; an exploration of California’s three public higher education systems and its private colleges; overviews of the college application process; services for undocumented students; the financial aid process; immigration; support for students with learning disabilities; the LGBTQ community and the support offered by the Educational Opportunity Programs to students, as well as conversations with currently enrolled students about life on campus.

The Feria will include a “reading garden,” and a variety of age-appropriate books and learning materials will be distributed to encourage children and their parents to read together. There will be exhibits explaining the “pathway” to higher education with additional resources and information, beginning with pre-K and continuing through post-graduate services. There also will be opportunities for participants to learn about health and wellness.

Univision personalities Claudia Botero and Eder “Gorritas” Diaz will serve as opening ceremony emcees. Joining the event’s activities, including the reading garden and Univision booth are: Leon Krauze, Norma Roque, Stephanie Bradford, Julio Cesar Ortiz and Guillermo Quiroz from the Univision family.

The Feria de Educación supports the CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025 that is focused on increasing the completion rates of first-time freshmen, transfer, low-income and underserved students. The Graduation Initiative 2025 will add 100,000 more college graduates to California’s workforce over the next 10 years, bringing the total number of expected CSU graduates between 2015 and 2025 to more than 1 million.

“The future of California and the nation will depend on our ability to ensure that all students — regardless of background, belief, circumstance or status — have equitable opportunities for academic achievement and lifelong success,” CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said. “As an immigrant from Latin America and product of California’s public higher education systems, I am proud that the California State University stands committed to building pathways to higher education for all qualified students.”

Originally launched in February 2010, Univision Contigo’s education platform remains the nation’s longest-running multimedia education campaign on the air. Today, with the help of leading organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Too Small to Fail, the Bezos Family Foundation, XQ Institute and Common Sense Media, among others, the initiative continues to empower Latino families to invest in their children’s education in order to ensure their success in college and beyond.

For more information about the Feria de Educación at CSUN, visit www.csun.edu/feria. To learn more about Feria events across California, visit www.calstate.edu/feriadeeducacion.

Thousands of California State University, Northridge freshmen packed the lawn in front of the Delmar T. Oviatt Library on Sept. 14 for Freshman Convocation, an annual event that formally welcomes first-year students to CSUN.

The event included a welcome from CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison and a keynote address by activist Bree Newsome. The themes of the night included perseverance and empowerment for the Class of 2021. An estimated 2,500 students participated in this year’s convocation. 

In her remarks, President Harrison told the new freshmen that they make up the future of the country.

“As Matadors, you represent an educated, reasoned perspective,” Harrison said. “You represent diversity, you represent inclusion, and these are values that we share at CSUN. We believe that they are indispensable to a peaceful, responsible and prosperous society. They are values that we hope you will carry with you as you move on to new opportunities and horizons after you graduate.”

Newsome was chosen as keynote speaker to complement the freshman class’ common reading selection, Between the World and Me, a book that focuses on race in America from the perspective of author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

“Between the World and Me is a powerful book to read because it is deeply personal, and yet universal writing at the same time,” Newsome said. “In it, he writes a letter to his son, but the audience in this letter is the whole world. In his open letter, he is detailing his personal experiences as a black man navigating the world around him — yet there’s a universality to his journey, which is questioning and reflecting.”

The keynote speaker gained national attention when she climbed up the flagpole on the South Carolina State House grounds in 2015 and removed the Confederate flag that flew there.

Newsome encouraged the CSUN freshmen to be unafraid, to stand up for their beliefs and to walk their own paths.  

“Each person in this space represents a different path,” she said. “There are over a thousand different life paths that are represented here that we each walked and led us to being here at this moment.”

During her visit at CSUN, Newsome also held a lecture earlier in the day at the Plaza Del Sol at the University Student Union, discussing her experiences and civil rights activism.  

Braulio Diaz ’17 (Engineering) was chosen as the student speaker for the convocation. He was one of this year’s Outstanding Graduating Seniors. Diaz encouraged students to participate on campus and to take chances on bettering their time at the university. 

“This is a new start for all of you — make it the best,” he told the audience. “Do not do anything that could jeopardize this beautiful opportunity. My experience at CSUN has changed my life for the better, and I know that it can change yours. CSUN taught me how to think and question. It also taught me how to lead and work with others.”

Diaz, an undocumented student, also spoke out against social injustice. He told the CSUN students that they must move forward and be courageous. In response, the audience gave him a roaring ovation.

President Harrison also presented the 2017 Dianne F. Harrison Leadership Award to Jea Bondoc, a business major from last year’s freshman class. Bondoc achieved a 3.98 grade point average and participated in several on-campus clubs and activities, such as the Accounting Association, Filipino Student Organization and New Student Orientation leadership. 

