Students and faculty poured into the Northridge Center in the University Student Union on Oct. 25 for a full day of engaging presentations at California State University, Northridge’s annual Sustainability Day. The CSUN Institute for Sustainability hosted the day of free activities focused on the issue of food justice and the event’s theme, World Food Day.

CSUN psychology professor and Interim Director of the Institute for Sustainability Erica Wohldmann led the all-day program, which kicked off with informative presentations by guest speakers Kathleen Blakistone, co-creator of Moonwater Farm, located in Compton, CA and Clare Fox, executive director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council.

Moonwater Farm is an urban microfarm in Compton designed to provide youth and residents of South Los Angeles with opportunities to explore modern urban agriculture. In her keynote address, Blakistone discussed regenerative urban farming, which is an approach to farming that contributes to the health of the overall community ecosystem that replenishes the land as it is being used, resulting to a better food supply. Blakistone also discussed the issues of ffood insecurity, obesity and social factors that affect community members’ general health.

“A family of four making $70,000 in Los Angeles can be [considered] food insecure, because it is so expensive to live here now,” said Blakistone. “This is a profound issue for this generation … It is something we need to put our attention to.”

Moonwater Farm encourages young visitors, staff and local residents to embark on a unique experience by “escaping” the city through a range of outdoor-based activities. The farm combines farming and gardening activities with educational field trips, plant-based cooking classes and creative arts activities.

“Food security not only includes the availability of safe and nutritious foods, but the ability to acquire acceptable foods,” Blakistone said. “Big agriculture has been designed to make food a commodity and in my opinion, that is contributing to the lack of our good health.”

Clare Fox, executive director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, was up next with a presentation on “Good Food For Everyone.” With the food policy council, Fox collaborates with a large network of ​​government agencies, nonprofits and community leaders to create policy and system changes for a sustainable and fair food system. Former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa established the food policy council in January 2011.

“Food touches our lives in so many ways,” said Fox. “We think about the food that is available on campus, we think about the food that is available in our communities, we think about the way that food impacts our health and economy.”

A native Angeleno, Fox noted that she grew up in Van Nuys and her mother earned a degree from CSUN. In her work and with the food policy council, she said, Fox is working toward food justice and providing nutritional options for communities throughout Los Angeles County deemed “food deserts.”

CSUN student Bridget Fornaro, journalism and public relations major, attended Sustainability Day to learn more about ways she can help conserve and contribute to sustainability efforts on campus and in the community, she said. Before switching to journalism, Fornaro said, she began her college journey as an environmental science major.

“Coming from an environmental science background, it was easy for me to follow what was being presented today,” said Fornaro. “I really liked the community outreach that [Blackistone] talked about and getting members of the communities in South Los Angeles involved. I loved hearing that she wants to educate the youth and help them learn how to cook a health-based diet.”

CSUN has made great strides in sustainability efforts in recent years, especially in promoting healthier eating on campus and beyond. In 2015, Associated Students launched a weekly Farmers Market, and faculty and students working with the Institute for Sustainability operate a composting program that converts 100 percent of kitchen scraps from all CSUN managed dining facilities into soil for our food gardens. The student-led Food Recovery Network collects and donates edible food waste at the end of each business day to local and campus-based organizations that feed people in need

The Princeton Review featured CSUN in their seventh annual “Green Guide” and rated CSUN a score of 95 out of 99 for the university’s sustainability in higher education in 2017. In the following day after Sustainability Day, Oct. 26, CSUN celebrated the opening of AS Sustainability Center, the first of its kind in the CSU system, adjacent to the University Student Union.

CSUN composting efforts converted more than 50,000 pounds of kitchen scraps into 12,000 pounds of soil, which was recycled and used in the campus Sustainability Food Garden in 2016, according to Wohldmann, who founded the garden. The garden and compost area are located on the northeast side of the campus, between the baseball and softball fields, directly behind Northridge Academy High School.

After the Sustainability Day guest speakers’ presentations, Wohldmann led students and faculty out of the Northridge Center and around the campus for a walking tour that highlighted the many edible and medicinal plants growing all around us. Wohldmann holds a joint Ph.D. in psychology and cognitive science, and her research focuses on the psychology of food and the food choices people make.

She started the tour by sharing her experience of living in the forest for six months, living only off the foods she could find in the wild. On a recent sabbatical, Wohldmann traveled through the western U.S. to understand how a deeper connection with nature and food impacts our worldview.

“We live in a world where our value is measured by how much we consume — how much stuff we buy — and this view is neither healthy nor sustainable,” she said. Many of the edible plants growing around us can’t be found in stores, but they’re quite safe, she said.

“I’m not encouraging you to go foraging on campus,” Wohldmann said. “But grow your own food.”

Among the things tour participants learned was that all roses are edible, “but only the ones that smell good are delicious,” Wohldmann quipped. She also noted that one of the most common weeds on campus lawns, the broadleaf plantain, has a high content of antimicrobial properties and is great for medicinal purposes.

The tour made several stops, where Wohldmann pointed out a variety of different plants that were edible or had some medicinal use.

“I’ve traveled to all continents except Antarctica, and I’ve found these plants in all of these places,” Wohldmann said. Tour participants left with encouraging words from Wohldmann to keep learning about plants.

“Once you learn about what plants are edible, you never have to worry about running out of food!” she said.

Sustainability Day also featured a screening of Just Eat It, a documentary about food waste and food rescue, and an afternoon presentation by Gina K. Thornburg, community activist and scholar of alternative food systems. CSUN’s Marilyn Magaram Center for Food Science, Nutrition and Dietetics also hosted a cooking demonstration, showing attendees how to make healthy meals with ingredients sourced from the CSUN Wellness Garden.

To get involved with CSUN’s sustainability efforts, please visit the CSUN Institute for Sustainability website. To learn more about Moonwater Farm, visit moonwaterfarm.net. To learn more about The Los Angeles Food Policy Council, please visit goodfoodla.org.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The California State University, Northridge Department of Art and Department of English have combined creative forces to give students a unique exhibition opportunity.

