The Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students reflects on 40 years at his alma mater

At the recent Staff Service Awards for California State University, Northridge, one of the longest-tenured honorees was Vice President, Student Affairs and Dean of Students William Watkins, who celebrated 40 years with the university following the just-completed school year. Actually, that does not take into account his years as an undergraduate student at CSUN, during which he was elected the university’s first African-American Associated Students president.

Watkins has seen CSUN evolve during the past four decades, from the student movements in the 1970s, to the rebuild after the 1994 Northridge earthquake to the internationally respected campus that it is today – a reputation that many students, faculty, staff and alumni helped build.

“William is an outstanding leader and valued colleague,” said CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison. “His service and leadership are informed by his own experiences as a student here. They trust his counsel, and he has the gift of easily connecting with students and understanding their concerns and challenges. The CSUN student experience has been deeply enriched through William’s leadership”

“A lot of people have a job, but not a calling. For him the job is the calling,” said CSUN Provost Harry Hellenbrand. “It’s got a noble purpose to it. It’s making people better individuals and helping them to discover themselves and their role in life. That spiritual dimension to it is what makes him stand out in many respects. He wants them to be better people and he understands that everybody has to be treated differently to get that done well. That’s a pedagogical issue, but it’s also a spiritual issue. To get to that point, where you can do and exercise a calling is rare these days. I think that’s why he’s so admired and he’s done such a good job here.”

Watkins received the Champion of Hope in Education Award earlier this year as a part of the Legacy of Hope Awards from the Hope Community Development Center in the San Fernando Valley. The recognition was for his many of years of service to students at CSUN and beyond. Following is an interview during which Watkins reflected on his years of service with the university.

CSUN recently celebrated a week of commencement ceremonies. How much does that reinvigorate why you’re here?  That’s really what commencement is for me. It’s the chance to get recalibrated and to remind oneself why you put in the long hours. Public higher education is so, so important for regions such as ours. On the night of the last ceremony, to put a wrap on the whole experience, I just walked out by myself and just stood and took it all in. I watched families embracing and displaying the fervor and excitement of achievement and accomplishment. People were coming to the stage and sitting there as if they were faculty and administrators, being in the moment of the commencement celebration.

The work that we do here at Cal State Northridge is consequential. This is a difference-making institution. We’re elevating families. We’re elevating individuals to new life possibilities. And I don’t think it gets any better than that. If you want to live a purposeful life, Cal State Northridge, at least for me, has been the vehicle for doing that.

This is 40 years for you. How can you measure the evolution of the university over those four decades?  It’s multi-level. We can talk about the physical space of this university. I just love having alums come back and they see this university. They gawk at it and get kind of mad that things look so much better since they were here. Sometimes they can’t find their old spots, because the physical transformation since the earthquake has just been very substantial. The campus took the hit of the earthquake. It endured those many years of reviving itself to be the campus that it wanted to be going forward. ‘Not just back, better,’ was the slogan.

It’s also quite gratifying to see the current generation of students first set foot on our campus and really be amazed and enlivened by it. If they have doubts about whether or not Northridge is the place for them, when they come and they move around the campus, they really see it’s a very contemporary environment.

We have a very, very diverse student population. When I was a student here, we talked about student diversity as an objective. Done. That’s so done now. We’re all the way there. We now have the experience of trying to adjust our delivery of the educational experience and adjust our way of serving students to be responsive to the students who are here.

Our student enrollment has been in a state of transition over the last three to five years. There have been some pretty significant changes in terms of our demographic. I think we’re kind of the leader of the pack in terms of diversity and high-quality educational programs. Northridge has always had a very strong academic program. I think we can say that we’ve sustained those standards of learning and achievement while serving different populations of students.

We’re now probably a little more willing to talk about ourselves and the good we do in our region. This has been a campus that’s been really, really content to keep its head down, do good work, turn out great graduates who go on and beat everybody that they can, including grads from UCLA and USC. The objective of CSUN’s graduates has been to move into companies and lead them. Today we are more inclined to recognize that there is a great story here that the public needs to hear about, so that the public becomes excited about us and invests in us in ways that support enriched opportunities for our students.

Student life, and our recognition of student life, has become embraced as a very important element of student success. Back in the day, clubs and organizations were kind of about balloons and T-shirts and having a good time. We now know from pretty well-established research that things that happen outside the classroom can really bind students to the university. They keep them here. It helps mitigate the turnover that we unfortunately have too much of throughout all of public higher education. Just a lot of things going on at Northridge.

What trends have you seen among students develop over the years?  The students who came here during the ’60s, ’70s and into the ’80s were probably more engaged in social causes and movements, changing institutions. They were a very independent group. They left home and they wanted to be independent.

The partnerships today that exist between students and their parents and families are phenomenal. This generation of students, for many of them their best friends are their parents. The whole family comes to college with them and they leverage the resources and support of the family toward their success, even when their parents haven’t gone to college.

Some decades ago, if you were a first-generation student, pretty much your parents didn’t have much of an insight into what you were doing out there in college. That’s not true any longer.

Parents have worked very, very hard to understand what college can do for their sons or daughters, even though they themselves have not gone to college. Part of this has been occasioned by the online resources that we have. Also, we have a number of parent institutes and programs where parents can take classes on the weekend and learn how to do college. The high schools are doing a better job of introducing parents to their roles in being supporters of education today.

At our ‘Explore CSUN’ college preview event in April, we were overwhelmed by the large turnout. We would typically plan for a student, and maybe mom and dad. This year, prospective students came with mom, dad, siblings, grandparents and extended family. They were all here. We were really scurrying to service them. They just kept coming (laughs). That’s the academy of today. I think that excites me the most about the prospects for the future. Moving forward over time, we know that when we educate, we really are educating a family. And through families, communities. We’re extending our reach beyond just the student who’s in the classroom. That’s an exciting piece.

How does the growing international population of students help shape the university?  Northridge has been on a 10-year march, increasing the number of international students here. We’re moving now from just doing that numerically, to doing that in terms of the quality of experience the international students have. And equally important, how our domestic students tap into that. My own personal interest in having international students here has fundamentally to do with the fact that for many of our domestic students, the closest they’re going to come to travel will be an international student that they room with in housing, that they’re in a club or organization with, that they’re taking a class with, that they’re doing a group project together with – where they have to learn about each other.

International students coming into our environment here bring the world to our domestic students. To me, that is the public policy and the educational reason for enrolling international students, to enrich the learning here by what these students bring, and to send what those students learn here out across the world.

You were elected the first African-American Associated Students president in 1973-74. What was the environment like at the time?  The campaign was not an easy one. There was a lot of nasty political behavior. It was a clearly a time for students of color to come together and support change.

Clearly, it was a goal. It was a source of pride. It came with all that you might imagine in terms of expectations and challenges of being the first. But I have really embraced that in my space and time here at Northridge. I view myself as a translator and a bridge builder and a connector. And to try to create space for people to find one another in the richness that exists within us all.

So much of our understandings back in that time were rooted in fear or contrived differences, stereotypes. I was just blessed with the ability to endure some of that uncomfortableness in order to create a context for people to understand people of color as in some ways not vastly different from themselves, but just having had different journeys in getting here. Getting over those bridges was important, and I was happy to be a part of that.

What were your thoughts upon receiving the Legacy of Hope Award for all those years spent in service?  I was tremendously humbled by it. It was certainly very meaningful to me that that Hope Community Development Center is nested in the work of individuals who started here as students, and went on to form a ministry. They had not only a heart for ministry, but also a heart of service to community, and have used their talents to find a context by which – through the corporation – to reach out and serve a community that in many ways is ethnically different than the majority of that congregation.

Being at Northridge, and having an impact on the community, takes me back to the day. We talk so much about being relevant and translating our work into service. You’d be put down back in the day if your efforts were all about you. What the award says is that some part of my work has been about about service to others. That that might be recognized is special to me.

After looking back at the past 40 years, what would you like to see for CSUN in the next 40 years?  I’m really intrigued by seeing the public embrace us in a different way. There are too many people that don’t really realize that they can come onto the college campus, and we need to make ourselves open to them. In addition, as my dear friend, Provost Harry Hellenbrand, says, we need to find ways as a university to go fix some things. Find some problems in our region where we can translate the resources of our very fine faculty and our bright and energetic students to go out, understand in a very authentic way, and partner with the community to do something that’s really special and magical! That’s the future I hope for us.

William Watkins, with the Champion of Hope in Education Award that he received earlier this year as a part of the Legacy of Hope Awards from the Hope Community Development Center in the San Fernando Valley.

Students who attend California State University, Northridge come from a variety of backgrounds, and many of them live a double life of school and work. For Brian Dinelli ’76 (Geography), his job during his time at CSUN equaled his outlook on his future: The sky’s the limit! That’s because he taught flying lessons to chart his course to the Matador graduation stage.

If you’re walking around the CSUN campus, odds are you’ll hear the sound of a plane cutting the atmosphere overhead. The Van Nuys airport sits less than five miles away, the perfect place for Dinelli, a Valley kid, to continue his love of flying while earning his degree.

“I was instructing before I got to CSUN,” Dinelli said from his home in Washington state. “It was an excellent way to build flight hours, earn money while doing it and really cement what I had learned in the process leading up to it.

“I had dreamt of flying since I was 6 or 7 years old,” he said. “I grew up in Pacoima just a few blocks from Whiteman Airport, and started flying in 1971 with earnings from my job as a busboy — earning my private pilot license at 17. The Air Explorer Squadron at Van Nuys was instrumental in helping me achieve my goals. Volunteer flight instructors mentored many teenage would-be pilots, and I was fortunate to be one of them.”

When it was time to choose a university, Dinelli knew CSUN was for him. It was close to his Granada Hills home and the Van Nuys Airport where he was instructing. Ever the explorer, he chose geography to study all the places he would go as a pilot — a profession he said he knew he would choose after graduation, thanks to his “passion fueled by the sense of adventure and travel to faraway places.”