Harrison told the new Matadors that they are the future and will be the change the world needs.

“You bring all of us at CSUN hope and optimism for our future,” Harrison said. “I encourage you to keep up with the great work you are already doing, continue those successful habits in college and continue to make good decisions.”  

While growing up in north Miami Beach, Fla., in the 1980s, California State University, Northridge communication studies professor Bernardo Attias encountered the Confederate flag and the rhetoric and symbols of white supremacy. As a boy, he said, he didn’t understand the divisive and violent history of those symbols.

“The Confederate flag and monuments were a part of my growing up,” Attias said. “Looking at this as a scholar today, I see the way white supremacy transfers through symbols and is coded as a rebellion. Of course, as a kid growing up with these symbols, you don’t necessarily know the history or meanings or why these civil monuments were put up.”

Does social change require protests, or does it demand a revolution or violence? Those were the questions on the minds of his students this month, the professor said. In response to protests across the nation and the recent violence around Confederate statues at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Attias opened his Rhetoric of Peace and Conflict course to the public Sept. 12 for a special lecture topic.

The lecture, Teaching in these Difficult and Divisive Times, was held at the Aronstam Library in Manzanita Hall and drew approximately 200 students. Attias focused much of his lecture on the resurgence of interest in Civil War monuments — especially those enshrining the Confederacy — and their place in United States society.

“I don’t normally research this topic, but the Charlottesville incident provoked me to visit this question due to my more personal connection to the topic,” he told the audience.

In his research, Attias found that there are more than 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy cross the U.S. that were federally funded, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He cited one statue of Robert E. Lee located in Charlottesville, Va., that was built in 1924, decades after the Civil War ended. That time period (the 1920s) coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and increasing fear of the loss of white supremacy, he said.

Attias also pointed out that there has been a continuous resurgence of building these statues. In 1998, for example, white nationalist Jack Kershaw designed a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, and the monument was erected in Memphis, Tenn.

A new social movement to take down or rename these structures is gaining momentum, Attias said.

“We are looking at public versus privately owned Confederate symbols, and how people have the freedom of speech to speak their minds — whether it is with a flag or a symbol,” he said. “The question is, should the state and the public be funding and maintaining any of these [monuments]?”

The lecture, one in a series, was sponsored by the Department of Communication Studies. Journalism student Blanca Palacios, who attended the lecture, said what she learned about the number of Confederate statues still standing was disheartening.

“The statues [being] up still is definitely overwhelming,” Palacios said. “Just the fact that people can still think that way and still have that opinion.”

Attias also went into detail about schools and parks that are named after Confederate leaders, and petitions to rename these public institutions. He noted the example of a school in Long Beach, Calif., renamed in 2016 from Robert E. Lee to Olivia Herrera Elementary, after the founder of Centro Shalom who passed away in 2002. Centro Shalom provides assistance to poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the Long Beach area.

Attias also showed news clips of President Donald Trump talking about the events at Charlottesville, a VICE news reporter interviewing a white supremacist and visuals of statues being pulled down by protesters.

During the lecture, participants raised the topic of controversial speakers coming to college campuses. Attias recommended that in those cases, students divert attention by creating an event on campus to bring students together.

“We need to come up with more creative ways to reshape the debate,” he said. “One of the things that I’ve heard is to ignore them. They’re coming to campus? OK, let’s create an alternative event and have everyone come to ours instead.”

Attias closed the lecture by discussing the appropriate rhetoric to look at Civil War monuments and fostering open discussion. He said that reframing the debate pulls the rug out from under white suprematists, whereas fighting them directly (especially in a violent manner) gives them exactly the attention they want and feeds their image of themselves as oppressed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

California State University, Northridge’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library and the Bonita J. Campbell Women in Science and Engineering Endowment — an organization that encourages women to build careers in the fields of science and engineering — invites the public to a one-time screening documentary about female technology entrepreneurs.

California State University, Northridge’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library and the Bonita J. Campbell Women in Science and Engineering Endowment will be hosting a screening of the film “She Started It,” in the library’s Ferman Presentation Room. Photo by Ruth Saravia.

The screening of the film “She Started It” will begin at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 4, in the library’s Ferman Presentation Room, located at the center of campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. The film is free to students and the public.

Less than 18 percent of women are in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce. Even though more than half of college-educated women receive their bachelor’s degrees in the biological sciences, less than 20 percent receive their degree in computer science and engineering.

