This spring, at 76 years old, Kathryn Cook will be walking across the graduation stage as the oldest graduate of Cal State San Marcos' class of 2024.  Her path to this upcoming accomplishment was not one of a traditional four-year-and-done experience. In fact, it was 50 years in the making, with monumental life transitions and rocky hardships in between.  Her education journey kickstarted in 1965 at Grossmont College where she was part of the dental assisting program. It was here that she discovered the two loves of her life: her devotion to helping others in the healthcare industry and Ed.  Cook had met Ed at a group Bible study session. “It was love at first sight,” Cook said. “I looked across the room and saw his beautiful blue eyes and a smile that lit up everything around him. I told my parents that I had met the man I was going to marry, and they were like, ‘Who is he? Where does he live?’ I said, ‘I don’t know a thing about him.’ We were married eighteen months later at 21 and 23.”  For the next 20 years, Cook continued her career in the dental field with Ed by her side. It wasn’t until they found themselves welcoming their daughter and son into the family after years of struggling with infertility that Cook decided to leave the industry. As she pivoted her focus to raising her children, she found little jobs for additional income. Ed was working for Navy housing as a carpenter at the time, and together, they would team up to work on projects with Ed building houses and Cook painting them.  As her children got older, Cook explored teaching opportunities and took on work as a special education and health aide. She was eventually introduced to Sharp HealthCare where she worked her way up to educator trainer, spending night shifts in the emergency room and training new hires for four hospitals.  Enjoying her time helping people learn, Cook decided she was ready to take the next step in her education journey and enrolled at MiraCosta College.  “I love teaching,” Cook said. “I’ve done it all, and it’s just so exciting to share your knowledge with another person. In 2008, I had finished up my classes for my associate degree, and Ed was so proud of me. I remember him saying, ‘You have to walk,’ and I said, ‘No, I can't, I'll be the oldest person there.’ And he just said, ‘Well, that’s OK.’ So, I walked, and I felt like a little kid. It was very special. He gave me such confidence in myself.”  Unfortunately, it was around this time that Ed started facing serious health issues. He underwent heart surgery and suffered a stroke, in addition to his diabetes that left him blind in one eye. Cook remained by his side, taking care of him each day, and supporting him through his falls that left him with fractures and the loss of appetite that caused him to lose his stature.  “It was a hard time,” Cook said. “It was just one thing after another. But what a joy to be able to care for the one that you love, you know, your best friend in the whole entire world.”  In November 2019, Ed passed away peacefully in his sleep.  “He had been in the hospital for the last week of his life,” Cook said. “He was not fully conscious, but he knew I was there. The last thing he said to me was how much he loved me, our life and our children. But he said, ‘I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore.’ I just grabbed his hand and said, ‘That’s OK.’ The next day he was gone.”  After Ed’s passing, Cook was left to upend her idea of the future that she had envisioned for the past 51 years and begin anew. Feeling the need to give back to her community and mend her heart in the process, Cook threw herself into volunteer work at the San Diego Rescue Mission, winning an award for reaching 100 hours of service work.  As she started piecing together what the next chapter of her life was going to look like, she thought about her volunteer work and the stories the people at the homeless shelter shared with her. Wanting to learn more about social structures and matters of social justice, Cook looked into sociology programs at four-year universities.  She had lost two-thirds of her income due to Ed’s retirement stopping after his death, so Cook was unsure of how to navigate the financial aspect. Her good friend encouraged her to fill out the FAFSA form to see if there were any grants available, and luckily, Cook was able to get most of her schooling covered.  In 2023, Cook enrolled in fully online courses at Cal State San Marcos as a sociology major.  “This education has given me such a better understanding of why things happen,” Cook said. “It makes you aware and encourages you to go out and do something that will make a difference. "And being mature or older, whichever phrase you want, can be good or bad. Just the thought of doing this made me so scared and excited at the same time. You know, people can make fun of you or think you’re too old to learn. They may even think, ‘Why are you bothering?' But for the most part, people in my life have just been so supportive and helpful. It’s really encouraging.”  As she is walking across the graduation stage and reminiscing about the trials and tribulations that she experienced along her education journey, she will be thinking of Ed.  “I just want to make him proud and my life to count,” Cook said. “I know when I walk, he’ll be watching over me and saying, ‘Honey, I’m so proud of you.’ He rarely called me by my name, it was really just 'Honey.' So, you know, I’ve done this for me and what I hope to do down the road, but also part of me did it for Ed, my greatest supporter.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