But with a full course load, how did he make time to find clients?

“Mostly word of mouth.” Dinelli said. “In the early 1970s, the general aviation environment was thriving in Southern California, so getting students was easy. Many of them were Air Explorer teens, but I also had housewives, middle-aged businessmen, foreigners in the U.S. to get their ratings and everything in between.”

After graduating, Dinelli went on to fly professionally, first for the defunct Braniff Airlines, then Alaska Airlines, where he’s been a captain for 29 years. But he still remembers the kid who went to CSUN and charted his career for a life in the skies.

“I would typically get off of work at midnight or so on weekends,” Dinelli said. “Frequently, I would go to [Simi Valley’s] San Val Aviation to spend another several hours viewing training tapes/slides into the wee hours of the morning. It was a labor of love. Forty-three years later, I am just as enchanted with flying as I was when I was watching that training material as a starry-eyed 16-year-old. I found the right vocation, and I am very thankful.”

Ever since Kana Brubaker-Gomez ’08 (Child Development), M.A. ’12 (Early Childhood Education) was young, she knew she was going to be a teacher — especially for young children. She loved helping her mom babysit, and at age 13, while other kids her age couldn’t wait to get out of school, Brubaker-Gomez volunteered at a preschool. Every day, she helped teacher Lisa Sanchez clean up and prepare for the next day.

“[Sanchez] was like my role model,” Brubaker-Gomez said. “She owned her own center, the parents and children loved her, and she made a positive impact on the children and families — inspiring me to want to have a meaningful career teaching preschool as well.”

Those early seeds paid off this year when Brubaker-Gomez, a preschool/pre-K teacher at La Petite Academy in Lancaster, was awarded the 2014 Preschool Teacher of the Year Award from Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP). The 10-year-old nonprofit organization coaches, funds and advocates for quality preschool in LA County.

“It is the greatest honor to be recognized by LAUP,” she said. “Not only do they support, encourage and coach teachers on the use of developmentally appropriate and best practices, LAUP is current with the newest trends and developments of early childhood education. I’ve learned so much from them over the past five-and-a-half years.”

“Kana is the kind of teacher that children will remember for the rest of their lives,” said Celia C. Ayala, CEO of LAUP. “Teaching is a special calling, and LAUP is excited to be able to recognize Kana, who represents the best in Los Angeles County. There’s no better job than guiding children down a path of success.”

The accolade is a reward for years of training and development for Brubaker-Gomez, which started at California State University, Northridge. She credits her time at CSUN with helping her learn about child development theories and different domains of development, as well as gain the skills and ability to apply developmentally appropriate practices to children. It also allowed her to fulfill the dream she had since helping Ms. Sanchez fix up her classroom: teach preschool/pre-K-aged children.

“This is the best, most fun age to talk to and interact with children,” Brubaker-Gomez said. “They have so much imagination and are incredibly motivated to play, learn, explore, discover and create. They are also at an age when they are learning the most — not only about themselves, but about others and the world around them, along with academic skills to prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.

“I teach because this is where my life has led me. It has given me the best early childhood education‎ experience and educational opportunity by allowing me to study [in] CSUN’s well-known child development program. I feel as though I’ve been surrounded by and trained by some of the best in this field and I’m just a reflection of that, striving to achieve my success by serving the children and families in our community.”

With physical inactivity on the rise, the California State University, Northridge Department of Kinesiology decided it was time for a change. One Matador in particular has stepped up to increase healthy habits in our community.

CSUN kinesiology alumnus Dario Senftleben ’12 won the 2014 President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award for leading the expansion of 100 Citizens — a program that allows kinesiology students to teach free group exercise classes to participants from the ages of 18 to 80. Senftleben is one of 44 recipients nationally to receive this award. He has served as a leader and example of how this program benefits the community as well as students.

Steven Loy, the faculty advisor to the program, nominated Senftleben for the award.

“Dario has been a tremendous force in the growth of 100 Citizens,” said Loy. “He was responsible for establishing the infrastructure that has led our students to take on an expansion to three additional parks in Canoga Park, Sylmar and La Crescenta.”

Senftleben said he helped create an organized program “with a structure and hierarchy that is effective and can be replicated. This gave the students and participants a direction and the program sustainability.”

On May 16, students, interns and participants gathered at the Recreation Park Aquatics Center to celebrate Senftleben’s award. San Fernando Mayor Kazim Hosein recognized him for his key role in the expansion of the 100 Citizens program.

“These awards have been the highlight of my life since receiving my bachelor’s in 2012,” Senftleben said. “But these awards do not just belong to me. They belong to all of us that represent 100 Citizens. I could not have accomplished this if we did not have our participants. … [the award] was a celebration of what we in kinesiology do as a team of passionate people trying to make a difference in the world.”

In 2011, Senftleben joined the program as a volunteer instructor and returned in summer 2012 as the program director.

“It was a rough start until Dr. Loy told me these words: ‘Take ownership,’” Senftleben said. After hearing those wise words from Loy, he began to pour more energy into 100 Citizens, and the participants and students began to feel the difference. The program grew from 35 participants to 50, then eventually 100.

“The 100 Citizens program has been successful because we have participants that want to gain the health benefits of losing weight, like lowering their blood pressure and having the ability to play with their kids,” Senftleben said. “At the same time, the students gain valuable experience working with the public, being involved in an internship that is operated as a business and making sure they understand what they are doing. There is a win in this for everyone.”

The program helps kinesiology students realize they have the potential to change the health of a community, Senftleben said. He hopes the program will inspire kinesiology students across the nation — just as his faculty advisor inspired him.

“I have Dr. Loy to thank because he saw something in me that I didn’t know even existed,” he said.

Several years ago, during orientation for California State University, Northridge’s renowned physical therapy graduate program, Tyler Dorrel M.S. ’14 (Physical Therapy) set a goal that would stay with him throughout his time in the program.

He was in a classroom, listening to physical therapy professor Aimie Kachingwe talk about what lay ahead for the students. She mentioned that CSUN had recently started a partnership with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the family of Roy Campanella, the Hall of Famer whose career was cut short by a car accident that left him paralyzed. The partnership called for one CSUN physical therapy student to be selected to serve as an intern with the Dodgers’ medical staff during spring training at the team’s facilities in Glendale, Arizona. The intern would work under the supervision of Stan Conte M.S. ’78 (Physical Therapy), the Dodgers’ director of medical services and a graduate of CSUN’s physical therapy program, as well as alongside the rest of the team’s training staff.

Dorrel, a kinesiology graduate of Sacramento State, saw his future in the Dodgers’ internship, and immediately researched what the prerequisites were for selection. He sought out other internships in preparation for the internship with the Dodgers. In the summer of 2013, when it came time to apply, he was ready. Eventually he interviewed with Conte, and around the time the Dodgers qualified for that year’s playoffs, Dorrel was selected for the program.

“There are very few opportunities in baseball for physical therapists, and those opportunities are even fewer for physical therapy students,” Dorrel said. “For CSUN to have a program set up to work specifically with the Dodgers, to have a physical therapy student work with them for two months plus of spring training, it’s a really excellent program. To my knowledge there’s not really anything else like it in the country.”

“The CSUN/Dodgers/Campanella partnership is truly one of a kind,” Kachingwe said. “Although nationally there may be one or two physical therapy schools that send students to intern in Major League Baseball, I’m not aware of another program where the P.T. student gets to spend eight weeks working and living with the Dodgers’ medical staff in their spring training camp. This experience allows the student to gain firsthand knowledge of what it truly takes to work in professional sports.

“Tyler was the perfect student for this internship. His diligence, hard work, knowledge and professionalism were the perfect ingredients for a successful outcome with this rigorous internship. We couldn’t be more proud of him, and know that the Dodgers’ internship will help propel him forward into a very successful career.”

Dorrel’s appointment as a member of the Dodgers’ training staff began in early February. He would often start his days at 5:30 a.m. at a staff meeting to discuss the day’s workload and which players needed specialized treatment for injuries. With more than 60 players in Major League camp and minor leaguers reporting to camp in March, there were often plenty of players to work with, both rehabilitating injuries and needing a helping hand to get in their regular work. Any starstruck feelings from being around famous baseball players quickly faded.

“When I was helping out with physicals the first day that players reported, I remember distinctly a couple times when players walked in, I’d think, ‘That’s Clayton Kershaw. That’s Matt Kemp,’” Dorrel said. “You get over it pretty quickly when you get to talking to these guys and you see that they’re just here to work and focus on their jobs, their careers. Really, they’re all pretty down-to-earth guys. They’re not these larger-than-life superstars who are unapproachable. They’re just regular guys who are blessed to be good at baseball and are working on their craft.”

Even with the early mornings, the days would be long — often lasting 12 hours or more. And there are no off days for the training staff. Even on the rare occasions when the team would have a scheduled day off, there would still be about a half dozen or so Dodger players who were receiving treatment to rehabilitate injuries.

That daily work proved to be a great training ground for Dorrel. The demands of taking the athletes from competition to evaluation to treatment is often nearly instantaneous, and can test the skills of even the most seasoned medical professional.

“In baseball, when a guy comes off the field with an injury, you have to see him five minutes later,” Dorrel said. “It makes you think very quickly as far as evaluating what kind of injuries they have going on — what it is and what it could not be. You have to make a quick decision in what they have to do that day, or the next several days, to recover.

“It tests your knowledge and makes you think quickly on your feet and act upon it. Being able to work in that kind of setting, it tests you, but it also built my confidence that I’m able to come to decisions on the spot and put everything together quickly.”

Dorrel also learned quite a bit from Conte, one of the most respected medical practitioners in professional sports, both in treatment and research.

“Getting the chance to work with him, to see how he works his craft every day, and to see how the other trainers and physical therapists are always focused on learning more, their dedication and work ethic — it was amazing,” Dorrel said. “To see how they operate and how they work is just a great experience in itself.”