Twenty-seven graduate students (19 in creative writing and eight in visual arts) will present their “call-and-response” project, in a new gallery exhibit in the CSUN West Gallery this month. The exhibition, (Re)composition: A Call and Response between Artists and Writers, will be on display Nov. 13-16, showcasing creative writings and visual art, including paintings, drawings, photographs and ceramics. An artist reception will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 14. The event includes a reading of displayed texts in the CSUN Main Gallery, from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

The call-and-response project required the graduate student artists to react to one another’s work. The writers wrote poems, short fiction, dramatic monologues as well as plays, and the visual arts students created works based on those texts — “the structure of the work, a specific image, a word or a phrase,” said Michelle Rozic, visual arts coordinator and associate professor in the Department of Art. “The students had to respect the integrity of the work they were responding to, and at the same time, they had to uphold their own artistic ideas.”

Every student produced at least one “call” and one “response” piece of work.

“We don’t always get the opportunity to collaborate with people, unless we seek it,” said Matt Rose, a visual arts student with a concentration on photography.“This was a great way to push ourselves into a new direction, explore a different way of creation and engage with other people.”

Hedy Torres, a visual arts student with a concentration on drawing, said she immediately related to the writing sample she was assigned.

“The story was about a girl who came to the United States as an immigrant,” Torres said. “This topic is very relevant to me, because I am an immigrant myself from Mexico. I came here in 2006 and I was in the same position.”

Torres responded to the text with a drawing of a little girl standing at a border, looking at the other side and the land beyond.

David Hendrickson, a visual arts student with an emphasis on painting, said he tried to create interpretative images.

“I removed the individuals’ faces to keep my painting open for any writing ideas,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be too specific.”

Creative writing student Sahag Gureghian said he enjoyed the freedom of responding to a photograph.

“There’s so much that could be explored with that one picture,” Gureghian said. “Two other writers responded to it in completely different ways, proving we all see things differently and are unique as artists and creators.”

English professors Michelle Rozic and Leilani Hall arranged the collaboration between the Art 691A course and the English 652 class.

“We wanted to give students an idea of what it’s like to be a practicing artist,” Rozic said. “The spoken and written word play integral roles in professional work as an artist. It is needed to communicate with curators, to write proposals and to evaluate the success of ideas.”

In addition to the exhibition, the classes created a print publication and a blog that includes pictures of the art pieces and text excerpts.

“The project was an intellectual and creative risk,” Hall said. “What do we do when faced with a visual or written text we may not immediately understand? This exercise made them go beyond that initial uncertainty.”

Another key challenge for both groups was to grapple with their own personal esthetics, Hall said.

“There are pieces we’re drawn to, and some we’re not,” she said. “Both groups had to overcome this reaction and find a way to connect and respond to a piece.”

The CSUN Art Galleries are housed in the Art and Design Center, located on North University Drive. The Main Gallery is open Monday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m., and on Thursdays from noon to 8 p.m. The hours of the West Gallery vary weekly. For more information, please contact the CSUN Art Galleries at artgalleriesinfo@csun.edu or (818) 677-2226.

Jo Anne Pandey’s husband roused her in the middle of the night. At first, she couldn’t believe the bad news he shared.

“My husband found out about the earthquake through Facebook,” said Pandey, a part-time faculty member in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development at California State University, Northridge.

It was April 25, 2015, and a 7.8-magnitude earthquake had just rocked Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, and its surrounding areas. The temblor had killed thousands of people, destroyed homes, schools and infrastructure. Desperate for information, Pandey and her husband, who is Nepalese, turned on their television, while simultaneously trying to contact their family in Kathmandu.

“It was devastating to think of all the temples that had been there for hundreds of years [now being demolished],” Pandey said.

“Living in California and knowing the destructive power of an earthquake, I knew that this magnitude was going to be disastrous,” she continued. Her husband’s family lived right near the epicenter, where aftershocks went on for several months. “My mother-in-law got motion sickness, because there were so many [aftershocks],” Pandey said.

Pandey combined her relation to Nepal and her professional expertise to set up a research project which could be useful in responding to similar situations, helping children to cope with trauma. In the face of recent quakes such as the one on the Iran-Iraq border, her work gains particular relevance.

Pandey visited Nepal for the first time in 1992. She studied abroad for one semester as an undergraduate from Pitzer College in Claremont, studying psychology and anthropology. During her stay, she got to know her future husband.

“I really connected with the culture and learned the language,” Pandey said. “I became interested in going back and in engaging.” After graduation, she returned to Nepal and taught English for a year. During that time, her husband was studying in Nebraska.

When the 2015 earthquake struck, Pandey felt deep concern and compassion for the Nepalese. “I traveled there just a few months after the earthquake and saw the devastation, and how people were living in temporary shelters,” she said. “I knew that we needed to do something.”

Pandey harnessed her teaching experience in Nepal and familiarity with the local education system to reach out and provide help. She contacted the National Center for Educational Development in Nepal and organized a training for Nepalese teachers, educating them on how to help students and colleagues cope with trauma.

“At first, I contacted the Nepalese government to find out about earthquake relief help for children. They told me that schools were handling it,” Pandey said. “To me, it seemed to be a difficult task that was passed on to teachers in that situation.”

Nepalese teachers, as far as she knew, had not received training in mental health issues or the social and emotional development of children, Pandey said. She set up a training program to educate teachers about writing therapy.

“The idea was to find something that would help [children] coping with emotional trauma from the earthquake, but also have strong ties to an academic context,” Pandey said. By writing in a journal about their emotions and feelings, she said, people can relieve stress after traumatic experiences.

She continued her educational work with the Gorkha Foundation, a nonprofit, grassroots organization supporting underprivileged people in Gorkha, Nepal. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the foundation was rebuilding 15 schools and organized a training session with Pandey for the school’s teachers.

“It was very rewarding,” Pandey said. “The teachers told me, ‘We really need this. We never had any idea that we would need this, but as you talk about it, it resonates so much.’”

“People were hiding their feelings, until they were really asked to talk about it,” said Bijaya Devkota, founder and director of the Gorkha Foundation.

Pandey was happy to contribute, but she was not quite satisfied. She wanted to do more, she said.

To expand her training program, Pandey applied for a Community Engagement Interdisciplinary Grant from CSUN’s Office of Community Engagement, which supports faculty members in creating service-learning projects.

Pandey linked the project to her Applied Cognitive Development Class in fall 2016 and, with her CSUN students, created a discussion and activity guide for Nepalese teachers.