“Women bring a different set of skills to the business and industry environment,” said Carolyn Casavan, an entrepreneur engineer. “The problem is there is no metric to measure and value the qualities that they bring.”

The documentary follows five young women over the course of two years as they travel from San Francisco to Mississippi and France to Vietnam to pitch to venture capital entrepreneurs, build teams, bring products to market, fail and start over. The film also features perspectives from the first female engineer at Facebook, Ruchi Sanghvi; White House Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith; GoldieBlox CEO Debbie Sterling; and investor Joanne Wilson.

“Women are very good at systems thinking — the architecture of systems,” said Casavan. “They collaborate well, which leads to better product design.”

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Casavan, CSUN biochemistry professors Karin Crowhurst and Paula Fischhaber and University of Southern California media arts and practice professor Tania Mulry.

To RSVP for the event please visit the library’s events and exhibitions website.

The Oviatt Library serves as the main research facility in the San Fernando Valley. For more information on the Oviatt Library please visit the library website or call (818) 677-2285.

The ninth annual Feria de Educación brought approximately 10,000 people to California State University, Northridge on Sept. 23 to show young Latinos the power of education. The day was filled with workshops, a reading garden, information booths and live acts from the stage in front of the Delmar T. Oviatt Library.

The event’s main hallmarks, however, were hope and inspiration — by demonstrating the power and accessibility of education.

“Today, families and students of all ages will have the opportunity to learn more about the resources, career paths and futures made possible through education,” said CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison, during the event’s opening ceremony. “CSUN is proud to educate and empower students from throughout Southern California. I hope that the Feria is the start for many successful educational journeys.”

For Mirna Villanueva, this year’s Feria de Educación served a dual purpose. When she became pregnant with her son, Abraham, Villanueva hit pause on her college education to concentrate on motherhood. Now that Abraham has reached fifth grade, Villanueva said she’s set to return to college. She attended this year’s Feria in search of information and inspiration — for her son and herself.

“He’s already big enough to notice what he wants to be when he grows up,” Villanueva said of her son. “I wanted to establish that relationship between school, me and him. I wanted to teach him how if I can do it, anybody can do it.

 “The Feria encouraged him. He said, ‘This is what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be like you. I want to go to school, I want to work hard.’ It encouraged him a lot when I brought him to the Feria, because he saw all the activities. He saw all the things he could do, and all the schools available to him.”

Feria de Educación is a partnership between the California State University (CSU) system and Univision, with CSUN hosting the event for the second year in a row. The day featured workshops and information booths, where attendees could find out more about preparing for college, financial aid, and the higher education programs available in California. An annual highlight of the event came from the Consul General of Mexico, which donated 15,000 books for children of all ages to take home for free.

“There is no tool that is more important than education,” said Adriana Argáiz, Consul for Community Affairs for the Consul General of Mexico for Los Angeles. “Education is the key to the advancement of our community. There is no better place than CSUN to celebrate this magnificent event today.”

Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, CSU assistant vice chancellor for teacher education and public school programs, emphasized the need for people to aspire to become educators.

“Now more than ever we need teachers, counselors and school leaders to teach and inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists, artists, politicians and teachers,” Grenot-Scheyer said. “We need strong and diverse educators who are prepared to work with students, teachers and family members to assure that each student is academically prepared to enter college or the workforce upon graduation.”

The opening ceremony featured a series of special presentations, as four young people received scholarships presented by Wells Fargo, one of the event sponsors. The first recipient was Izzy Argueta, a CSUN freshman majoring in civil engineering. Argueta was born in El Salvador and came to the United States at the age of 5.

Argueta is a recent graduate of Canoga Park High School and is a member of the university’s Bridge to the Future program, which gives scholars like Argueta financial assistance and mentorship on the path to graduation.

“I’m honored because one of the things I take to heart is my education,” Argueta said. “I’m glad I get to be an advocate for these kinds of things, and I hope more people from the Latino community can take advantage of these opportunities.”

 Another Wells Fargo scholarship recipient, Jonathan Salcedo, is also a Canoga Park High School graduate — currently attending Pierce College. He’s earmarked the funds for next fall, when he plans to transfer to CSUN and major in computer engineering. He’s already planning to attend graduate school and possibly explore entrepreneurial opportunities in the future.

“This scholarship is really going to help me out a lot,” Salcedo said. “I was really surprised. I did not know there were so many scholarships. It opened my eyes to find more scholarships to continue my education.”

Enlightening young people about those very opportunities is the principal goal of Feria de Educación. With the Latino population continuing to grow, the future will be even brighter for those who complete four-year and advanced degrees. This booming population inspired Univision to partner with the CSU to launch the event nearly a decade ago.