Once he finished his internship with the Dodgers, Dorrel earned his board certification. He is now a licensed physical therapist and is looking ahead to a long-term position in orthopedics. He followed the Dodgers throughout the peaks and valleys that made up the 2014 season, with so many players achieving peak performance thanks to the medical staff.

“In baseball, there are demands getting guys back to top performance,” Dorrel said. “Some of the things that you get to experience out there, the day-to-day working with these guys and seeing them get back to playing, it’s very rewarding feeling like you’re helping the team. There’s a team aspect to working in that environment that I wasn’t able to achieve in other settings.”

Eric Edson, professor and the director of the graduate program in screenwriting at California State University, Northridge, has been named one of the top 15 art professors in Los Angeles by The Art Career Project experts.

While admiring the work of artists and the impact their contributions have made to the art world, another type of art educators are at times overlooked. In various instances these people are those who not only influence the world through their own work, but also by preparing the next generation of young artists. Edson said he hopes to be such a person.

“In the beginning, someone you admire has to take interest in you. The seed must be planted. So it is that all professors work in agriculture,” says Edson, about the studio film director that inspired and taught him the most, David E. Miller. “Being acknowledged for doing what you love is heartening, of course, but it’s also quite humbling. We professors spend our lives seeking better ways to teach – and in the end the student who learns the most is the teacher.”

Eric Edson has written 17 feature screenplays on assignment. He also produced “Passion’s Web” for Showtime, while also co-writing and executive producing the NBC Movie of the Week, “Lethal Vows,” starring John Ritter and Marg Helgenberger. Additional films include, “The Rose and The Jackal,” starring Christopher Reeve, “The Soggy Bottom Gang,” starring Don Johnson and “Diving In,” starring Kristy Swanson.

Edson has been a member of The Writers Guild of America since 1981. He is a recipient of The Samuel Goldwyn Award, the National Story Award and the Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts “Best Festival” Award for his screenplay, “Spirit Walker.”

“Eric is a gifted teacher and has long been a beloved mentor and inspiration to our screenwriting students,” says Jon Stahl, the chair of the Department of Cinema and Television Arts. “His approach to feature-length screenwriting, detailed in his marvelous book, ‘The Story Solution: 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take,’ is standard-setting. I know for a fact countless CSUN students swear by his methodology. He deserves his honor, and we in CTVA bask in his reflected glory.”

Edson’s writing experience includes – but is not limited to – Warner Brothers, Sony, ABC Motion Pictures, Hollywood Pictures (Disney), NBC, CBS, TNT, Geffen Pictures, Saban Entertainment, MTM, Aaron Spelling Entertainment, Atlantis Pictures, Citadel Entertainment, The Konigsberg Company, Canadian Telefilms and many more.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper presents a ceremonial pen to Mesa Verde National Park Superintendent and CSUN alumnus Cliff Spencer after the governor signed a wildfire funding bill at the park in June 2013.

Cliff Spencer had the epiphany that led him into wilderness work while riding on a city bus. A psychology student at California State University, Northridge in the early 1980s, Spencer was riding home one evening, wearing a CSUN sweatshirt.

“A woman asked me what I was studying,” said Spencer ’84 (Recreation and Leisure Studies), now superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park. “I told her, ‘psychology,’ and she asked me, ‘What discipline are you studying for?’ I didn’t have an answer for her.”

Growing up in Los Angeles, Spencer had worked at Griffith Park Boys’ Camp for years. He started out washing dishes in the kitchen and worked his way up to program director during his college years.

“All this time, I had been at the Boys’ Camp, working with campers and on the playground,” Spencer said. “Discussing it with Professor Jack Foley, I learned that there was more to recreation work than handing out balls on the playground. I learned that there was the whole community service aspect.”

Spencer switched his major to recreation and leisure studies, where Foley (now an emeritus professor) encouraged him to apply for a co-op program at the nearby Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. He worked there while earning college credit, kicking off a distinguished career with the National Park Service.

Thirty years later, Spencer presides over the nation’s largest archaeological preserve as superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park and Yucca House National Monument in southwestern Colorado, a position he’s held since 2010. He also supervises the superintendent of Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Aztec Ruins National Monument in northwestern New Mexico.

As superintendent, Spencer said, his job is similar to that of a city manager.

“I manage all the division chiefs, as well as law enforcement, park interpreters and researchers,” he said. Mesa Verde is known for its ancient cliff dwellings, and 24 Native American tribes trace their lineage back to the park.

Previously, Spencer served as superintendent of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. He also has worked at Lake Mead, White Sands in New Mexico, Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park and Coronado National Memorial, as well as Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

His favorite? Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California, where Spencer and his wife were married. The couple welcomed their daughter in nearby Santa Rosa.

“We have fond family memories of Point Reyes,” said Spencer, 55. Professionally, his work at Point Reyes included the beach and back-country hiking. He even managed ranch grazing permits inside the park. “I enjoyed talking to the ranchers and helping work out creative solutions for them while preserving park resources,” he said.

Spencer is one of just a handful of African-Americans in the upper ranks of the park service. He attributes the lack of diversity to the fact that besides Santa Monica Mountains and Golden Gate recreation areas, most national parks are in rural areas with few minority residents.

“The challenge is overcoming the belief that [minorities] wouldn’t fit in,” Spencer said. “That’s a myth. There’s more to working at a national park than your gender or the color of your skin. What I’ve found is that people in all of the parks are very welcoming.

“The park service has its bureaucratic side, but the nice part is that people really believe in the mission: protecting the resources and making them available to visitors,” he added.

Spencer credits his student work at Santa Monica Mountains — with Foley’s encouragement — with launching his park service career. The formative college experience included search and rescue, emergency medical response and the opportunity to earn his “red card,” a wildland firefighter certification.

“One day we were sitting in a meeting, and a wildfire broke out about 20 miles away,” Spencer recalled. “There were only two of us there who were qualified and had all of our firefighting gear in the trunk of our car. Always be prepared — that was the one thing I learned right away. It was scary at times, but also exciting.”

A Van Nuys High School graduate who also earned an associate degree from Pierce College, Spencer said he chose CSUN for its affordable tuition and proximity to home.

His favorite Matador memories include studying with Foley and former CSUN professor Michael Ego, who encouraged Spencer and his classmates to meet and network with L.A. city officials and other future colleagues.

“Jack Foley taught me to go out into the community,” he said. “At that age, you kind of wonder what you’re going to be doing the rest of your life. I really found a direction with recreation in general.”

As the National Park Service approaches its 100th anniversary in 2016, Spencer and his colleagues are working to entice younger visitors to discover their national parks. He’s also helping support a new internship program, launched this past summer, which attracts college students to work for the park service and other land management agencies. It’s a way to pay it forward, offering similar opportunities afforded Spencer in the Santa Monica Mountains and classrooms of Northridge.

“CSUN provided me with a really great, formative experience — to move forward in life and in my career.”

Mesa Verde National Park Superintendent and CSUN alumnus Cliff Spencer leads a group of artists on a tour of the park’s ancient Native American cliff dwellings in early 2014.

Mamiko Yamai came to the United States with minimal English-speaking skills, a passion for figure skating and a strong motivation to expand her horizons in dance and language. Yamai, a foreign exchange student from Japan, then made her way to California State University, Northridge in 2007 to make her lifelong dream of becoming an Olympic judge a reality.

This year, she finally got her wish: Yamai was appointed as an Olympic figure skating judge for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Yamai competed in figure skating competitions for Japan during the late 1990s and eventually became a technical specialist for her native country, a job that requires extensive knowledge in figure skating techniques. That led her to become even more entrenched in studying the intricacies that go into the sport, and eventually that pointed her toward becoming a judge.

Yamai said she was amazed and ecstatic that she was named a judge, and attributes her past experience as a technical specialist, figure skater and her learning experience at CSUN to her being chosen.

“I felt so happy and amazed, and tense at the same time,” she said. “At first, I wanted to take a rest because I had been through a lot of pressure and tiring moments. But I realized that I have to brace myself even more because of the bigger tasks and responsibilities than what a technical specialist needs to do. I need to show the International Skating Union that I’m more than qualified by showing off not only my expertise in this sport but also my communication skills in English.”

Yamai’s adviser from CSUN Paula Thomson described her as quiet, yet determined to reach her goal of becoming an Olympic judge.

“She was shy but brave. She was very determined,” Thomson said. “She knew what she needed and would find the way to get it. She was very proactive.”

Yamai described her time at CSUN as a network of various learning opportunities.

“First of all, there was a considerable diversity in how I acquired knowledge at CSUN that is essential for widening and enhancing my skills,” she said. “For example, I could take lessons from various dance classes that developed and improved my performance. I also learned choreography and physical training.”

She went on to say that the faculty and staff at CSUN were very supportive in getting her to where she wanted to be  as a judge.

“I was also given lots of practical opportunities to work with my classmates and teachers, which was really helpful to enrich my communication skills,” she said.  “I’m very grateful to them because they were so supportive.”

Thompson said she was proud of Yamai and that she had come so far since she started at CSUN.

“She arrived at CSUN with minimal dance knowledge,” Thompson recalled. “Her goal was to understand dance so that she could integrate it into figure skating. She completed one year as an exchange student and took every dance class that was offered. It makes all our hard work even more worthwhile when you see such gifted students reach their dreams.”

From the day California State University, Northridge alumnus Homero Magaña M.A. ’12 (Educational Administration) came to California from Mexico, he has been dedicated to getting an education.

Magaña’s father, an agricultural worker, brought Homero (who was 12 at the time) and his other children to the United States to get a better education and improved life. Last month, Homero Magaña’s dedication was validated when First Lady Michelle Obama recognized him at the College Opportunity Day of Action.

“Out of all the recognitions in my life, by far this is one of the most rewarding because it validates all the years of dedication and commitment to educational excellence,” Magaña said. “This recognition for me inspires me to be a voice for the thousands of students and parents who sometimes believe that education is not necessary.”