“We conducted and compiled research on different developmental ages of children,” Pandey said. The final product was a teacher’s manual on how to support children coping with trauma from natural disasters. A professional translator is currently working on translating the manual into Nepali, and then the Gorkha Foundation will distribute it to teachers in that country.

Taking her research a step further, last spring Pandey applied for the CSUN Research, Scholarship and Creative Award (RSCA), a grant that supports faculty research. She wanted to investigate whether her efforts have been effective. Pandey won the grant and is currently collecting data at three schools in Gorkha. About 200 students from fourth to eighth grade participate in the research.

“The goal is to find out if there is any reduction of psychological issues after engaging in writing therapy,” Pandey said. The project also aims to gather general mental health information about Nepali children and study the long-term mental health effects of significant natural disasters, she said.

“Without research, it is hard to justify what needs to be done,” Devkota said. “The research helps a lot to urge the government to take action.”

“The data could also be very helpful in case of other events like this,” Pandey said, referencing the recent, devastating quakes in Mexico. “I would like to see if the manual and the writing therapy are effective. If so, it would be great if more schools would adopt it.”

For more information about the Gorkha Foundation, please visit their website: http://www.gorkhafoundation.org

Jo Anne Pandey’s children Akash and Harmony started a crowdfunding campaign to support children in Nepal. In August 2016, the project was acknowledged by then-President Obama. For more information, visit http://www.bykids4kidsofnepal.org/

California State University, Northridge students, faculty and community members gathered Nov. 2 to celebrate the reopening of the CSUN Black House, located on Halstead Street in Northridge.

Theresa White, Department of Africana Studies chair; Yi Li, provost and vice president for academic affairs, William Watkins, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, and the Black House coordinators led the ribbon-cutting ceremony with remarks, a toast and a red carpet welcome to officially reopen the home, as visitors anxiously waited.

“There are going to be so many things happening in this house, but of course culture,” said White. “Black culture is one of the most important things we can offer.”

The renovated Black House serves as the headquarters for the university’s Black Student Union (BSU), as well as other CSUN black organizations. The newly renovated 3,000-square-foot facility was originally granted to the students of the BSU, along with the Department of Pan African Studies (now Africana Studies) in 1992. The first CSUN Black House opened in the 1970s as a response to the growing population of black students attending the university, who yearned for a place of community that reflected their culture.

Once inside the remodeled building, students and guests explored the new space and took self-guided tours of the facility. Africana Studies professor David Horne briefly shared the historical evolution and legacy of the Black House, which previously served as a CSUN police station and a shelter to black students after the Northridge earthquake in 1994.

“This has been a place of refuge,” said Horne, the former chair of the Africana Studies Department. “A place that has been a house for discussion and engagement.”

The new Black House features two conference rooms, a film screening room, a fully equipped computer lab, in-house library, backyard garden, tutors and more. The art on display in the Black House, curated by Department of Art graduate students Michelle Nunes and Killan King, is a collection of donated Afrocentric pieces, accompanied by artwork made by CSUN students from various departments, particularly the Art Department. The facility is the result of collaboration and effort from current Matadors and students from past generations.

During the celebration, former CSUN student and poet Kendon Tillis entertained a packed house of guests with original poetry, accompanied by drumming by Curtis Byrd. Following the performance, CSUN students and faculty members danced in the main room to a live DJ, while enjoying free food and refreshments.

White inherited the Black House when she took on the role of department chair in 2016. Prior to that, the home was closed for a year and a half due to poor maintenance and conditions. In May 2017, the organization hosted a “soft opening” event to introduce the home to more students. With support from the provost, vice provost, vice president for student affairs and the Africana Studies Department, the facility was able to reopen in time for the fall 2017 semester.

In fall 2016, White applied for a grant to fund the housing renovations and furniture needed. She hired two new Black House coordinators, Teonna Anderson and Nicole Loy, to assist with the strategic planning and organizing of the event as well as the renovations, which were revealed Nov. 2.

“I am excited for students to come use the Black House and have a space where they feel comfortable,” said Anderson, a business management major.

The new Black House logo, created and donated by Joyclyn Dunham, projects and programs coordinator at the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, was revealed at the reopening. The facility is open to all CSUN students and campus-based organizations. Students are encouraged to use the space for meetings, cultural events and other academic programs.

“We want to be sure that anyone and everyone is welcomed to come into this house,” said White. “We know that [students] are going to create a space. … I am counting on students to make it their own.”

To reserve a room, please obtain a reservation form from Black House coordinators at afrsbh@csun.edu. The CSUN Black House is now hiring for various positions: math, science and technology Tutors; website designer and graphic designer. Students interested in applying can email their resume and cover letter to White at theresa.white@csun.edu

Declaring a major in the humanities — whether philosophy, English, a classical language or cultural studies — often elicits a skeptically raised eyebrow from friends and loved ones, and the suggestion that the only career you’ll be prepared for is as a barista at the local coffee shop.

Scott Kleinman

Research sponsored by the WhatEvery1Says Project, co-directed by California State University, Northridge English professor Scott Kleinman, may provide you with new data to counter those skeptical looks. The WhatEvery1Says Project, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has recently been awarded $1.1 million by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Along with professors Alan Liu and Jeremy Douglass at UC Santa Barbara and professor Lindsay Thomas at the University of Miami, Kleinman will spend the next three years studying how the public views the humanities, and provide those in the field with the tools to counter negative stereotypes.

Kleinman is partnering with the UCSB-based WhatEvery1Says project for this study. The researchers will mine digital media – newspapers, magazines, and blogs – to learn what pundits, politicians, scholars, students, and even the media itself think, say, and write about the humanities.

“The reality is, we don’t know which perceptions predominate, and in what contexts,” said Kleinman.

To find those answers and others, Kleinman and his colleagues will employ “topic modeling” – a method of using sophisticated computer algorithms to search vast digital archives of media — from newspapers and magazines to blogs — for words related to the humanities and liberal arts. The computer sorts the words from these materials into groupings of identifiable topics or themes that the researchers can then analyze for answers to their questions about how the public perceives the humanities or liberal arts.