“It’s our mission to empower, help and inspire our community to not only get their bachelor’s degrees, but also master’s and doctorate degrees,” said Gabriela Tessier, an anchor for the Univision morning news show A Primera Hora. “We know very well to not only dedicate our efforts at the college level. We have to start in preschool.”

Villanueva praised the outreach for younger children at the Feria de Educación. Many young participants donned “when I grow up” costumes: doctors, firefighters and many other professions that reflected their dreams.

“It’s very nice how Feria encourages the kids from an early stage to come up and know the different criteria and options that they have available to them, from when they’re small to when they’re adults,” Villanueva said. “I love it because it not only encourages me, but it encourages my son to work hard from an early age.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CSUN has received national honors for its ongoing efforts to create a diverse and inclusive campus. Photo by Lee Choo.

California State University, Northridge’s ongoing efforts to cultivate a diverse and inclusive campus community are earning national recognition from two organizations dedicated to supporting and celebrating diversity.

Insight into Diversity, the nation’s oldest and largest diversity publication in higher education, has given CSUN its Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award, which recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Minority Access, a nonprofit committed to increasing diversity, is honoring the university this month at its National Role Models Conference as an institution committed to diversity for 2017. The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings also recently placed CSUN as second in the nation for diversity.

Susan Hua, CSUN’s interim chief diversity officer, said the­ honors recognize the university’s commitment to ensuring that everyone on campus — students, faculty and staff — feel welcomed, valued and supported.

“Such recognition also signals to members of our campus community that diversity is not to be taken for granted, as it requires intentional efforts to build equity for all — at all levels of the university,” Hua said. “We are lucky to have such a diverse student population. Sustaining an inclusive environment and preserving diversity means we must continue our trajectory of mindfulness around issues of inclusion and intersectional identities.

“Our campus climate invites innovation and provides the community the empowerment to make change,” she continued. “Creating a truly inclusive environment takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen unless everyone, from the top of the institution to those on the ground, is invested in seeing it happen.”

In his email to Hua notifying her of the Minority Access honor, Mason Monroe, director of the organization’s National Diversity & Inclusion Internship Program, said CSUN was being recognized for its current commitment to diversity.

Lenore Pearlstein, co-publisher of Insight into Diversity, said the HEED Award process consists of a comprehensive and rigorous application that includes questions relating to the recruitment and retention of students and employees — and best practices for both — continued leadership support for diversity, and other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion.

“We take a holistic approach to reviewing applications in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient,” Pearlstein said. “Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being accomplished every day across their campuses.”

This is the second year in a row that CSUN has received a HEED Award.

Hua said the CSUN campus community as a whole continues to embrace the belief that inclusivity is a key contributor to the campus’s success and the success of its students and alumni.

“We continually seek opportunities to celebrate diversity and to forge pathways for access and cross-divisional collaboration in support of inclusion,” she said. “The depth of CSUN’s diversity is reflected in the lived experiences, talents and contributions of our nearly 40,000 students and more than 4,000 employees. Our collective commitment to diversity includes recognition of the critical conversations and efforts which transcend compliance toward a genuine action plan for what our notion of institutional excellence is.”

Hua said university-wide policies, programming and open dialogue encourage an environment in which diversity is championed as a “fundamental catalyst for innovation, creativity and excellence in research and teaching at CSUN.”

Toward that end, university officials involve students in research, community-service learning, internships, capstone and culminating projects that occur throughout the students’ time on campus. Concerted efforts also are made to hire and retain a diverse faculty and staff.

“The result of these diversity initiatives has been a more focused, sustained effort toward curricular and co-curricular redesign, broadened pools of applicants and pipelines to education, and a robust support network for individuals from traditionally underserved groups,” Hua said.

California State University, Northridge’s Office of Research and Graduate Studies invites students of all majors to participate in the campus’ first-ever DataJam, a competition that encourages graduate and undergraduate students across disciplines to manipulate, analyze and visualize data through an innovative lens.

The birth and development of the new DataJam competition for CSUN students grew out of the work of Crist Khachikian, associate vice president of research and graduate studies, and a committee of staff and faculty across multiple departments on campus, including Information Technology, Psychology, Management and the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, according to Sherrie Hixon, director of strategic research initiatives and innovations for the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

“This event was a result of a number of faculty who see the value of data science,” Hixon said. “There are numerous opportunities to help our students learn more about the careers and options available in data science. It’s such an exploding field.”

Data science is an interdisciplinary field dealing with scientific methods, processes and systems in which humans extract knowledge or insights from data in various forms — whether it’s quantitative (dealing with numbers and other quantities) or qualitative (dealing with immeasurable qualities, such as feeling and color).