Magaña was selected to introduce the First Lady at the White House event on Dec. 4. The First Lady thanked the 33-year-old Moorpark High School counselor for his introduction and applauded his success.

“He’s just an amazing story, an amazing person,” the First Lady said. “[He’s] a clear reminder of why we’re here today.”

The White House College Opportunity Day of Action is part of President Obama’s commitment to partner with colleges and universities, business leaders and nonprofit organizations to support students across the country to help the nation reach its goal of leading the world in college attainment. CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison was among hundreds of college presidents and other higher education leaders, including CSU Chancellor Timothy White, to also participate in the event.

Harrison said CSUN will continue to do its part by supporting research and career pathways, and strengthening project-based learning and programs that link coursework to the world of work through engaged STEM research and careers starting in the first year of college.

Magaña said CSUN has contributed to his success. After graduating from high school, he attended Moorpark Community College. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s in counseling at San Diego State University. He graduated from CSUN in 2012 with his master’s in educational administration.

“I strongly believe that having a positive attitude in life despite the barriers we face as first-generation college students is key to achieving goals in life,” Magaña said. “It is my hope that other students and parents will see this example in my story and, as a result, become inspired to remove those barriers that prevent them from maximizing their full potential.”

California State University, Northridge film professor Nate Thomas’ dedication to his students and the craft of movie making is being recognized by the California State University with one of the system’s highest honors for faculty and staff — the Wang Family Excellence Award.

The honor is given each year to five CSU faculty and staff members for their extraordinary commitment to student achievement and exemplary contributions in their fields. The awards, which include $20,000 to each recipient, are established through a gift from CSU Trustee Emeritus Stanley T. Wang and administered through the CSU Foundation.

“This is a great honor,” Thomas said. “What makes it particularly so is the fact that the Wang family saw the exemplary work being done by the CSU faculty and chose to honor us, not just with an award, but a monetary prize. It is recognition that as faculty, we do a lot more than what we’re paid to do. We do it because we have a passion for teaching and inspiring our students. This award reaffirms to me that I should continue to do what I have been doing — supporting the mission of the university and giving all that I can to our students.”

CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said the award recipients typify the caliber of teaching that takes place in the system.

“The high quality of education offered at the CSU is a direct result of our 45,000 faculty and staff members’ dedication to excellence in teaching, scholarship and service,” White said. “The gift from the Wang family will allow us to acknowledge the tremendous faculty and staff members who are leaders in their field, going above and beyond to provide students with the education and skills needed to thrive in California’s workforce.”

The Wang Family Excellence Award recognizes and celebrates CSU faculty members who have distinguished themselves through groundbreaking achievements in their academic disciplines and who have an enormous impact on students through superior teaching. The awards for faculty are given to members of four groups of academic disciplines — visual and performing arts and letters; natural sciences, mathematical and computer science and engineering; social and behavioral sciences and public service; and education and professional applied science. The award also pays tribute to staff members whose contributions significantly exceed expectations in their appropriate areas at the university.

The 2015 Wang Family Excellence Award recipients will be honored at the CSU Board of Trustees meeting Jan. 27.

In singling out Thomas for recognition in the visual and performing arts and letters category, a spokesperson for the chancellor’s office noted that “as head of CSUN’s film production option for the last 13 years, Thomas has transformed and built the reputation of the university’s film production operation by spearheading a revamp of the curriculum to address industry needs and emerging trends.

“He has also been lauded for mentoring past and current students to break barriers and achieve success in the entertainment industry, as well as for cultivating relationships with Hollywood icons that have resulted in more than $60,000 in scholarship monies each year to students and CSUN’s film program,” the spokesperson continued.

A favorite CSUN professor known to field calls at all hours of the day from current and former students — some now respected movie directors — Thomas said what he does is not that different from any other CSU faculty member.

“The faculty I work with at Northridge, they are the cream of the crop,” he said. “They could work at Stanford or Harvard, but they choose to work in the CSU because of its mission. We want to make a difference in the lives of our students, so many of whom are the first in their families to go to college. I am extremely proud to be part of the CSU faculty. And while I am the one getting the award, I kind of feel like I am accepting it as a representative of my colleagues.”

Professor James Sefton teaches American military and naval history, World War II, constitutional history, and his specialty, Civil War and Reconstruction. But Sefton himself is the true historic institution, marking 50 years of teaching at California State University, Northridge this year.

Sefton, known as “Doc” by the hundreds of scholars he has mentored, estimated that he has taught 11,000 students over five decades at CSUN. On Feb. 12, more than 100 people — including former students, current and former colleagues, administrators, friends and the CSUN men’s volleyball team — gathered to pay tribute to Sefton for his longtime devotion to students and the university.

“This is not a retirement party,” Sefton told the crowd. He noted earlier that he’ll continue teaching as long as his health allows.

“When I got to be about 60, people asked me when I was going to retire,” said Sefton, 75. “I said, ‘I’m not going to retire until all the people who want me to retire already have.’ I’ve pretty much cleared out the original roster.”

Known for his straight-shooting candor, humor and unceasing demand for excellence, Sefton has served as a mentor and counselor to students since he set foot on the campus of then-San Fernando Valley State College in 1965.

“He taught me the true meaning of intellectual curiosity,” said retired Navy Capt. Dallas Bethea ’69 (History). “And that when you make a statement of fact, make sure it is absolutely correct — it served me well during my years in the Navy and the Pentagon.”

Bethea met Sefton in 1966 when he talked his way into the young professor’s full class on Civil War history.

“My ancestors fought for the Confederacy, so I did add some diversity [to the class]!” said Bethea, who traveled from his home in Virginia for the celebration. “I’m proud to say I earned an A.”

The former student and longtime friend said he plans to establish a $25,000 scholarship fund in Sefton’s name at CSUN, honoring the professor for his 50 years of teaching.

“How do you make 50 years? Well, you have to start early,” Sefton advised his colleagues. “Being a young Ph.D. helps — I was 25. You have to insulate yourself against departmental and university politics. Create a personnel file so strong that if your friends are on the committee, they won’t be embarrassed to vote for you, and if your enemies are on it, they’ll look foolish if they vote against you.

“And go out and buy yourself a book of John Wooden’s sayings,” he said of the late, legendary UCLA basketball coach’s writings. “There are a lot of sayings in there that you can use in dealing with students. One of my favorites is, ‘Any man can make a mistake, but he doesn’t become a failure until he starts blaming his mistakes on someone else.’”

Among those honoring Sefton’s contributions were history department chair Richard Horowitz; Stella Theodoulou, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Harry Hellenbrand, provost and vice president of academic affairs.

“Friend, guide and teacher are the words used a lot to describe Jim Sefton,” Hellenbrand said. “It’s very rare that you come across a professor who can fill those roles. He’s played an incredibly important role for me as provost, as one of the three or four people at the institution whom I can trust to say what they think — and not mince words. He is one of the North Stars of this campus.”

Sefton was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County before moving to the Los Angeles area. He graduated from Hollywood High School and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree (1961) and Ph.D. (1965) in history at UCLA. He wrote his dissertation on the role of the U.S. Army as an occupying force in the South during Reconstruction, later published as a book in 1967.

Sefton has seen the size of the Department of History’s faculty expand dramatically and then contract over his five decades at CSUN. He attributed the decrease to the creation of the liberal studies major, which attracted many young scholars studying to be elementary school teachers who were once drawn to the history major.

A visitor to his office once called “Doc” a “‘strange hybrid — part of you is Mr. Chips and part a Marine drill instructor,’” Sefton recalled, referencing the famous literary character and schoolteacher Mr. Chipping in James Hilton’s novella “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” — later adapted for film and TV.

Sefton likes this description, but colleges now lean toward Mr. Chips, he said. In fact, most students need the drill instructor to teach responsibility and consequences, as they did 40 years ago. But he added, “The kids who are good today would have been good 40 years ago.”

Sefton has no children of his own, but hundreds of former students consider him a father figure, a mentor, a rock.

“He’s an amazing teacher and everything, but I’m a stutterer — and he was also a counselor for me,” said Brian Bold ’09 (History). “He has such a warmth with students.

“When I was in college, my stutter was worse. I wasn’t sure of myself, and he helped me through it,” said Bold, who is studying to become an occupational therapist. “Before and after class, we’d have quick chats, and we’d have more in-depth talks in his office. The fact that it’s six years later and we still keep in touch, and he still mentors me, is amazing.”

Beyond the history department, Sefton also has devoted himself to decades of Matador student-athletes. He served as faculty representative to the National Collegiate Athletic Association from 1981-90. An ardent supporter of college sports, Sefton has channeled his lifelong passion and talent for photography into capturing some 600 CSUN games and athletic events.

Had he pursued sports photography instead of teaching, Sefton quipped, he “could have shot covers for Sports Illustrated — at a lot more money.” His study of Midwestern landscapes,“Remote Roads: Photographs Along the Way,” also has been exhibited in various California venues.

Sefton photographed football games and created slideshows for annual team banquets, even traveling with the team for many years. After CSUN dropped its football program, he focused his lens on the men’s volleyball program. In appreciation, the men’s volleyball team showed up for Thursday’s celebration, squeezing in between practices and classes.

As they celebrated the professor’s 50th year, his many admirers and students praised “Doc” for never lowering his standards or failing to care. He repaid their gratitude in kind.

“We are met on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, so it’s appropriate to close on one of my favorite of his sayings, from his first inaugural address,” Sefton said. “The ‘mystic chords of memory’ — that was Lincoln’s way of saying that, because the North and South had so much shared history, the Union would survive. I think that fits college life.

“So much that we do in college centers around memory and its preservation,” he added. “So, the ‘mystic chords of memory’ bind me to the 11,000 students I have taught, and all of you who have been so gracious to be here today.”

Nury Martinez ’96 (Political Science) remembers well the moment she found her life’s calling. She was in fourth grade at Pacoima Elementary School when her teacher turned the class’ attention to the upcoming presidential election.