The research program includes three years of summer research by teams of students and faculty at CSUN and UCSB. Undergraduate and graduate students will assist in collecting and analyzing thousands of documents. In addition, the project will create open protocols and tools for performing humanities research with computers that can analyze large amounts of data. As part of the project, the three-campus team will develop a system that allows researchers to generate their own topic models with an interactive browser for studying their implications. The system will be easily reproducible by other researchers and adaptable for use with other types of data and analytical tools.

The data collected will be used to formulate strategies and narratives to counter the perception that the humanities are irrelevant in today’s tech-driven world.

“There are time-honored narratives such as if you get a degree in the humanities you are going to work at Starbucks,” Kleinman said. “Politicians frequently dismiss the humanities because they can’t see how they contribute to the economy. Those perceptions of the value of the humanities are not born out by the data. But what we need are the tools so we can effectively counter those misconceptions.”

An approach to computational research that draws on the humanities critical tradition is itself a new way to demonstrate how the humanities can address twenty-first century problems. But there is still a need to overcome barriers in communication.

Kleinman pointed out that studies show that in business, employers say they want “critical thinkers, though they may be applying it differently than we do in the humanities. They probably think of critical thinking as ‘problem solving’,” he said, and humanities majors excel at this. “When we just look at a narrow focus — will students who study humanities subjects get jobs? — there is pretty unequivocal evidence that they do”, Kleinman said. “And, over the course of their careers, they prove themselves to be more flexible and more capable of adapting to new employment situations so that they tend to rise to managerial status faster.”

“Critical thinking is one of the cornerstones of the humanities but we often use it in the context of a much broader array of inquiries in the historical, ethical, and imaginative records of human cultures. Because we’re using different words and concepts, we may not realize that we’re talking about the same thing.

“We need to re-think how the humanities are portrayed in the public, and give those of us in the humanities and liberal arts better tools to explain what we do and why it’s important.”

More information about WhatEvery1Says can be found on the project’s website: http://we1s.ucsb.edu.

Following in the footsteps of her grandfather, dad, mom and several other family members, Erin Oxhorn-Gilpin always wanted to be a teacher.

“I come from a family of teachers, so I guess you can say it’s in my genes,” she said.

Oxhorn-Gilpin ’05 (Liberal Studies/Multiple Subject Teaching Credential) started working with children when she was 14. Today, she’s a first- and second-grade teacher (she teaches a “split class,” where two age groups are combined) at Northlake Hills Elementary School in Castaic, north of Los Angeles. This October, state officials named her as one of California’s 2018 Teachers of the Year.

“There are so many great teachers out here who don’t get that recognition. The fact that it happened to me is still kind of surreal,” Oxhorn-Gilpin said.

Oxhorn-Gilpin was born and raised in Granada Hills. In 2002, she transferred to California State University, Northridge from Moorpark College and joined the Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP), which allowed her to graduate with a bachelor’s degree and teaching credential.

ITEP is designed for students who want to pursue a career in elementary education or special education. The program offers subject matter courses leading to a degree in liberal studies, combined with field experience in teaching. Students learn from in-classroom observations and get to apply their teaching skills in a classroom environment.

“She’s joining an elite group of five former teachers of the year from our college,” said Shari Tarver-Behring, interim dean of CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education.

To receive the state honor, Oxhorn-Gilpin had to master several stages of a thorough and difficult application process. She was nominated School Teacher of the Year for the 2016-17 school year by her colleague Allison West. After that, she was selected District Teacher of the Year and then Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year. For the next step, the statewide accolade, Oxhorn-Gilpin had to write several essays, and participate in online and in-person interviews.

“A state committee also came to observe me teaching,” said Oxhorn-Gilpin, recalling one of the most stressful moments during the nomination process. “They called to say that they were moving my late afternoon visit to earlier in the day and that they would be arriving in 30 minutes. But it went great.”

“Erin was thrilled about every step she reached, but also pursued the next level with determination,” said Erin Augusta, principal of Northlake Hills Elementary School.

Out of the five teachers nominated for the state honor, Oxhorn-Gilpin is the only elementary school teacher. She loves working with younger students, and she likes to see their achievements and development into stronger readers and writers, Oxhorn-Gilpin said.

“It’s a gift that I get to work with children, and watch them grow as a person and academically as a student,” she said.

The teacher has been with most of her current students since kindergarten. “I don’t know how to part with some of them, but at some point I will have to say goodbye,” she said. “We spend so much time together. It’s always kind of sad when the school year ends.”

The pride is mutual in her classroom. “One of my girls wrote me a note with flowers on it, saying that I’m the teacher of her dreams,” Oxhorn-Gilpin said. She tells her students that Teacher of the Year is not just her title, but theirs as well. “I tell them they are my Students of the Year, and that I wouldn’t have the title without them,” Oxhorn-Gilpin said. “Everybody is part of the puzzle. A teacher is only as strong as fellow colleagues, administrators, students and the community.”

Oxhorn-Gilpin is active beyond teaching, as well. She’s part of her school’s leadership team, representing the second grade. She also works on the district’s curriculum and serves on the school site council — which consists of the principal, a group of teachers and parents, and meets bi-monthly to discuss school issues. She also mentors new teachers who just started their careers in the classroom.

“Erin is a teacher who never stops learning what’s best for her and her students,” Augusta said. “She also shares her experience with other teachers, mentoring them and helping them grow.”

Oxhorn-Gilpin credited CSUN for the valuable skills she learned about how to be a better teacher.

“The College of Education was incredibly supportive and guided me very well,” Oxhorn-Gilpin said. “When you start teaching, it’s kind of scary, because you’ve never done it before. CSUN taught me how to be a transparent and reflective educator.”

David Kretschmer, interim chair of the Department of Elementary Education, stressed the importance of a good education for teachers. “People think that anyone can teach,” he said. “But it’s not at all easy to get kids engaged, motivated and learning together.”

Oxhorn-Gilpin said she is committed to classroom teaching for the long term. “I love working with kids, so I don’t want to be out of the classroom,” she said. As she teaches her students reading, writing, math, science and social studies, the teacher said she could imagine taking on a specialist position, such as working with struggling students or serving as a reading specialist.

“I don’t ever take for granted that I get to do this job,” Oxhorn-Gilpin said. “When I think of the parents — [their children] are their most prized possession, and I’m helping them grow.”

California State University, Northridge’s commitment to students begins long before enrollment. Realizing that many CSUN students are the first in their family to attend college, university officials work with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and other community partners to assist families in preparing their children for academic success.