Staff and faculty launched the new contest, dubbed DataJam, with a kickoff event Sept. 29 featuring speaker Ben Welsh, editor of the Data Desk at the Los Angeles Times. Welsh oversees a team of reporters and computer programmers in the newsroom that works to collect, organize, analyze and present large amounts of information. At the CSUN event, Welsh spoke to students about the value of data in journalism and at the Times.

“Data is really a storytelling tool,” Welsh said. “Different people use it to further an agenda, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — it’s just the way the world works. Data truly offers several different stories to tell.

“At the [Times], we use databases to write stories, but we also turn news stories into databases that we can use later,” he added. Projects that Welsh has contributed to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Library of Congress’ Innovation Award and numerous other prizes for investigative reporting, digital design and online journalism.

Professor of management Wayne Smith played a key role in launching the event. Smith explained why data science is important for students.

“Data science is using data to answer any question,” Smith said. “You didn’t wear a FitBit before, but you wear a FitBit now. What is a FitBit? It’s really just a sensor that collects data about you. The Apple Watch collects data. Your cell phone collects data. There is nothing in our world that is making it so there is less data.”

Computer engineering student Seyed Sajjadi enthusiastically embraced and helped start the new contest on campus. Sajjadi served as team captain of the Mean Squares ━ a CSUN student team of five that won the 2017 American Statistical Association DataFest at Chapman University.

Sajjadi, who spent the summer at the California Institute of Technology on a three-month fellowship, said he wanted to start DataJam on campus to “cultivate data-driven industry and decision-making processes. Project management teams always have analytics, so it’s good to bring that industry [training for students].”

DataJam will run for six weeks and feature workshops and celebrations through October and early November. Events include:

• A series of workshops tackling different topics of data science, the first three Fridays in October (Oct. 6, 13, 20), 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Oviatt Library Ferman Presentation Room.
• Data Science Day – 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Oct. 27 in the Oviatt Library Ferman Presentation Room.
• Competition Day – 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Nov. 3 in the University Student Union, Thousand Oaks Room.

For more information about DataJam, please visit their website.

The California Association of African-American Superintendents and Administrators (CAAASA) recognized California State University, Northridge President Dianne F. Harrison at its Annual Round-Up of California Educational Organizations in Long Beach on Sept. 30 for “excellent work in support and advocacy of training programs and professional development of teachers.”

Harrison addressed those gathered for the event and openly thanked CAAASA for its work in championing the efforts of African-American students throughout the state.

“The challenges many students face are daunting, but we in education have the preparation and understanding to help elevate our students so that they can be personally and professionally fulfilled and engaged,” Harrison said. “I am honored to be with all the organizations here today that have had a part in advancing this goal that is so incredibly heartening and inspiring.”

In addition to Harrison, CAASA recognized National Urban Alliance (NUA) for Effective Education President Eric Cooper, Learning Policy Institute President Linda Darling-Hammond and California State University, Dominguez Hills President William Hagan. The efforts of Cooper and the NUA, with whom CSUN has partnered with in the past, are of particular importance to the overall national goal of diminishing the educational gap between white and African-American students by embracing race and culture for all students, including those in other underrepresented groups. The use of these teaching and learning approaches have proven successful in other cities across the country, and are making an impact in California.

CSUN has been a leader in ensuring that educators are prepared to help young people of all backgrounds thrive during their K-12 years so that they can be prepared to pursue higher education. Harrison noted the efforts of CSUN faculty, including their work with Project Grad, which develops curriculum change, mentoring and advisement opportunities, providing academic support to promote academic success for African-American and other students.

Harrison also pointed out the work on CSUN’s campus and its Matadors Rising campaign, which is promoting efforts to eliminate opportunity gaps and to help CSUN students reach graduation in a timely manner.

“In the classroom, to achieve our goal of greater equity in course outcomes for all students, we are committed to teaching and reaching all students of color with an eye toward eradicating existing opportunity gaps,” Harrison said. “I am pleased to continue our relationship and work toward deepening our partnership — with colleagues from our sister campus CSU Dominguez Hills, CAAASA and the Learning Policy Institute — to make an even bigger difference.”

California State University, Northridge, a longtime leader in preparing K-12 teachers and administrators, is not new to the fight to boost college readiness and accessibility for Los Angeles teenagers.

This fall, CSUN faculty and their community partners are taking the fight to a local school. As their proving ground, the professors and leaders selected San Fernando High School, one of the largest comprehensive public high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, as a demonstration site for expanded teacher training, college counseling and parent workshops.