The firstborn child of Julia and Isidro Martinez, Nury and her sister, Claudia, were already becoming civically aware through dinner conversations that regularly took a political bent. It hardly mattered that those conversations took place in Spanish, as their parents were immigrants from Zacatecas, México.

The fourth-grade classroom discussion centered on the office of the presidency, the electoral process and the dissemination of background information on the candidates. The youngsters even learned about the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. That planted a seed for Martinez.

“Whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, ‘the governor of California,’” she said. “People would laugh, thinking I didn’t know what that was, but I did and I was lucky enough to have a teacher who talked about civic participation and politics when I was in the fourth grade, and I had parents who are just as active.

“I date it back to fourth grade at Pacoima Elementary, when I got the political bug and it kind of never left.”

 Martinez has fed that political bug throughout her life, and it most recently led her to handily win reelection on March 3 for her seat as a Los Angeles City Councilmember in District 6 – she won by 22 percent. She is the second Latina woman on the council — serving the nation’s second-largest city — and the first in 25 years. She first won her seat with a run-off election in July 2013. This is just the latest step in a political career that has included stints as mayor of the city of San Fernando and serving on the LAUSD Board of Education.

“Councilmember  Nury  Martinez exemplifies the CSUN spirit of dedication to public service,” said CSUN’s Director, Government and Community Relations Francesca Vega. “She is a dynamic leader in our city and I look forward to working with this distinguished Matador alumnus on numerous issues in the future.”

Growing up in Pacoima had its challenges, but early on Martinez’s parents instilled in their daughters the importance of education. Her parents were not well educated and had blue-collar jobs — Julia was a seamstress and Isidro a dishwasher at a restaurant — but they stressed that the path to a better life lay in books and studying hard.

“My mentor was my mom,” Martinez said. “She’s very strong and very assertive. She raised my sister and me to fend for ourselves. The way to do that is by having a good education and not having to depend on anybody.”

College became more of a reality during her time at San Fernando High School, where she took AP courses. It was in an English class with one of her favorite teachers, Sheila Roth, that Martinez discovered that so many young people from similar circumstances were struggling in college because they lacked basic English and math skills.

Roth collaborated with a California State University, Northridge professor on a pilot program in which high school students would come to school an hour early every day to receive additional English instruction. Martinez was tasked with enlisting fellow students to attend the extra sessions. No grades were awarded for the extra work but, by the end of the school year, more than two dozen students were getting to school as the sun barely started to warm the campus.

The CSUN professors’ involvement in her high school piqued Martinez’s interest in the university. She liked the proximity to her family’s home, as her mother was about to be laid off from her factory job because the company was moving its operation to México. Martinez knew that money would be tight, but she felt comfortable in her college choice. Her major was an obvious choice: political science.

In fact, it was her mother’s job loss that opened Martinez’s eyes to the fighting spirit to take on a large entity.

“I remember my mom, in her limited English, trying to advocate for her co-workers,” Martinez said. “She was just relentless. It wasn’t successful at the end of the day. It took three or four years for [the company] to move toMéxico, but my mom fought the good fight. I think it’s because of my mom, a lot of my passion comes from her.”

Getting a college degree was not easy. Martinez worked many hours as an HIV and AIDS educator for the Northeast Valley Health Corporation, a job she started when she was just 17.

“It’s not working in the mall,” she quipped. “It’s passing out condoms and talking about controversial things that good Latina families don’t talk about. A credit to my parents — no one freaked out when I came home and said, ‘Look what I’m going to be doing.’”

Despite attending CSUN at the time of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Martinez’s passion for public service grew through her political science courses and her professors.

“What I appreciated about the political science department at the time was that a lot of the professors really pushed us to get involved with campaigns,” Martinez said. “They understood you needed real-life experiences. I got really politically involved when I was at CSUN.”

That led to her work on a candidate’s state senate race, and launched her journey through more than a decade holding public office. As she has climbed the ladder, Martinez notes that there has been one common denominator.

“None of my races have been easy,” she said. “I’m probably the poster child for, ‘it can be done.’ Even in the city of San Fernando, there were three open seats. I came in third, and I wasn’t supposed to win then.”

To reach her present office on the Los Angeles City Council, Martinez initially ran for the seat vacated by Tony Cardenas when he left for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives. In May 2013, she was second in a six-person race, trailing the leader by 19 percentage points. Undaunted, she hit the pavement to get the voters out.

“A lot of people said, ‘You’re not going to win. You’re 19 points down. How are you going to come back from that?’” Martinez recalled. “I came up with a plan to talk to every single voter. I kept telling myself, ‘It’s a brand-new race.’”

Two months after finishing a distant second in the run-off election, Martinez won the general election by 10 percentage points.

Just a little more than a year and a half into her term, Martinez has focused on quality-of-life issues among her constituents, even while spending the last few months on the campaign trail to win reelection. Primarily, she has worked hard at providing basic services, but she also has focused on job creation in her district and making local parks clean and safe for young families like her own. She and her husband, Gerry, have a 5-year-old daughter, Isabelle.

“At the end of the day, I have to deliver for my constituents,” Martinez said. “Having a rapport with them, and them knowing that I’m in City Hall on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday fighting for them – if that comes across and I can deliver, then I’m doing my job.”

Martinez returned to CSUN in November to speak at a symposium titled “Women in Politics,” where she shared tales of public service with fellow leaders Wendy Greuel and Joy Picus. The trio talked about their experiences and times when more women sought political office — during the 1990s as many as five women served on the city council. Martinez is very conscious of the impact of her position on young women, whether they are in her district or not.

“It’s a huge sense of responsibility, not only being the only woman, but the fact that the city of Los Angeles is made up of nearly 4 million people, the second-largest city in the country, and I’m the only woman,” Martinez said. “Gender equity is important, and not only for our daughters. If this is a career where little girls want to run for office one day, they need to see women in office.

“We need to create the opportunities so that women aren’t scared to enter this career. It is very tough. It’s tough for men, too, but women have to take into account whether our partners are going to support the fact that we’re running for office. We do spend a lot of time outside the home, especially those of us who are raising a family. There is a sacrifice there that often your family has to pay. Finding that balance in this chaotic career choice is important.”

Striking a balance between public office and being a wife and mother definitely has its challenges, but all Martinez has to do is look at her daughter to see everything that she is working toward. She wants to see a brighter future for her constituents. She wants more clean, safe parks where young people can play. She’d like to see more jobs in her area, and more career choices. It’s that drive to help others that is as strong today as when Martinez declared as a fourth grader that she wanted the highest seat in her home state.

“Seeing the fruit of your labor and getting to go to open parks and maybe transform communities, seeing the next generation of kids growing up in a cleaner, safer environment is very, very rewarding,” Martinez said. “This is an amazing career. It’s taken me to a lot of places, but more than anything, we need to get more women involved and make sure that they have a seat at the table.”

Psychologist Thomas E. Backer, Ph.D. remembers his first visit to California State University, Northridge. It was 1963, and CSUN was then known as San Fernando Valley State College. As a high school student, Backer had come to compete in regional debate championships held on the campus.

“CSUN was the first college campus I ever visited,” Backer reminisced, “It was a pretty heady experience for me as a high school freshman to visit a college campus and see what it was like to be in college.”

Although it would be several decades before Backer returned to CSUN, when he did, he brought with him  Valley Nonprofit Resources (VNR) that serves  the surrounding community.

Backer has a long history with the San Fernando Valley, first as a six-year-oldin Reseda and now living in the same house in Sherman Oaks for 36 years. “I’m a Valley boy,” he said. Due to his love for the region, Backer devoted much of his work to improving conditions for nonprofit enterprises within the Valley.

As the long-time president of the nonprofit Human Interaction Research Institute (HIRI), Backer oversaw the formation in 2007 of VNR, a resource for the more than 4,500 San Fernando Valley nonprofit organizations. VNR offers services to staff and Boards of these nonprofits.

Backer came to the campus after two HIRI board members, CSUN faculty Richard Moore, Ph.D., and Herman DeBose, Ph.D., encouraged him to consider CSUN’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences as a home for VNR. After speaking with Social and Behavioral Sciences Dean Stella Theodoulou, Backer was convinced VNR should have its home at CSUN.

“Dean Theodoulou is practical and creative, and it was very clear to me that there were a number of resources here on campus — faculty, students and other centers — that could help us strengthen our own program,” Backer stated.

In 2011, Backer opened negotiations with CSUN to bring VNR to campus. In mid-2014, Backer officially closed HIRI, donating more than $800,000 of its assets to CSUN, with a portion earmarked for future funding of VNR. On June 1, 2014, Backer and VNR moved into their new home in Sierra Hall.

Thanks to this gift, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences was able to create HIRI Nonprofit Research Fellowships, which grants $5,000 to $10,000 for faculty research in the nonprofit sector a few times a year. CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison has emphasized the importance of research at the university..

“Offering the HIRI Nonprofit Research Fellowships is one small step in furthering this mission,” Backer noted.

In addition, Theodoulou has asked Backer to teach a course on philanthropy, focusing specifically on the Los Angeles area. Backer is developing the syllabus.

“Part of its purpose is to help students learn how philanthropy supports the nonprofit sector,” he said of the course.

In addition to being a senior research fellow in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Backer had been active with CSUN as a donor and executive board member of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication, as well as a subscriber to the Valley Performing Arts Center. He is also chair of the Community Advisory Board for the Center for Southern California Studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Backer’s desire to support the Valley in which he lives is apparent through his belief that supporting CSUN will help strengthen the community.

“All universities have a responsibility to relate to and support the community they live in,” he explained. “My coming to CSUN and my happiness in being here comes from knowing that my two programs will help increase CSUN’s leadership in the Valley.”

What would the history of rock ’n roll be without the Police? Band members Sting, Andy Summers ’72 (Music) and Stewart Copeland formed one of the transcendant bands of all time. Founded in the punk movement in London, the Police were actually miscast practitioners of that genre because of one important trait: they were all virtuoso musicians, Summers studying classical guitar at CSUN in the early 1970s. After the success of the classic “Roxanne,” the Police became regulars at the top of the charts and soon were in the rarefied air of hottest bands in the world. If not the hottest.