On Nov. 15, CSUN welcomed the LAUSD Local District Northwest’s Parent and Community Engagement Unit (PACE), a group of about 150 appointed parent community educators, to an informational event at the University Student Union Grand Salon called “Connect. Shine. Rise.” The event introduced PACE members to CSUN and its educational opportunities, student services and resources. The PACE members could then take this information back to parents at their home campuses, said interim Director of Community Engagement Jeanine M. Mingé, whose office sponsored the event.

PACE members work with the parents of students from local K-12 schools, providing tools and information for families to assist and support their students’ education, and promoting a culture of literacy and high expectations at home and school. Members participate in school events and on committees, and they serve in school parent centers, which provide resources to engage parents in student success, such as offering classes and workshops on topics including college readiness, intellectual/cognitive development and helping kids with homework.

Efforts to prepare students for college have taken on a greater urgency in California, which could face a shortfall of more than 1 million college-educated individuals in the state workforce by 2030, according to studies by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“College preparation starts in kindergarten,” said Dean of Humanities Elizabeth Say. “We want to help prepare those students so they can have careers that are rich and rewarding.”

Attendees heard presentations by CSUN groups that can help students thrive in their college career academically, financially and in extracurricular activities. These included Student Outreach and Recruitment (SOAR), Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP), the Matador Involvement Center, Unified We Serve, the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing, the Institute for Sustainability, and the Financial Aid and Scholarship Department.

A tabling session allowed attendees to further investigate topics such as “What It Means to Be a CSUN Student,” financial aid and scholarships, summer programs, community involvement, and student health and counseling. Student ambassadors and the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing also led group campus tours.

LAUSD education officials who attended included Joseph Nacorda, interim superintendent of Local District Northwest, and LAUSD board members Scott Schmerelson (District 3), Nick Melvoin (District 4) and Kelly Gonez (District 6). Nacorda, Schmerelson and Gonez were among the speakers at the event. Nacorda called the CSUN event an opportunity to ask the right questions about the college experience and to provide students, teachers and families with access to valuable information.

“This is a great opportunity for parent center directors to take a deeper dive into the resources available in our backyard,” Gonez said.

It cost a lot of sleep and time and incited a few nerves, but in the end, all the effort paid off. Six California State University, Northridge students won the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) 2017 “Haunt Couture” award in the “animation” and “people’s choice” categories.

The winning CSUN team in the creative competition was made up of interior design seniors Shadi Ahmadizadeh, Nicole Esper, Ana Leon Martinez and Shahrzad Rabat, and apparel design and merchandising seniors Estefany Gallegos and Maria Juarez.

The students based their design on the fire-breathing Pokémon character Charizard, an orange dragon with blue wings.

“Being original was very important to us. That’s why we picked an animation topic where no costumes existed yet,” said Esper. The students created a “dragon lady” costume, which included the design of a yellow-and-orange dress and big, colorful wings.

“I’m very proud of the students,” said Farrell J. Webb, dean of the College of Health and Human Development. “They did incredibly imaginative and innovative work. It shows that they can not only do fabrics, but can also put together something that has appeal to the fashion world.”

The IIDA is an association for commercial interior design professionals; it runs a campus chapter for student members at CSUN. The annual Haunt Couture is a design competition hosted by the Southern California chapter of IIDA. The idea of the contest is to create outfits with materials used in interior design.

Fourteen teams of professionals and student teams from three schools — CSUN, California State University, Long Beach and College of the Canyons — competed for this year’s awards with the theme, “From Hollywood to Bollywood.” During the show, every team had 90 seconds to present its work on the runway.

“We were up against professionals such as architectural firms, so it was a huge deal,” said CSUN psychology senior Ali Griner, who served as the model presenting the design students’ creation on the runway.

The students started their work at the beginning of the fall semester and didn’t finish until the morning of the competition, Oct. 25.

“We still had so much to do the night before the event,” Esper said. “So we met at Shadi [Ahmadizadeh]’s house and were sewing and glueing everything together on the living room floor.”

“My husband cooked for us, and we didn’t sleep all night,” Ahmadizadeh added.

The morning of the competition, the students were exhausted but ready to show off their creation. With the help of Paula Thomson, professor and dance coordinator in the Department of Kinesiology, they had prepared choreography to music — produced for them by musician Brian “Frawsty” Foster.

“The show needed to contain some element of surprise or transformation, so we included a poké ball that breaks apart to reveal the model,” Esper said.

“The students really wanted to do something they could be proud of,” said Kristin King, assistant professor and coordinator for the interior design option in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. “It was great for us to see how dedicated they were and how they worked together as a team.”

Sponsors 2010 Los Angeles Office Furniture supported the students’ work financially, and Mayer Fabrics donated the materials.

“Ryan Uy from 2010 Los Angeles Office Furniture designed the powerful digital image which served as a background to the performance,” said Rodica Kohn, professor in the interior design option and faculty advisor for the IIDA campus chapter. “And we were extremely lucky to have Terri Burkhart from EPIC Contract Group, who was one of the Haunt Couture event organizers, come to our meetings and inspire our team with her endless energy and optimism.”

To watch video of the students’ runway presentation, visit here.

Students and faculty gathered to attend the Biannual Men and Women of Color Enquiry and Student Research Poster Session on Nov. 17 in the University Student Union’s (USU) Northridge Center at California State University, Northridge.

The Department of Africana Studies and the DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement sponsored the session, which gives undergraduate students of color an opportunity to participate in and present research in a formal educational setting.

The program, themed Black Saga and Regulation: Primer for Black Empowerment, is an ongoing collaboration between Africana studies professor Cedric Hackett, who teaches the course Africana Studies 325: The Black Man in Contemporary Times, and Professor Marquita Gammage, who teaches Africana Studies 324: The Black Woman in Contemporary Times.

“It is important for us to focus on a space where students can unapologetically be who they are and be empowered to continue to grow,” said Hackett.

The free event spotlighted student research relating to the course subjects, which the students worked on collaboratively all semester. Students worked together in groups to create research topics and projects.

CSUN students Elder Guix, Miguel Limon, Zoey Spraglin and Bryant Basilio, who are enrolled in Africana Studies 325, presented their research poster, Do It For The Culture: Migos-Media Informing Great Oppression in Society, which analyzed the mainstream media portrayal of black males and their ongoing battle for social justice in America. The group said their project name was inspired by the popular hip-hop rap trio Migos and their 2017 Grammy-nominated album, Culture.