The effort is a partnership between CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education, San Fernando High leadership and Project GRAD Los Angeles, a locally based nonprofit that works to foster greater education equity. The three entities have a long, successful history of collaboration dating back to 1999, when Project GRAD first partnered with San Fernando High School. Most recently, the three were instrumental in launching the Transition to College Math and Statistics program, which addresses college math remediation and was developed by Katherine Stevenson, math professor and director of Developmental Mathematics at CSUN.

The demonstration site collaboration is the largest ever attempted between a university and high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). CSUN leaders said they picked San Fernando High School to show what’s possible at a large, diverse public high school — in hopes that LAUSD and other districts will replicate the model.

It certainly didn’t hurt that many San Fernando faculty and staff were CSUN education alumni — including Principal Flora Mendoza-Werner.

On Sept. 19, more than a dozen CSUN faculty, Project GRAD’s entire staff of 24 advisors and administrators, and more than 100 San Fernando teachers met to celebrate the partnership’s rollout, with presentations and networking. The event felt like a big reunion, as Matador alumni — now San Fernando administrators and department chairs — reunited with their own teachers, from college and even childhood days.

“The seed for this partnership idea was planted many years ago,” said Mendoza-Werner ’00 (Teaching Credential). “Now we actually get to have this amazing partnership with this institution, CSUN, where most of the teachers in the San Fernando Valley get their teaching credential.

“You know, it was my wonderful teachers who inspired my path to become an educator,” she told the crowd. “And two of those teachers were Mr. [Ivan] Cheng and Mr. [Bob] Buck, who were my math teachers at Maclay Junior High School — and they are both here today to teach us!”

Cheng ’00 (M.A., Secondary Education), a San Fernando alumnus, is now a professor of secondary education at CSUN. Buck ’73 (Teaching Credential) started as a student teacher at San Fernando in 1972 and stayed in the community, teaching and serving as principal at Maclay (now a middle school). He works as a consultant for CSUN’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

“It’s not just your students who come to Cal State Northridge, but so many of you are Matadors as well,” Wendy Murawski, executive director and Eisner Endowed Chair of the Center for Teaching and Learning, told the high school faculty at the kickoff. “So we feel like there’s a natural collaboration.

“We intend to have CSUN students come here to tutor and for other activities, and [San Fernando] students will go to CSUN,” for enrichment opportunities, said Murawski, who will direct the partnership project. “And for teachers, we want to offer our areas of expertise for professional development — for the topics your faculty want.”

Key professional development topics for teachers will include academic discourse, and best practices for instructing English-language learners and students with special needs. Eisner College faculty envision a three-year timeline for this project, and they hope with funding to expand it, Murawski said.

Established in 1896, San Fernando is one of the oldest high schools in the LA area. With about 2,000 students, it’s a Title I school, which means more than half the student population is low-income, making the school eligible for additional federal funding.

“Many San Fernando High School graduates are or will be first-generation [college students],” Mendoza-Werner said. “So, this partnership with CSUN and Project GRAD will address three significant barriers to successful post-secondary education: One is academic preparation — ensuring students enter post-secondary work academically prepared and ready for regular coursework. Two: complexity, which means deepening the level of help extended to students and families in order to navigate the application process. And three: affordability, which refers to expanding assistance and resources to students and families.

“What’s being done here isn’t just a great partnership,” she added. “It’s about changing lives.”

The CSUN-Project GRAD partnership aims to build a two-way pipeline — between high school teachers and university professors — to help create a “college-going culture for all LA high school students,” said Project GRAD Los Angeles President and CEO Ford Roosevelt.

“Deeper partnerships with schools will be required to make a lasting change that will impact many more students in the future,” Roosevelt said. “We wanted to do something deeper and broader at one school, as a model for others.”

Project GRAD provides college advising on site at the high school, “college experience” visits to campuses (including CSUN) and transcript and application analysis for ninth through 11th graders, among other support.

“Often, the students are trying to figure out how to talk to their families about college,” said Natalie Frausto, a site manager at San Fernando who runs family outreach for Project GRAD.

Shari Tarver-Behring, interim dean of the Eisner College, was on hand to help kick off the San Fernando High partnership, along with Dwayne Cantrell, CSUN assistant vice president for student services. Cantrell will help direct tutoring and other volunteering opportunities for CSUN undergraduates at San Fernando.

For more information about CSUN’s Center for Teaching and Learning, visit http://www.csun.edu/center-teaching-learning.

No matter how hard she and her mother dreamed it, going to college in the United States was never a reality for Eloisa Varela. Nonetheless, Varela’s mother, Maria, was determined to ensure her daughter received a college education and planned to send Varela to a university in Mexico.