Yet superstardom did not come without a price. Creative conflict caused friction among the band members, and over time that slowly eroded what had been built starting out in small clubs in London and along the eastern seaboard in the U.S. At the apex of its popularity, riding the wave of the highly successful tour following the release of the classic album Synchronicity in 1983, the band would never record another album. By 1986 the band had broken up, though they would get back together in 2007 for a reunion tour that would become one of the highest grossing of all time.

Summers wrote the book One Train Later as a memoir to chronicle his earliest days playing the guitar in England, and eventually coming to the United States as a member of the Animals. The breakup of that band led to Summers attending CSUN, and it was that classical training he later applied to rock music and playing lead guitar with the Police. Summers used the memoir as a basis for the documentary Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police, which mixes archival footage on and off stage, as well as in the studio to give the audience a glimpse of what went into the rise and later fall of one of the biggest bands of all time. Spliced throughout the movie is concert footage from that 2007 reunion tour, which mixed well with the footage from the 1970s and ’80s. Summers gave some insight into the movie in this exclusive interview.

How did you approach this project?
I was preparing a very big photo book from all the years of photography when I was in the Police. I still am actually. Around that time I saw a film called The Kid Stays in the Picture, which was a film produced by Robert Evans. What was interesting about that film was that it was made almost purely from still photographs, which were animated, and his voice-over. It occurred to me that I had the same material: the whole life story written out, a huge amount of photography and, of course, a preeminent band.

Just by chance I met somebody who was close friends with Brett Morgen, who made The Kid Stays in the Picture. She sort of mentioned ‘Why don’t you get in touch with Brett to see if he’d be interested in it?’ I subsequently did, thinking I was going to make The Kid Stays in the Picture Part II. I met with Brett, and we hit it off and I hooked him up with another producer friend of mine, Norman Golightly, who worked with Nick Cage for many years. The two of them got together with the plan in mind to convert the book into a movie. It was amazing. We sold it in two goes, basically.

I didn’t write the whole story thinking it was going to be a movie. That seems incredibly vain. I wanted to write, and it seems like a good place to start, and there was a message that I could put in the book for people who are interested in music.

Beyond the music, what makes the Police such an enduring band?
I really hope it is the music, because we’re not really around the public’s face at the moment. Although we never seem to really have left. I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, but I think it’s the personalities and the interactions and the actual chemistry of our trio that’s always connected with the audience. We had a lot of very sparky chemistry, as is really well known. It’s always fascinated the public, how we could get on stage and hammer out these great songs and have them connect. Certainly we proved that again on the reunion tour.

Many say your roots were as a punk rock band, but all three of you were accomplished musicians.
The punk thing in London was clearly a very exciting time, which pretty much overthrew the music industry in the U.K. at that time. If you weren’t punk you were out. So if you wanted to get a gig at all, you didn’t really have much chance to do anything unless you were a punk band. The Police, we started out as a so-called punk band, but it wasn’t what we really were. We were definitely a fake punk band (laughs). And we suffered for it. The critics and music press were onto us.

What saved us, of course, was coming to the U.S. and playing at CBGBs and rather than being punk we decided we were New Wave. But what happened ultimately we had “Roxanne” and we started to have these other songs. All that transcended these other categories that came and went. We were the Police. We were sort of in our own category.

Behind the scenes, with the sparky chemistry as you mentioned, how much was it the goal to show how you were able to still make these incredible songs?
We had this chemistry. For any rock band worth its salt you have to have that. You don’t really need mellow guys. Rock is inherently aggressive and in your face. That’s the kind of music it is. We were a guitar, bass and drums, and the bass player was the singer as well. You need that sort of very pushy attitude in it. It’s got to be musical, of course, and the music has to be dynamic. What you’ve got to do is psychologically find a way to work together and work it all out. The psychological knitting together again to be a trio and go out there, there’s only three of us on stage, and you’re really playing off the other two guys all the time. That’s what’s going on. So you can’t go out on stage in front of 50,000 people with absolutely ill will and think you’re going to pull it off. It has to melt away and you have to be in the moment in the music with the other players.

This movie balanced the musical brilliance with an honest portrayal of what led to the eventual breakup of the Police. How important was it to tell that story?
You have to show that it’s not just all sweet, glamour and loveliness. There’s the tensions that go with trying to get to this thing that people find so seductive. It’s made in fire, then you bring it out. It’s not made in a lovely and sweet way with everyone agreeing with everything. It’s made by sort of a fight and a tight compromise. That’s what makes the music so tough.

How does this movie show how hard it is to sustain superstardom?
I’m telling this film from a very personal point of view. It’s not a talking heads documentary, like a generic documentary made by the BBC. It’s made by me. Very personal, telling it from my point of view. Along the way I showed that it broke up my marriage to someone whom I completely loved and lost. In fact, all three of us ended up getting divorced. There was a lot of emotional stuff along the way, and a lot of people tried to come into the Police machine – as it became as we got bigger and bigger – and got destroyed by it. A lot of people just couldn’t make it being around the band. A lot of marriages went. It takes its toll.

The 2007 concert footage being added, how important was it to the overall movie to show you all remained a great band more than 20 years after breaking up?
The way I tell the story in the book, I tell it in a sort of flashback all through one day, which is the day we played at Shea Stadium, which was August 1983. This was the absolute height. We had the No. 1 album for four months with Synchronicity. We had the No. 1 song with “Every Breath You Take” for eight weeks. Not even Michael Jackson could get past us. We were it all over the world, no question. But at the same time, I knew it was the last tour. We were basically going to break up.

I choose to tell the story, I’m out one day, and we’re staying in this incredible mansion out on Long Island getting ready to play at Shea Stadium, and here are the sort of events through the day as I’m kind of passing through my earlier life, which ultimately leads to the Police. My life as a musician since I started as a kid.

The device that we used in the film was to use the concert footage from the 2007-08 tour, which gives it this incredible living presence. So it’s not all archival film from the early ’80s. It’s right now, or at least it was right then.

There was an element of tenderness added to the film when you mentioned how this was the first time that your kids would get to see you play as a member of the Police.
That was great. One of the nicest things of the whole tour, actually a very sweet thing, was that post-Police, I’ve got more kids, bringing them up and telling them, ‘Well, I used to be in this rock band, and I was really famous.’ They’d say, ‘Yeah, Dad.’

I finally got on the tour, and they were about 18. Of course, it was brilliant for me. I’d go, ‘Look, check it out.’ They really saw what I was talking about. They came to a lot of the really big shows. It was really great, a particularly nice thing.

What’s been the reaction from Stewart and Sting to the movie?
They’re very supportive. They both called me as this came out and I met with Stewart. This is not a bad thing. This is like the band going out on tour again. It’s everywhere at the moment. It’ll be all over the world eventually. It’ll be on HBO, and all the rest of it. It’s definitely going to have a life. All it does is extend the mythology for a few more years. Not hurting at all.

How does this movie help you to reflect on those years?
I don’t dwell, personally, too much on the past. Of course, it’s great to have this movie out. I expect most people would enjoy having a movie made about them. I certainly never expected it. One thing about the U.S. release, it’s nice for me finally… I’ve been around this project for a long time, to have this tangible excitement and to turn up at the cinemas to see it sold out then do the Q&As. All the activity that goes with it is brilliant so far.

Musically, I don’t dwell living in that time. It didn’t stop for me. That was just something, honestly, that I just passed through. I’m here in my studio right now, and I’ll go straight back down to the mixing desk and get on with the next track I’ll be making. It didn’t end with the Police. In fact, the thing that got me sorted out and back on my feet after the Police was done was going back into the studio to record.

How much do you play now?
There’s always something going on. I live in L.A. and I have my studio here. It’s very comfortable for me. I’m the only one who uses it, and it’s a great setup. One of the nicest things for me in life is to be in the studio and recording. Last year, I put out a great rock record with a brilliant singer in L.A. In fact, we came out to CSUN and did a live lunchtime session called Circus Hero. It was great. I don’t know where we’re going to go with that, but right now I’m finishing up a really beautiful instrumental album that’s very different from that. It’s sort of exotic and more experimental. I’m about two-thirds of the way finished with that. And prior to that I finished a film score. Then I go to Cannes for the film next month. Then I go to the Shanghai Film Festival, and I do some gigs in China, as I did last year. I keep going back to China. It’s one thing after another. There’s not a lot of downtime.

Do you keep up with your photography?
My sort of sub career of photography has continued quite well over the years, as much as I want to do it. Right now, I’ve got a photograph show at the Laemmle Royal in West Los Angeles. They do a very nice thing called “Art House,” where they make this short film and display whichever artist’s work. That show will be up for another three months.

Later this year I have a photograph show in Brazil and another one in Hong Kong in September. They all take thought and preparation. They don’t just fly out the door, you have to think about them. I’ve sort of got that down now because I’ve done it so many times. It’s sort of like a concert, doing a photograph show. It’s interesting, sort of a different subtle satisfaction.

After the Animals broke up, that’s when you enrolled at CSUN. How did that period of time center you after the breakup of the band and set you up for the Police?
It was an interesting time. It was a difficult time for me, because I was absolutely starving and had no band. I wasn’t trying to have a career. I stayed in L.A. partly because I got into CSUN, or whatever it was called at the time. I was able to study music formally, which I hadn’t done in England. I’d been in bands, and obviously was a player, but I started to do formal, classical music training. It was really the reason I stayed in L.A. Of course, that came to an end eventually and I returned to England. In short order I was in the Police, and I was armed to the teeth and I was absolutely ready to go for it.

I’d taken out that time to go to college here because just purely musical curiosity and wanting to deepen my involvement in music.