As a first-generation college student, Natalie Salas has experienced difficulties navigating higher education on her own.    Salas felt like she didn’t have people around her to ask for help, and she wanted to dive deeper to see if others had similar struggles by conducting research on fellow first-generation students.    “I found that a student's college experience plays a significant role in determining their success in higher education,” said Salas, who will receive a bachelor’s degree in sociology this month. “For Latinx first-generation college students, factors such as family, FGCS status and representation all play a key role in determining their success and resilience in higher education.”   Salas has been recognized for her findings as one of seven winners of the 2023-24 CSUSM Library Award for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity, which comes with a $500 cash prize for each winning submission.    Salas’s paper is titled “'I Don't Belong Here': A Qualitative Study on the Experiences of Latinx First-Generation College Students.” Despite an increase in Latinx students enrolled in undergraduate programs, she found that graduation rates have remained stagnant, raising a concern.    Salas discovered that Latinx students are systematically disadvantaged in higher education, causing them to question their sense of belonging and hurting their chances of success. But even in the face of these challenges, Latinx first-generation college students remain resilient.   After graduation, Salas plans to take a gap year, then continue her research in a Ph.D. program.    “I will most likely do a combined program or just go straight for my Ph.D.,” she said. “I plan to focus on Latino/a sociology and the sociology of education.”     Other winners   Creative works category    Submission: “MET”  Student: Mary Elizabeth Handler  Program: Art, media and design   Summary: Handler’s project is inspired by the book “The Metropolitan Museum of Art” by Howard Hibbard. This piece is a testament to the creative process of the exhibit.     Submission: “Exploring Mental Health Stigmatization Within AAPI Communities”  Student: Kayla Lankford  Program: Psychological science  Summary: Lankford’s work is a creative capstone of poems about mental health stigmatization in Asian American communities. Through her research, she created three poems, titled “Dad,” “War Cry” and “Recycling Day.”       Empirical works category    Submission: “Community Cultural Wealth: The Care and Resilience of Mothers in Poverty”  Student: Colleen Janey  Program: Social sciences  Summary: Janey’s project explores the lived experiences of women who have timed out of welfare. Her research reveals the resilience of mothers facing poverty and inequitable systems.     Submission: “Best Practices for Sharing Photovoice Research Outcomes”  Student: Shyane Masters and Brandon Warren-Fox   Program: Environmental studies  Summary: Masters and Warren-Fox discuss the best practices for sharing images online for sustained community engagement. Their findings emphasize social media's role and participatory approaches, aiding in digital dissemination and bridging researcher-participant gaps in conservation efforts.     Interpretive analysis   Submission: “From Mexicas to Ancient Aztecs, Classical Nahuas, and Modern Indios/as: Early Modern Criollo/a Constructions and Understandings of Indigenous New Spain”  Student: Hugo Daniel Peralta-Ramírez  Program: History  Summary: Peralta-Ramírez’s project analyzes early national narratives of Mexico that were constructed by Criollo intellectuals with Indigenous pasts.     Submission: “Howard the Duck vs. the Modernity of Man: A Critical Analysis on the Attitudes and Metaphors in Howard the Duck”  Student: Emilio Serrano  Program: Communication  Summary: Serrano’s work analyzes “Howard the Duck,” a comic created and published by Steve Gerber. The comic used satire to offer a social commentary of the times through the lens of an alien. Through genre and metaphoric rhetorical perspectives, Serrano argues that Gerber was a visionary who was frustrated with the medium and sought to point it out on the pages of “Howard the Duck.”  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