That all changed when Varela applied for and was accepted to a program called Bridge to the Future Scholars Program (B2F). B2F supports up to 25 high school graduates per year with a four-year, tuition-free CSUN education. Once at CSUN,  B2F students receive all the services and support needed to successfully complete their bachelor’s degree at CSUN.

“I dreamed that my girl would go to college, but we had so many obstacles, especially financially,” Varela’s mother said in Spanish. “Then this opportunity presented itself and I was so happy. My dream has come true.”

Varela excelled in high school, achieving a 3.5 GPA and volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley, but her opportunities were limited because of her immigration status. As an undocumented student, Varela was ineligible to receive federal financial aid, so she sought other ways to attain an affordable education in the U.S.

“When I found out that I had gotten into the B2F program, I felt hope,” Varela said. “I also felt blessed that I was going to have the wonderful B2F team pushing me to do my best as well as my classmates, who always motivate each other.”

David Boyns, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing, said B2F was the brainchild of the CSUN Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing and the Institute’s initiative Neighborhood Partners in Action (NPA), a program directed by theatre lecturer Dough Kaback and committed to assisting communities in the West Valley in identifying their needs as a community.

“CSUN faculty visited nonprofit organizations and schools, talked to community leaders, and mapped out the neighborhood’s assets and social challenges,” Boyns said. “This campaign revealed, unsurprisingly, that financial issues were a huge factor in a student’s decision of whether or not to attend college.”

The goal of B2F, according to Boyns, is to develop stronger relationships between CSUN and the community, and show parents and students that through B2F, obtaining a degree from CSUN is not only affordable, but also realistic.

Since B2F is a scholar’s program and not a scholarship, the program doesn’t only offer students tuition-free attendance, but also has initiatives in place to empower and help them graduate, Boyns said. These initiatives include peer mentoring and support activities to ensure students’ academic success.

Costs of operating B2F are seeded by external grant funding and the program is managed under the CSUN Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing. In 2016, B2F received a Collaborative Opportunity Grant (with Boyns and Kaback as co-Principal Investigators) from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, an organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing the work of public universities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. This grant provides support for B2F staff and its general operating expenses, Boyns said.

For more information, or to apply, please email b2f@csun.edu or visit http://www.csun.edu/bridge-to-the-future.

The 2014 California State University Sustainability Policy set the goal for reduction of landfill waste produced on each of the 23 CSU campuses to be decreased by 80 percent by 2020. The long-term goal is to turn campuses into zero-waste facilities, which means that 90 to 95 percent of the material leaving the campus can be recycled or reused.

California State University, Northridge is actively working to reach that goal. The current focus is on the transformation of the Sierra Center into a zero-waste facility.

“The Sierra Center is the perfect opportunity for us to learn on a smaller scale,” said Austin Eriksson, director of energy and sustainability for Facilities Planning, Design and Construction. “If we can prove the concept at the Sierra Center, we can use it as a model to implement on the rest of the campus.”

Waste reduction efforts at the Sierra Center began with the on-site dining facilities’ composting of coffee grounds and eggshells, said Tim Killops, associate director for Facilities and Operations at The University Corporation.

“Now, everything that comes out of the Sierra Center’s kitchens is either compostable or recyclable,” he said. The only exception would be plastic wrappers of industrially packed food, such as candy wrappers.

At the campus’ own composting site, operated by the Institute for Sustainability, pre-consumer food waste such as vegetable cuttings are turned into soil to be used in the campus gardens.

“We have been pretty successful in sourcing products that can be recycled completely,” Killops said.

The Sierra Center zero-waste project is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of the Spring 2018 semester.

“Little pieces still need to come together,” Killops said. “We already have a paper recycling program and we recycle bottles and cans. Mostly, what’s left is to set up source separation bins.”

The installation of multiple trash cans grouped together as “source separation stations” is the key concept of the project. The bins will be arranged in groups of three, one container for each type of waste: landfill, recycling and organics. Pictures on each container will guide consumers on how to correctly drop trash. The intention is to make it as convenient and logical as possible, Killops said.

“The existing outside trash containers are not covered,” Killops said. “Rainwater could leak through, go to storm drains and contaminate water. Once the ordered lids for each bin are delivered, the containers will be set up accordingly.”

To implement the project successfully, a change in culture on how to throw away trash will be needed, Killops said.

“We’re also planning to cooperate with sustainability students,” Killops said. “They can help to educate people on where their trash goes, if they aren’t sure about the correct bin. We want people to take a bit more effort and throw away their trash in the right container. We want everyone to participate.”