“From working as a team with my group to learning about a new culture that is part of my community, I have learned new knowledge that will help me in years to come,” said Guix, a mechanical engineering major. “As a future engineer, I know that working in teams is crucial to one’s success, and being well informed and educated [about] different cultures is useful when helping out my community.”

Following the students’ poster sessions, guests enjoyed free refreshments and live music by the CSUN Matador band.

With the biannual sessions, organizers said they hope to provide racial uplift for students and help others gain knowledge and appreciation of black culture from a scholarly perspective. The November session was the 10th session in five years, with the first occurring in 2013.

Keynote speaker and attorney Kyron L. Johnson spoke to students about his own experience overcoming adversity as a first-generation college student without proper support. Johnson, who met and played football alongside Hackett at Ventura Community College, shared with the CSUN students his experience navigating the educational system with no role models.

“Be prepared, be bold. Don’t let fear take you over, and believe that you can do it,” Johnson said. “Utilize professors as a foundation.”

Johnson went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton, and then his Juris Doctor from UOP’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

During the session, CSUN students and alumni of all ethnicities also performed Black Man-ologues, soliloquies addressing common themes in the characters of black men.

For more information about the Men and Women of Color Enquiry session, email Hackett at cedric.hackett@csun.edu.

A celebration in the Center for Achievement in Psychological Science, which opened last fall to support students in CSUN’s Department of Psychology. Photo courtesy of Elise Fenn.

How do we close the graduation gap? How do we ensure students have the resources they need to succeed academically? Those are questions people in higher education — including at California State University, Northridge —  have been grappling with for decades.

In a search for answers, faculty and staff in CSUN’s Department of Psychology asked their graduating students strategic questions about what they thought the department should do. The data department officials received inspired them to find ways to foster a more familial environment that provides academic and peer support as soon as new students step through the department’s doors, whether as freshmen, sophomores or transfer students.

“The key is asking the right questions and using the data to come up with solutions that work for our students,” said assistant professor of psychology Elise Fenn. “Several things emerged from that data, but one of the most important was that we foster a sense of belonging for our students — a sort of family that they trust to offer them guidance when necessary, and that they trust enough to ask for help when they need it.”

Psychology department chair Jill Razani agreed, adding that the department was dedicated to helping its students succeed.

The department’s effort, part of a university-wide initiative, began before the California State University Chancellor’s Office announced earlier this year 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.

A key component of the CSUN effort is the use of data to help meet an individual department’s or college’s needs. University officials contend the raw data can provide insight into which students may be having trouble accessing resources and help faculty identify which students they are not reaching. Recognizing that each student is unique, as are the dynamics within a department and college, university officials encourage faculty and staff to create solutions that fit their specific needs.

The psychology department’s effort to examine the needs of its students began in 2015 with an exit survey of more than 300 graduating students.

“The information provided by the students — such as the need for increased offerings of certain courses and the wider dissemination of student resources — was quite helpful,” Razani said. “Action plans by the department were designed around this feedback.

“The department has been administering the exit survey annually, and plans to continue going forward,” she added.

Additionally, Fenn was tapped by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences to serve as a “data champion” for the university-wide initiative. As part of that effort, department-level faculty members collect and review raw data that can provide insight into which students need more help.

While the Department of Psychology effort started independently of the university-wide initiative, Fenn said her tenure as a data champion offered additional information about opportunity gaps — the average GPA and retention rate — at both the university and college level.

“That was one of the things that motivated me to pursue what we were doing at the department level,” she said.

Armed with information, Fenn said, the department set out to foster a greater sense of belonging and support among its students to help close that gap.

She noted that navigating a college environment is easier for those students for whom going to college is part of their family culture, and who have family members to turn to when they need help. The same is not true for first-generation college students.

“Feeling that you belong and having the knowledge, or a map, for what you need to do when you are in college are critical for a student’s success,” Fenn said.

The department received campus support to open the Center for Achievement in Psychological Science this past fall. It is a place where students can gather, meet with peer mentors, attend workshops or just hang out.

“It’s a physical place where students can go between classes or ask questions if they need help — all in hopes of fostering a sense of belonging, a place that, as psychology students, is theirs,” Fenn said.

The center hosts coffee hours for faculty and students, and occasional discussions on topical subjects in the field of psychology and tips for surviving college.

The department also created a peer-mentoring program in which junior and senior psychology majors can get class credit for serving as mentors to freshmen and sophomores. The program gives the upperclassmen an opportunity to apply some of what they have learned in the classroom, while at the same time providing them a chance to help someone successfully navigate the path to graduation.

Fenn said department officials recognize that they may not be able to provide solutions to all the issues students have, so they are actively working to maintain relationships with organizations across the CSUN campus.

“We are looking to take an inclusive approach,” Fenn said. “Our goal is not to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we want to be a central hub for students to find the resources that already exist on campus and direct them to those resources.

“The ultimate goal is to see our students succeed and graduate,” she said. “Our job is to help them do that.”

As the department’s efforts move forward, Fenn said, psychology faculty and staff will continue to ask questions and gather data about student needs, and what is working and what is not working in the department.

“The reality is, the needs of today’s students are probably going to be different than those of the students we’ll have in 10 years,” she said. “Hopefully, we’ve created a model that is flexible enough to change and grow as the needs of our students do.”

“There are five times more alcohol advertisements in Latino neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. I think you should know that,” said Johnny, an eighth grader who shared his poster presentation with a crowd of 150 during the inaugural BUILD PODER Youth Empowerment Day at California State University, Northridge.

Johnny was one of 120 eighth graders at Nueva Esperanza Charter Academy in San Fernando who received in-class science lessons from BUILD PODER undergraduate scholars, as part of their “K-12 STEM Outreach” capstone course. BUILD PODER seniors give back to the community through the course, teaching concepts of science, critical race theory and health equity.

“The BUILD PODER program is in the unique position to expose my students to CSUN students who look like them and often come from the same background and neighborhoods,” said Nueva Esperanza Principal Fidel Ramirez. “This is extremely important when we are trying to promote the importance of research, social justice and beginning to cultivate the next generation of scientists!”