 Members of Cal State San Marcos School of Nursing’s chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, the honors society of nursing, worked together this week to assemble nurse appreciation boxes. The boxes were created as part of National Nurses Week, which is May 6-12 this year, and are being distributed to nurses at the School of Nursing’s clinical partners. The brown boxes are packed with snacks such as Oreos and Goldfish and tied together with blue and purple ribbon, the Sigma Theta Tau’s colors. These snacks are helpful to bring up the recipient's blood sugar, but the real goal of these appreciation boxes runs deeper.  “We want them to see how much we acknowledge the impact that they have on us,” said nursing student Jonathan Corps, who will graduate in December. “It's more of us acknowledging that they are going out of their way to accommodate us and that their help is the only way that we're going to learn. It helps us solidify that relationship and let them know that we're not just here to learn, we appreciate that they are the ones teaching us.” The appreciation boxes were implemented during COVID, but have since become an annual rite. The boxes are delivered during the week to hospitals where students have previously done their clinical rotations. Students are assigned to a field where they can practice what they have been learning at school.  “Whenever we get the chance to go out and show that appreciation, we try to do it,” Corps said, “It's an ongoing thing. It's like getting flowers on Valentine's Day – show your love every day, but that one special day you try to give that extra push.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

More than 4,000 students are graduating in the Class of 2024 as Cal State San Marcos hosts its annual spring commencement ceremonies this month. A total of 4,018 students have graduated or will graduate as part of this year’s class. Spring commencement follows on the heels of CSUSM holding the first fall commencement in its 35-year history. Those ceremonies last December drew a total of 520 graduates. More than 21,000 people are expected to be in attendance to celebrate the graduates this month. CSUSM’s spring commencement will take place on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18 at Mangrum Track and Field on campus, with six different ceremonies stretched across the two days.   In the Class of 2024, 55% of the graduates are the first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree, and 31% are the first to attend college. More than 45% come from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, and 57% are non-white. The ages of the graduates range from 18 to 76. Each of the commencement ceremonies will be streamed live on the CSUSM website and mobile app to allow viewing by family members and friends who can’t attend. CSUSM will award two honorary degrees during commencement: Jim Gruny will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree during the College of Business Administration ceremony on May 17 at 9 a.m.   Jerri-Ann Jacobs will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree in the College of Education, Health and Human Services ceremony on May 18 at 1:30 p.m. Gruny is the community liaison officer for Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego (MCRDSD) and the Western Recruiting Region (WRR). In this capacity, he advises and supports the commanding general and his subordinate commanders in maintaining a strong, positive relationship between MCRDSD/WRR and the greater San Diego community. His 30 years of service in the Mariners as an armor officer included two combat tours in operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom.   Jacobs has a longtime passion for community-building and serving others through philanthropy, including education, music, the arts, youth leadership and volunteering. In 1996, she was a founding board member of the Foundation for the Advancement of Music Education (FAME), which successfully advocated for the return of instrumental and choral music programs to public schools in the San Dieguito Unified School District. In 2000, she and her husband created the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High school with other local business leaders, bringing project-based learning to life in the classroom. More information on CSUSM’s commencement ceremonies is available online.   What: CSUSM hosts commencement for the Class of 2024   When:   Friday, May 17   9 a.m. – College of Business Administration 1:30 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences   6 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences   Saturday, May 18   9 a.m. – College of Education, Health and Human Services  1:30 p.m. – College of Education, Health and Human Services   6 p.m. – College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics   Where: Mangrum Track and Field, Cal State San Marcos, 333 South Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos   Media: Members of the media who wish to attend any of the commencement ceremonies are asked to contact communications specialist Brian Hiro in advance at bhiro@csusm.edu or 760-759-0564. For easy access to the ceremony site, media are asked to park in Lot Z, which is located at South Twin Oaks Valley Road and Campus Marketplace.