You’ve funded some scholarships here at CSUN in the music department. How did that come about?
I’ve been living in Los Angeles for a while, and I’m pretty close friends with the L.A. Guitar Quartet. John Dearman is now teaching there, and Steve Thachuk. When I was there, I was a classical guitar player then. You don’t forget these things. I’m obviously in a more fortunate position. Partly through John Dearman it occurred to me that I could maybe help out and provide some sort of scholarship for those who want to be classical guitarists. I certainly got enough out of it.

We started it last year. Steve organized it and hopefully he’ll set it up to do it again next year and make a whole evening out of it. That’s what I’m hoping. It’s an interesting little thing that’s come later in life that I wouldn’t have thought of. It’s a nice way to put something back and encouraging people in something that I always loved and starved for at the time. I really appreciate it.

All of us who are successful in music, which is a very tough game, if you really get across, you want to put some of it back to encourage the next group that’s coming up.

At some of the screenings of the movie, you’ve participated in Q&As with the fans. What’s it like hearing that feedback from the fans after all these years?
I find it quite rewarding. It’s not often you get to stand there and talk about all your stuff. I’ve done it quite a lot over my career. I usually do well if people ask interesting questions, then I get going. The ones that I’ve done here in L.A. have all been great. It’s nice to see all these people with so much enthusiasm. Certainly because the film goes down so well. By the time I get in front of the audience, everyone’s feeling pretty good and I enjoy it.

I would encourage people that if they really like the film then they should read the book. They’ll find that in the book there’s a lot more layers of the music life.

People seem to be very happy seeing the film. You always think there could be more. We actually have about another eight hours of footage (laughs). So we’re about to make part two, possibly. It’s going down so well, it’s ironic.

Andy Summers will participate in a special Q&A session following the 7 p.m. showings on April 12 and 16 at the Laemmle’s Royal on 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90025. P: 310-478-3836. Check local listings for all other showtimes.

Charles “Chuck” Noski was 17 years old in 1969 when he embarked upon what would be a lifelong relationship with California State University, Northridge, which was then known as San Fernando Valley State College.

Working two to three part-time jobs at a time as an undergraduate, Noski earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1973, and a master’s degree in accounting in 1995. He would ultimately be awarded an honorary doctorate in 2007. The lessons he learned at CSUN helped him gain the business acumen that would lead to a brilliant career: Following nearly 20 years with “Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, Noski went on to hold senior executive positions at Bank of America, Northrop Grumman Corporation, AT&T and Hughes Electronics.

In recent years, he has also served on the boards of directors of companies such as Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Avon Products and Priceline. In 2002, the CSUN Alumni Association honored Noski as a Distinguished Alumnus, and in 2011 the CSUN Foundation Board of Directors recognized Noski as an Emeritus Director for life following his many years of service on that board.

When he returned to campus as a Deloitte partner to do recruiting, what he saw at the business college impressed him. “CSUN students were better prepared and had a stronger foundation to go out into the world and pursue their careers,” he said.

Noski and his wife, Lisa, have been actively involved with CSUN for many years, supporting a variety of educational and other initiatives, including the Valley Performing Arts Center. Most recently, they created the Noski Family Scholarship, which will annually grant four accounting students who have a solid grasp on the direction of their future careers the opportunity to pursue their business education at CSUN.

The couple chose accounting majors as their initial focus because of their respective backgrounds — both Chuck and Lisa are CPAs and were the first in their families to graduate from college. “Accounting is really the basis of all business,” Lisa said. “We felt so fortunate to have had the experience and chance to attend college, and we wanted to help other people have that same chance.”

What Noski remembers most about his own education at CSUN’s business college (now the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics) are the relationships he built with his professors.

“They had been out in the real world,” Chuck said. “They could help prepare you for the competition and business environment you’d encounter. They were great teachers — they were not only very adept with the subject matter, but they knew how to communicate it. They really cared about their students, and that showed inside and outside the classroom. To this day I still stay in touch with some of those professors.”

Noski also fondly recalls his time as a saxophonist for CSUN’s marching band, playing at Devonshire Downs where the school’s football team then played its games.

“The music program at CSUN was amazing,” he said. “We came out onto the field like a big rock band. It was like being on a stage — the stage just happened to be green and 100 yards long — and the crowd in the stands loved the contemporary music we played.”

But what he is most grateful for are the opportunities his CSUN education afforded him. “When I think about the chance to give back to CSUN and its students today,” he said, “I really come back to the word ‘opportunity.’ We’re all different. We all have different strengths, different weaknesses and face different challenges. We come from different backgrounds. But what we all deserve, I think, is an opportunity.”

Although the couple has contributed to other causes, they said that gifts to CSUN leave them with an uplifting effect.

“I’ve seen the impact on students. I’ve seen the enthusiasm of professors to have the resources, tools and capabilities to do an even better job of being a teacher,” Chuck said. “For us, we hope this new scholarship will be one of the best returns on investment.

“You can go to classes. You can take notes. You can regurgitate facts on tests, but that’s not learning. My experience both as a student here and later recruiting students from the campus was that the students here understood the material, the theory and the reality of what they were getting into as they began their careers. When I think about my own education and what I’ve been able to accomplish in my career, it really started here.”

One might expect the atmosphere of a late-afternoon class in public policy on a Thursday toward the end of the semester to be sleepy and routine. Former Governor of Hawaii Linda Lingle’s Political Science 471A class at California State University, Northridge is anything but.

Fifteen minutes before class begins, vibrant conversations between classmates, cheerful greetings and smiling faces fill the room. Lingle enters and joins the banter. The camaraderie is genuine and lively. It feels more like a social gathering than a lecture. Then the clock hits 4 p.m. and it’s all business.

The students are seated seminar-style, everyone facing one another, with nameplates in front of their seats, reminiscent of a U.N. Council meeting. All attention is focused on Lingle and her guest for the afternoon, former Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta.

Lingle has utilized her 30 years’ experience in the public service sector and her many valuable contacts to give her students a one-of-a-kind look at the practical applications in the creation of public policy.

Lingle’s political science pro-seminar class on public policy is untraditional in that there are no examinations. Instead, Lingle asks her students to design three public policy proposals from any perspective – one local, one state and one federal issue – and present them to the class. This, Lingle said, provides her students with practical experience for the real world.

“I designed the course to prepare the students to be able to walk out after graduation – to enter into a public policy setting – and to be positive contributors from the first day, wherever they go,” Lingle said.

“The most challenging part of Gov. Lingle’s class is the public policy projects, but they are also the most beneficial,” said political science junior Eliana Amundson. “You learn about the real world and that’s something you’re going to use for the rest of your life.”

Shantay Shabaz, political science junior, agrees. “You actually practice what it’s like to be in the real world and you pick up skills that you carry with you outside of the classroom. That’s way more meaningful than just a lecture,” she said.

Also unusual is the high interest outside of the political science department in the class. “We had far more interest in her class than we could accommodate and I’m especially pleased that a good number of the students in the class are from outside the major,” said Lawrence Becker, chair of CSUN’s Department of Political Science.

“It’s a class that’s very open to discussion, opinion, a lot of different ideas. You don’t just sit back in here,” said Gabby Sanchez, a political science senior.

High-profile guest speakers also brought practical knowledge and actual public policy experience to the students. Guests this semester included Yusef Robb, director of communications for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Linda Smith, former chief accounting officer under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and senior policy advisor to Gov. Lingle; Dillon Hosier, senior political advisor to the Los Angeles Consulate General of Israel; and Yabuta, who recently became the director of the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), a federally funded program that advises President Obama and Congress.

“Gov. Lingle has brought a series of guest speakers to the classroom from different areas that have given students a sense of the variety of pathways from where they are sitting into public service,” said Becker. “I can’t express how fortunate we have been to have had Gov. Lingle teaching for us.”

The sentiment is one that is shared by her students as well. “One of my favorite aspects of this class is having the speakers here,” said Randall Ramos, political science senior. “You have the opportunity to find out what it’s really like.”

Ramos was a student in Lingle’s 471A seminar the previous spring. He enjoyed the class, and Lingle, so much that he came back to assist in the Spring 2015 class.

Lingle graduated cum laude from CSUN with a degree in journalism in 1975, changing her major from political science. She founded the Moloka’i Free Press in 1976 and was elected as a member of the Maui City Council in 1980, where she served until elected as Maui County Mayor.

As Maui mayor, she was the first woman and youngest person elected to office. In 2002, she broke more barriers when elected as the sixth governor of Hawaii, distinguishing herself as the  first woman and first person of Jewish ancestry to lead the state as well as the first Republican in more than 40 years.

Lingle will be leaving CSUN at the end of the current semester. She has been appointed chief operating officer for the state of Illinois under new Governor Bruce Rauner, who has referred to Lingle as a “superstar.” Lingle said she hopes to use her eight years of experience as the Governor of Hawaii to help Rauner, who is serving in public office for the first time.

Lingle, who would rather remain out of the spotlight after so many years on the public scene, shifted focus back to her students. “My experience at CSUN, keeping me in touch with young people, is very important. Knowing how this generation is seeing things is important for anyone who is working in public policy,” Lingle said. “Most of the people that I work with [in Illinois] are quite a bit younger than me. [CSUN] has given me an up-to-date perspective on what young people are facing.”

What Lingle has gained from her students is a reciprocation of the dedication that she inspired in them. “It’s a privilege to be a part of this class. She doesn’t disengage when class is over,” said Shabaz.

“The best part of the class is office hours. [Lingle] will talk to you about any issue. She’s very supportive,” said Ramos.

“She answers your emails at 4 o’clock in the morning!” said Amundson. “At the beginning of the course, she said, ‘You guys are going to be my life.’”

Lingle’s prudent teaching style and inclination to give back to her alma mater is testament to the commitment she has given in her years as a public servant.

“I try to mix my classes – not just political science and not just public policy. It’s life lessons. [I’ve] got a chance to stand in front of young people and share that it’s not a straight line for anyone,” Lingle professed. “You’ve got to work hard. You’ve got to be prepared when opportunities come along, and you can’t give up. You just can’t, can’t give up.”