BUILD PODER is the university’s research training program that is supported by a $22-million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the largest grant in CSUN’s history. In its third year, the program has grown to 150 students for 2017-18, with more than 100 faculty members involved as research mentors. BUILD PODER stands for Building Infrastructure to Diversity (BUILD) and Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research (PODER). The program aims to increase diversity in biomedical research fields and prepare participants for Ph.D. programs.

Youth Empowerment Day, which took place Dec. 1 at the CSUN University Student Union’s Grand Salon, provided an opportunity for the Nueva Esperanza students to visit the college campus, finish their last science lesson, learn about CSUN students’ research and present what they learned over the semester to their peers. The eighth graders participated in a variety of activities and experiments on topics such as nutrition and food sourcing, sugar and diabetes, kidney health, and alcoholism.  

The K-12 course aims to reinforce community empowerment and promote health equity by using BUILD PODER students as role models, said CSUN psychology professor Carrie Saetermoe, one of the principal investigators of the BUILD PODER grant.

“Students at Nueva Esperanza are mentored by and learn from students who come from similar backgrounds and who have achieved a great deal,” Saetermoe said.

Saetermoe and CSUN psychology professor Gabriela Chavira, co-principal investigator of the grant, designed the program based on critical race theory, which challenges dominant ideology by asserting that racism is systemic in American life. Critical race theory takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying race and seeks to eliminate oppression through social justice. With the support of staff, faculty and administration, the professors created BUILD PODER to focus on alleviating health disparities — preventable differences in health conditions, access to healthcare and quality of life that negatively affect minority communities.

Juliana Bermudez, a manufacturing systems engineering student, said she completed the capstone course with a new skill set.

“[I learned a lot] in terms of teaching skills,” she said. “Because you are dealing with younger students, you need to specifically know what kind of wording to use with them — how to make it a little bit more interactive as well, so they don’t get bored. We usually don’t [give] lectures, and try to have more hands-on activities so they can learn from their experience.”

Youth Empowerment Day also included a panel of BUILD PODER student speakers, who shared their personal experiences as minorities in science and how research helped transform their lives.

“When I look out into the crowd, I see future leaders of our world,” said Omar Ullah, an environmental and occupational health major. “All of you have something inside of you — you have the potential and the opportunity for greatness. I want to see all of you get a degree and become well-educated professionals someday.”

Panel speaker Sarai Aguirre, a senior psychology major who joined the BUILD PODER program in 2015 as part of the first cohort, wrapped up the event by sharing an empowering message with the middle schoolers. Aguirre noted that she had grown up in a neighborhood affected by gang violence and was the first person in her family to go to college.

“You aren’t always going to have exposure to [experiences like this], so take advantage of this and internalize our message,” Aguirre said.

After two years of renovations and a complete transformation, California State University, Northridge’s Delmar T. Oviatt Library Special Collections and Archives is poised for a grand reopening. To celebrate the expansion and honor Jack and Florence Ferman’s generous $2.5 million bequest, the CSUN community is invited to attend the reopening reception on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the library.

Outside of Special Collections and Archives Reading Room. Photo courtesy of Delmar T. Oviatt Library.

Located on the Oviatt Library’s second floor, Special Collections and Archives houses 50,000 cataloged items, including rare books, art, manuscripts and archives, historical and important periodicals, photographs, audio and video recordings, prints, and maps. Many of these rare and valuable materials are housed in the department’s new temperature and humidity controlled high-density storage facility.

Among the materials are six major collections: The University Archives, the Urban Archives Collections, Special Collections, the International Guitar Research Archives (IGRA), the Old China Hands Archives, and the Tom and Ethel Bradley Center Collections.

“The rarity and fragility of the materials we have in our care creates an exciting adventure for visitors,” said Ellen Jarosz, head of Special Collections and Archives. “Our users often encounter information not considered by others, and then have the opportunity to conduct original analysis, advance new arguments, and draw unique conclusions in their projects.”

The expansion and remodel includes a warm and welcoming wood-paneled Reading Room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a service desk and a complimentary copy machine. The Reading Room offers abundant seating and multiple areas for students, faculty, staff and visiting scholars to engage in research.

The newly redesigned Reading Room in Special Collections & Archives offers a quiet research space in a beautiful wood-paneled room. Photo courtesy of Delmar T. Oviatt Library.

Conserving historical materials is a craft which was very familiar to the Fermans, who were long-time friends of the Oviatt library. Jack Ferman was a businessman, and Florence Ferman was an artist and a CSUN alumna. Philanthropists at heart, the Fermans left behind a transformative gift that will continue to impact the lives of students and generations to come.

The grand reopening reception will include IGRA student guitarists, complimentary appetizers and special remarks by Library Dean Mark Stover and professors Steven Thachuk and Heidi Schumacher. Please RSVP by January 11, 2018 to reserve a seat.

Persons with disabilities may email library.event@csun.edu or call 818-677-2638 in advance to arrange accommodations. For directions and parking details please visit http://www.csun.edu/parking/visitor-parking-information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raising a child is a demanding job for any parent, especially when supportive resources seem to be elusive or nonexistent. For families whose children have special needs, the task can be even harder.

Ivor Weiner

California State University, Northridge special education professor Ivor Weiner has spent most of his professional life working to ensure those with special needs and their families get the support and respect they deserve. For his efforts, Weiner has been awarded one of the California State University’s highest honors, the Wang Family Excellence Award.

The honor is given each year to four CSU faculty members and one CSU administrator for their exemplary achievements and contributions to the CSU system. The awards, which include $20,000 to each recipient, were established through a gift from CSU Trustee Emeritus Stanley T. Wang and administered through the CSU Foundation. Weiner will formally receive the honor on Jan. 30 at a meeting of the CSU Board of Trustees in Long Beach.

Weiner said he was thrilled to receive the honor, noting that he found out he had been selected for the Wang Award just before the holidays.

“It was a great holiday gift,” he said.

In his letter to Weiner informing him of the honor, CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said the Wang Family Excellence Award recipients, “through extraordinary commitment and dedication, have distinguished themselves in their academic disciplines or university assignments.”

CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison said she was proud to nominate Weiner for the Wang Award.