Dear faculty and staff, We hope your semester is wrapping up smoothly. If you will be teaching this summer or directing students to academic learning resources over the summer, keep reading! Learning & Tutoring is at the heart of the direct academic support that the Office of Undergraduate Studies (OUGS) provides CSUSM students. Virtual and in-person academic support is available. For a list of specific courses supported, visit our website. We look forward to working with you to ensure that students have access to available academic resources.    NetTutor supports courses in these disciplines: Business, economics, finance, history, psychology, political science, philosophy, Spanish, statistics for human development, and statistics for psychology STEM Success Center supports courses in these disciplines:  Biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics Writing Center: Supports writing in all courses Supplemental Instruction supports courses in these disciplines: Biology, chemistry, economics, physics, psychology and speech-language pathology Language for Your Syllabi/Cougar Course Container Faculty are our most powerful partners in engaging students with academic support resources on our campus. To assist you in directing students to campus academic support resources, we have provided this information to include on your syllabi/Cougar Courses containers. You also might want to provide this link to your students.  When do we open to students? Students are welcome to visit Learning & Tutoring Services to see the space or study beginning June 3. Tutoring begins June 3 and is open Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Where?  The second floor of the Extended Learning Building. The STEM Success Center is in ELB 250. The Writing Center is in ELB 273 for in-person tutoring (see our website for virtual support options). Do students visit the academic learning centers? Yes. Supported by roughly 120 trained peer educators, the Academic Success Center, STEM Success Center and Writing Center supported nearly 21,000 student visits during the 2022-23 academic year. This represents a 48% increase from the previous academic year. In fall 2023, students made 11,218 visits. Thank you to faculty and staff for directing students to these learning centers and for your key role in recommending students to serve as peer educators in Learning & Tutoring Services. We can support many more students, so please continue to direct them to us. To what effect? Data suggest that students who make at least five visits to a single learning center per semester in support of a specific course tend to earn higher grades. Visiting the learning centers early and often is sage advice. In the words of one of our peer educators, “The more you go, the more you know.” Friendly Suggestions Add the language in this link to your syllabi and Canvas course containers. Encourage students to stop by LTS during the first week of the semester to get acquainted. They can simply come by to look around. Encourage students to make use of the free tutoring at least once during weeks 1 and 2. Remind your students that LTS is a safe space to learn. Encourage them to bring a friend with them when they visit LTS. Remind your students that with regular visits to LTS early and often throughout the semester, their learning will be deeper and their GPA likely will be higher.  Feel free to reach out to us with your questions and suggestions. In his role as assistant dean, Adam Petersen now supervises Learning & Tutoring Services. You can reach him at apetersen@csusm.edu. For Learning & Tutoring Services questions, contact Evan Smith (esmith@csusm.edu), LTS director. For Writing Center questions, contact Allison Reyes (ajreyes@csusm.edu), associate director of LTS for writing support. For STEM Success Center questions, contact Paulina Coronado (pcoronado@csusm.edu),  interim associate director of LTS for STEM support.  For Supplemental Instruction (SI) questions, contact Alex Picasso (apicasso@csusm.edu), SI coordinator.  We know that the more students believe they belong, the better they do academically. Thank you for all you do to enrich this vibrant learning community. Best wishes as you wrap up the spring and prepare for the summer session! Dawn M. Formo Dean, Undergraduate Studies Adam Petersen Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Studies

Juliana Abraham has a variety of head coverings that she wears when she’s outside. One day might be a head scarf, another day a Cal State San Marcos baseball cap. But Abraham isn’t trying to make a fashion statement. After undergoing radiation therapy as a teenager, she has a 75% higher risk of skin cancer. And when she removes the head covering that she’s chosen for a particular day, she can adjust her hair to show the C-shaped scar where doctors cut open the top of her head to perform brain surgery when she was 12 years old. It has been nearly a decade since the surgery, and, not surprisingly, the experience has completely altered the course of Abraham’s life. Before the surgery, she was a Level 9 competitive gymnast, meaning she was on a path to try out for the Elite program from which