The long-term goal is a unified program across campus. “At the moment, we’re evaluating our present resources, finding out what is needed and calculating costs,” Eriksson said. “We have to look at all the different entities on campus and track what type of waste they generate.” Campus entities included in the zero-waste plan are The University Corporation, Associated Students, University Student Union, Student Housing and Campus Operations.

Reaching the final goal of zero waste is a challenge. “It’s more than just trash cans; it starts when a product is purchased to be used on campus,” Eriksson said.

To track CSUN’s diversion rate, every single bin is weighed, tracked and sorted. “We’re working with the same waste hauler for the whole campus, allowing us to learn about our consumption easily,” Eriksson said. “So far, the changes implemented have tripled CSUN’s diversion rate, which is now around 59 percent.

“It is a big change for the university in general,” Eriksson said. “We’re pretty excited about our achievements so far and where this will take the campus in the future.”

A college degree, whether earned at a two-year or a four-year institution of higher learning, opens the doors to career opportunities and provides employers with a skilled workforce that can help propel a company into success.

California State University, Northridge is partnering with the three San Fernando Valley community colleges — Mission, Pierce and Valley — to help CSUN transfer students complete their associate’s degrees while providing them with support to earn a bachelor’s degree. The project, called “Reverse Transfer,” is funded in part by a $1.3 million grant from the Lumina Foundation and the California Community College system, and is a collaborative effort with UNITE LA, an arm of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

Elizabeth Adams, CSUN’s associate vice president for student success, noted that employers have just as much invested in the success of the area’s college students as its institutions of higher education.

“Getting a degree is important, and associate’s degrees are important,” Adams said. “We have a tendency of treating associate’s degrees as if they don’t mean anything, but they make a difference to an employer when considering job applicants. For one thing, they demonstrate a persistence in completing something, and the requirements for associate’s degrees cover a breadth of general education classes that provide the foundational skills all college graduates should have.”

The completed associate’s degree will hopefully demonstrate to the transfer students that they have the ability to earn their bachelor’s degrees as well, said Tami Abourezk, CSUN’s assistant vice president of undergraduate programs, who is working with Adams on the project.

The Lumina Foundation, whose mission is to expand student access to and succedd in education beyond high school, designated 17 sites nationwide — called Talent Hubs — in which it is funding coordinated projects between colleges, universities and nonprofits to find nontraditional ways of helping students earn their degrees.

The Los Angeles effort is centered around an innovative approach of retroactively awarding associate’s degrees to students who dropped out of CSUN after transferring from a community college.

Adams said the project will initially focus on students who have transferred to the university from one of the three community colleges and are struggling academically at CSUN or who took the wrong pre-requisite courses while at community college for their intended major at CSUN.

“We are taking those students and referring them back to the community college they came from to do the prerequisites they need to do, but, in addition, the community college will give them credit for any CSUN work they have done so that they can qualify for an associate’s degree,” Adams said. “We want to give students credit for work they have done. There are a lot of students who come here without having completed their associate’s degree, do a semester here and then could very easily get the associate’s degree.”

As part of the effort, CSUN officials also will reach out to transfer students who have dropped out of the university and encourage them to get their associate’s degrees. They have  identified nearly 800 transfer students who dropped out between 2014 and 2016.

CSUN officials, including graduate students in the university’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education, are reaching out to those students to see if any of the classes they took at CSUN would apply toward their associate’s degrees, and re-connecting them with their community colleges if that is what they need.

The identified students also are provided with support to help them navigate CSUN, if they chose to return to the university to complete their bachelor’s degrees. CSUN officials are hoping that once back on campus, the students will complete their bachelor’s degrees within two years.

Throughout the project, CSUN and community college officials are working closely together to ensure the transfer students have what they need to complete their educational goals.

Abourezk pointed out that many of the students are first-generation college students struggling to juggle work and home obligations, along with their studies.

“It’s already hard enough, but if you’re a first-generation student and you think you have to do this all on your own, it can be intimidating,” she said.

“One of the huge benefits to this project is the connection the students will have to this campus and the community college they came from,” she continued. “The students will know that they will have someone, at either campus, who is there to help them achieve their educational goals.”

Adams and Abourezk said they hope to eventually expand the project to include all transfer students, not just those who are struggling or have dropped out of CSUN.

“Eventually, what we want to do is take students who have transferred here from the community colleges and are taking classes, and transfer some of the credit back to give them that associate’s degree,” Adams said. “It’s incredibly empowering to know that you’ve completed one degree. Completing a bachelor’s and even graduate degrees will seem possible after that.”