“Dr. Weiner has a stellar record of achievement and contribution at CSUN, spanning more than 15 years,” Harrison said. “His work demonstrates extraordinary commitment, truly enhancing our reputation for excellence in teaching, research and community engagement.”

Weiner — a leader in the field of special education, particularly working with those with disabilities — was singled out for his work with the Family Focus Resource Center.

The center, housed in CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education, provides parent-to-parent support, education and information to parents and caregivers of children with special needs and the professionals who serve them. It works closely with the North Los Angeles County Regional Center — a nonprofit organization that provides and facilitates support services for individuals and families of people with developmental disabilities. The center provides and facilitates support services to more than 1,500 families and individuals throughout north Los Angeles County, including the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys.

Weiner said winning the Wang Award is an acknowledgement of the “powerful” work being done by the staff of the Family Focus Resource Center, most of whom have children with disabilities and can empathize with the struggles their clients face as they try to navigate medical, educational or governmental agencies and organizations that are supposed to help them.

“We embrace the parents who come to us, which is at about the time they learn their child has a disability, and we apply a strength-based approach,” Weiner said. “This is not a doom-and-gloom diagnosis. There will be challenges, but there will be triumphs as well. Our job is to give parents the support and tools to overcome the bureaucracy so that their children can succeed to their fullest potential.”

The center also works closely with CSUN students to give them hands-on experience working with children with special needs and their families. Over the years, Weiner has secured more than $6 million in grant funding to support the center and its various outreach efforts, including a mobile van that goes out into the community to provide screening services.

Weiner, who has been a faculty member at CSUN since 2001, pointed out that the center does a lot of outreach in underrepresented communities to ensure families know about the resources that are out there to help them. Center representatives are often the first people to inform those families of all the resources available to them, and to provide them assistance in accessing those resources.

“Families come to us for one of three reasons,” he said. “They just found out that their child has been diagnosed at an early age. The sooner we can get to those children, the better the prognosis because we can start early intervention. Or, they come to us later in life. Maybe their child’s in middle school and is experiencing problems. The school isn’t providing sufficient special education services, and they need intervention. We are also able to help them at that point.

“And we have a lot of adults who are seeking a diagnosis late in life,” he said. “They come to us asking for referrals to medical professionals.”

For Weiner, helping the families and individuals who come to the center is personal. His daughter was diagnosed with severe autism when she was 2.

“I have advanced degrees in special education and access to tons of resources,” he said. “But when I got that diagnosis, all of that went out the window and emotions took over. Now, imagine you are parents without all the expertise and qualifications that I have, and you receive a diagnosis that your child has special needs. And then, try to navigate all these complex organizations — medical, educational — that you are supposed to go to for help. It can be overwhelming.

“The transformation I see in the families we help is inspiring,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s just knowing that there is someone on their side, who has been through it. Who can tell them, ‘It will be okay. I have gone through it too, and you will come out all right in the end.’ There is a great level of empowerment that can come from that.”

Weiner said his daughter, Layla, now a CSUN student, was elated when she learned he received the Wang Award.

“She has been the inspiration and major influence in my work,” he said. “So, in many ways, the honor is for her as well.”

The significant gap in literacy and reading between white students and students of color has roots in the income disparities between races. Statistics from Reading is Fundamental indicates that 50 percent of African-American, 47 percent of Hispanic and 49 percent of American Indian fourth graders score below the basic reading level.

Most often, African Americans and other communities of color lack viable resources and information on how to improve literacy, eating habits and leadership skills. In an effort to narrow these gaps, California State University, Northridge will host its third annual Black Youth Guidance Forum to discuss how to improve eating habits and community wellness, and create a literacy imperative for people of color.

CSUN Department of Africana Studies professor Cedric Hackett. Photo credit: CSUN website

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 10, in the University Student Union, located on the east side of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. The theme for this year’s forum is “Healthy Outcomes for Communities of Color.”

“This [conference] serves to promote health and wellness, college prep and leadership to the population,” said Cedric Hackett, a professor in CSUN’s Department of Africana Studies and director of the university’s W.E.B. DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement. “We’re looking at culturally responsive types of approaches to learning student engagement.”

The conference’s opening keynote speaker will be Dale Allender, a California State University, Sacramento assistant professor in language and literacy in the department of teaching credentials. Allender is known for his work on the award-winning television show “Expanding the Canon,” a series about teaching multicultural literature. The closing keynote speaker will be Josephine Stevens, a principal at Topeka Charter School for Advanced Studies in Northridge.

Both speakers will discuss racial uplift, health and wellness, college preparation and leadership development.

During the daylong forum, Jude Paul, an avid entrepreneur, will discuss his program Kidpreneurlife — an informational session that focuses on educating kids age 7 to 17 about entrepreneurship. The event also will feature Shartriya Collier, assistant professor of elementary education at CSUN and a literacy expert, discussing ways to improve writing.

“The fact that we have internal and external [speakers’] expertise is exciting,” said Hackett. “I am thrilled to engage the participants in educationally purposeful activities, with many featured speakers and instructional tracks that really speak to the theme.”

The forum will include four tracks — one for students in kindergarten to fifth grade, one for students in sixth to 12th grade, one for parents, and one for teachers, administrators, counselors and community leaders — designed to foster dialogue and collaboration among the attendees, said Hackett. Members of the public, students, staff and CSUN faculty are all encouraged to attend.

The event also will include workshops and a nonprofit resource advocacy fair, which will have information booths from nonprofit organizations such as the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, California Credit Union, CSUN’s Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing and others.

Among the organizations taking part in the forum are CSUN’s Men Creating Attitudes for Rape-Free Environments — a campus-wide prevention program to end sexual violence through education, cultural change and leadership development — and Strength United, a CSUN community agency dedicated to ending abuse, developing leaders and empowering families.

“We’re trying to develop a kind of collaboration with nonprofit organizations, to close the achievement gap for communities of color and African-Americans,” said Hackett.

The event is co-sponsored by CSUN’s Department of Africana Studies, University Student Union, Educational Opportunity Programs and Division of Student Affairs, the California Endowment and the W.E.B. DuBois-Hamer Institute for Academic Achievement. The institute is organizing the forum as part of the university’s Black History Month Celebration.

For more information about the free forum or to register, call (818) 677-7155, email cedric.hackett@csun.edu or visit the Black Youth Guidance Forum event website.