The cheers may be deafening later this week when more than 10,600 students are eligible to take part in California State University, Northridge’s 2015 commencement.

Some of the students are the first in their families to get a college education. Others set out on a path laid out during late-night discussions with their parents or through the determination of loved ones who believed that education would open doors to a world of possibilities.

Below are some of those students’ stories:

Tania Benjamin

Tania Benjamin, B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology

Tania Benjamin, 21, of Santa Clarita, spent much of her time at CSUN doing research in professor Yann Schrodi’s organometallic and inorganic chemistry lab. She’s been helping him look for ways to prevent the degeneration of olefin metathesis catalysts, molecules that allow for the rearrangement of carbon-carbon double bonds. The research could eventually improve the chemical reactions in drugs developed by the pharmaceutical industry.

“As a freshman, I took Dr. Schrodi’s general chemistry class and learned about his research and how it has applications in the pharmaceutical industry,” she said. “Understanding his research and the impact it could have in that industry made me interested in what he was doing. I asked if I could join his lab, and I’ve been here ever since.”

The work led to a rare research opportunity in 2014. She was one of only 10 students from across the country chosen to intern for the Harvard Catalyst Summer Clinical and Translational Research Program. She worked in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, studying a human enzyme as a potential therapeutic target against cancer.

“It was an amazing experience,” Benjamin said.

Her love of science was sparked by heart-to-heart discussions she had while growing up with her mother, a nurse, and her father, an equipment engineer, both Assyrian immigrants from Iran. They encouraged her to pursue her dreams.

“The talks with my mom really had an impact,” she said. “I spent a lot of nights talking to her about her interactions with her patients. I knew I wanted to go to medical school.”

Despite the demands of her coursework and research in Schrodi’s lab, Benjamin still found time a couple years ago to found Big Buddies, a campus organization that pairs college students as mentors to homeless and disadvantaged youth throughout Los Angeles. The organization currently has partnerships with two shelters and the West Valley Boys and Girls Club. It serves more than 40 young people.

“As a college student, I realized I had various resources that surround me, including other college students,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why not use them to inspire and motivate homeless and disadvantaged youth?’ So, I came up with the idea of Big Buddies.”

Her accomplishments have earned Benjamin distinction as this year’s Wolfson Scholar, the top award for a graduating senior from CSUN. The award is presented each year in memory of CSUN’s first vice president, Leo Wolfson.

Benjamin will take part in CSUN’s commencement ceremony on Monday, May 18, at 6 p.m. She will be heading to medical school at UC San Francisco in the fall. She plans to become an orthopedic surgeon.

Jacqueline Dinh

Jacqueline Dinh, B.A. in Communication Disorders

            For Jacqueline Dinh, 22, of Northridge, communication is a powerful tool. She tells the story of a five-year-old autistic boy with whom she worked a couple years ago as a speech therapist at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders.

“When he came in, he was not really speaking,” Dinh said. “I was his first therapist. When he left therapy after a year or so, he was telling jokes and singing. His personality emerged with our work. It was rewarding, and I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

Dinh wasn’t that positive when she first came to CSUN. She just knew she wanted to study something in the sciences. Then she went to a campus employment fair and found a job with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders.

“I loved it, and I knew that I wanted to be speech pathologist,” she said. “CSUN has a great undergraduate program in speech pathology, and the opportunities I have had here to work with patients — while still an undergraduate — have been invaluable. I am so glad I chose this school.”

Dinh said the support she has received at the university inspired her to become a peer mentor within the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences. It’s a role she plans to continue this fall, when she returns to CSUN to begin her master’s degree in speech pathology.

“The faculty and staff here were so helpful as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and they were there to give me the support and guidance while I was learning about my field,” she said. “I want to be able to do that for my fellow students.”

Dinh, who also earned a minor in religious studies, said she loves learning about different people and different cultures. It’s a tool she believes will be useful in the future.

“I want to work in the public school system when I finish my education,” she said. “I want to eventually work with children with autism and those who use alternative means of communication. I’ve talked to colleagues who work in public schools, and I know how overworked and understaffed they are. I know that by working in the public schools, I can make a difference for children who might not have access to a speech pathologist.

“Communication is so important as a way of expressing ourselves and interacting with others,” she said. “I want to be able to help those who don’t have a voice to find theirs.”

Dinh take part in the commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 16, at 6 p.m.

Shaniee Parker

Shaniee Parker, B.M. in Music Performance (Clarinet) and Music Education

Shaniee Parker fell in love with the oboe as a child when she heard a cousin play the double-reed instrument. When a middle school music teacher let her choose her instrument, she selected … the clarinet.

“It was totally by accident,” she said, laughing. “I couldn’t remember what the instrument was called that my cousin played. I just remembered that it was black and silver. So, when the teacher brought out a clarinet, I said, ‘That’s the one I want.’”

Her cousin told her she got the wrong instrument, and Parker mistakenly assumed she couldn’t switch when she returned to school.

“I’ve been playing the clarinet ever since,” she said, of the single-reed woodwind. “I love the clarinet. It can do so many things. As far as I am concerned, it’s the best instrument there is. It’s got the widest range of any wind instrument and it’s the closest to the human voice.”

Parker, 22, of Chatsworth, was raised by her grandparents, who were determined that she should get as much out of her education as possible. When she got to CSUN, she discovered that the faculty had the same goals. She singled out music professor Julia Heinen in particular.

“She’s so amazing. She plays all over the world and teaches master’s classes everywhere,” Parker said of Heinen. “I’ve learned so much from her — not just how to play the clarinet, but how to carry myself, how to be a woman and not to be intimidated in any aspect of my playing or in pursuing my dreams. I wouldn’t have grown as much as I have without her to inspire me.”

In addition to being a member of the CSUN Wind Ensemble, Colburn Adult Wind Symphony and CSUN Symphony Orchestra, Parker has juggled the course load of two majors — music education and performance with the clarinet, the latter of which requires at least three hours of practice a day — as well as volunteering as a counselor for Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, being an active member of the educational foundation LEAP and traveling the state advocating to keep music education in public schools as Miss California Icon.

“Music is the reason I’m where I am today,” Parker said. “Even if you don’t want to become a professional musician, music is so important in helping kids learn about themselves and where they want to go, in addition to giving them an appreciation for the arts. I can’t imagine a world without music. Often, it’s the only way we can communicate across borders or cultures.”

Her love of music inspired Parker to take the next step as a performer. She asked CSUN’s music faculty if they could teach her the art of conducting. She is now assistant conductor of CSUN’s Youth Symphony Orchestra.

“I didn’t know, as a kid, that you could actually buy the CD of the music to movies,” she said. “I would sit there with my tape recorder up to the TV speaker and record it. I’d go back and listen to it, wait for the credits and then wave my hands to conduct it.”

Parker has accepted a graduate fellowship to continue her music performance studies at UCLA this fall. She plans to continue conducting.

Parker will take part in the commencement ceremony at 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 16.

Demonte “Tray” Thompson, left, and Demontea “Tae” Thompson.

Demonte “Tray” Thompson, B.S. in Finance, and Demontea “Tae” Thompson, B.S. in Management

            “There are a lot of people going nowhere fast,” said Demontea “Tae” Thompson, 22, of Northridge. “If you know your goals and you have the people to lead you in the right direction, that’s more important than getting there on a whim.”

Tae and his twin brother, Demonte “Tray” Thompson, 22, of Chatsworth, said they found that guidance at CSUN.

When the twins were born, their mother was unable to care for them and their father wasn’t around. They and two of their 10 siblings were taken into the foster care system and placed in the charge of their great-uncle, a 69-year-old cement finisher who came to California from Arkansas as a young man with only a quarter in his pocket.

“He was an amazing man,” Tae said. “He laid the foundation for our lives. That is something, to me, that is very poetic. He instilled skills that he knew were going to be life-long and that we would need for whatever we set out to accomplish.”

“At an age when he was supposed to retire and live his life lavishly,” said Tray, picking up where his brother left off, “he took on this new responsibility. Recently, he passed away from cancer at age 89. He made sure we learned everything we needed to navigate this world, and we want to carry on his legacy.”

Tae and Tray said they came to CSUN because of the support system, including mentors, the university offers foster youth through its Educational Opportunity Program.

Tray chose finance as a major because he was inspired by a number of entrepreneurial ventures that he and his brother launched as children growing up in Compton, including a Kool-Aid stand.

“One of the courses I had the most fun in was one of the last I took — portfolio management,” he said. “We had a chance to manage more than $2 million in assets from California State University, Northridge’s University Corporation. I loved every bit of it. With our portfolio return, we managed to beat the total return of the S&P 500.”

Tae admitted he briefly considered studying acting at CSUN.

“Theater has always been a means for expressing myself creatively,” Tae said. “I always thought I wanted to be an actor. As I got into my second year, I thought long and hard and realized I wanted to do something where, in the long run, I can be a factotum — someone able to take on various roles. So, I decided on business management. Since my brother was going into finance, I thought we’d start a company or something.”

A couple of years ago, the pair started a YouTube channel called “Twinspire” to offer encouragement and emotional support to foster youth in the community. They also briefly had a clothing line, with the idea of using the proceeds to support foster and underserved youth. The two were also very active on campus, including with the University Student Union and the Black Male Initiative.

Tae, who wrote a book, “Raised From Scratch,” based on their experiences, and Tray also regularly go out into the community to share their story with underrepresented young people, hoping to inspire them to attend college.

In all that they do, Tray said, they try to focus on the “larger picture.”

“To me, the larger picture wasn’t about starting a company,” he said. “It wasn’t about making money off those different things. It was about how we support those people, young men like ourselves in our community, who are striving for excellence.”

Both men will take part in the commencement ceremony at 8 a.m. on Monday, May 18. Tray finished his studies in December and is now teaching financial literacy in CSUN’s financial aid office. Tae will be entering USC’s Master of Education in Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs program in the fall.