U.S. Olympic gymnasts are selected. While that dream ended because of her health issues, the experience opened Abraham’s eyes to her future career. “I've known that I've wanted to be a nurse since I got sick,” said Abraham, a first-generation college student who is graduating from CSUSM this month with a bachelor’s in kinesiology. “After the second time I got sick, I knew that was probably my calling. Before that, I was in the gym eight hours a day training five days a week, sometimes six, and that was my career. And then everything just kind of came to a halt once I got diagnosed with a brain tumor. “I had the light-bulb moment during proton radiation therapy in 2016 after the second surgery. My nurses in both years when I was sick always made an impact on me. It always felt like home being in the hospital for some reason. It was such a connection that I had with those nurses. I cried when I was done with therapy and I rang that bell that they have you ring. I was so happy but also upset because I wasn't going to see them anymore. It was like I was losing a part of my family in a way.” Abraham has been laser-focused on a nursing career ever since. Abraham was still a tween when she began suffering a variety of ailments – including headaches, double vision, and back and stomach pain. She figured it must be related to her intense gymnastics training or puberty. A visit to an eye doctor changed everything. Abraham was diagnosed with papilledema, a swelling of the optic discs in the eyes. The doctor said Abraham needed to go to the emergency room immediately because of related pressure on the brain. An MRI revealed the brain tumor. Doctors initially thought they were dealing with a common benign tumor, but a surgery that was expected to last five hours took more than eight as they discovered it was a central neurocytoma tumor, which is rare in children. It’s so rare that Abraham’s doctors published a case report about it in BMJ, an international peer-reviewed journal. A groggy Abraham actually woke up toward the end of the procedure as the doctor was putting stitches in her head. Abraham, whose head and upper body were mobilized to ensure that she didn’t move during the procedure, asked her doctor if he could scratch her nose, which was bothering her. The doctor politely declined, noting that he was a tad busy. So, Abraham, ever the gymnast, lifted her knee to her nose, scratched it and put her leg back down. “He stopped what he was doing, looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Did you really just do that?’ I’m drunk on anesthesia, groggy and don't know what's going on and said, 'I think so.' And then I was out. That was the first thing he told my parents when he came out to speak to them.” When Abraham was fully awake following the surgery, she was paralyzed on the left side of her body. Rigorous physical therapy helped her regain use of her left side and she even returned to gymnastics. But during one of her follow-up appointments, doctors discovered a regrowth. Abraham underwent a second surgery a year after her first. This time, doctors were unable to remove it completely due to its proximity to the hypothalamus, which controls things like heart rate and hormonal release. Abraham underwent proton radiation therapy to eradicate the remaining tumor and tried again to return to gymnastics. But one of the lingering effects of Abraham’s paralysis after her first surgery is drop foot syndrome, which means she can’t always lift the front part of the foot. As she increasingly had accidents while performing routines, she realized she had to retire from the sport she loved. Nurses were a consistently positive presence throughout Abraham’s medical journey, and with Olympic dreams no longer a possibility, she turned her attention to a new goal. Figuring out how to finance that goal was a challenge for someone from a low-income background, but Abraham’s medical team stepped in to help. Abraham was referred by her neuro oncologist to Make-A-Wish San Diego, which empowers children battling critical illnesses by granting them a wish. Make-A-Wish granted Abraham’s request for a scholarship to help pay for college, providing a $10,000 grant that covered costs for Abraham’s first year at CSUSM. With many nursing programs in the state impacted, Abraham decided to major in kinesiology. She’s working her way through nursing prerequisites with an eye on starting a program in spring 2025. That would put her on track for two milestones in 2026 – a nursing degree and being officially clear medically. Doctors wanted Abraham checked annually for 10 years following the second surgery because of the regrowth, but the hope is that she will be declared clear in December 2026 and can fully focus on the next chapter of her life – helping others the way so many nurses helped her. “What better profession for me to go into than nursing?” she said. “I know what kids are going to be going through and I know how to prepare them for it. I know how to be there for them and hopefully make them feel better and more comfortable. I can let them know, ‘Hey, I've been through this, too.’ ” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314