History Professor Wins CSU Award for Top Teaching Faculty in State
Cal State San Marcos history professor Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall has been honored with the most prestigious award that faculty can receive in the California State University system.
Sepinwall was announced Tuesday as one of five winners of the Wang Family Excellence Award. Each year, the CSU recognizes four faculty and one staff member for their “unwavering commitment to student achievement and advancing the CSU mission through excellence in teaching, scholarship and service.”
Sepinwall received the Wang Family Excellence Award for Outstanding Faculty Teaching. She was honored publicly Tuesday afternoon during the CSU Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach.
The other awards are for outstanding faculty service, outstanding faculty scholarship, outstanding faculty innovator for student success and outstanding staff performance.
Sepinwall becomes the fifth CSUSM faculty member to win a Wang award since it was introduced in 1998. The previous four were education professor Laurie Stowell (2005); arts, media and design professor Kristine Diekman (2016); psychology professor Keith Trujillo (2017); and music professor Merryl Goldberg (2018).
“I’m incredibly grateful for this recognition of my teaching from the CSU,” Sepinwall said. “I love to bring history alive for students and build critical thinking skills that help them be successful, no matter their career. When students understand history as lived experience rather than as a dry subject based on names and dates, then I feel like I’ve done my job.”
Sepinwall has been teaching at CSUSM since 1999. During her time at the university, she has won its top teaching awards – the President’s Award for Innovation in Teaching in 2004 and the Brakebill Distinguished Professor Award for overall excellence in 2014.
She is well known across campus for her creative and innovative approaches to teaching. She has held cookoffs to explore changes in eating habits for her course Women and Jewish History and gamified the French Revolution for the class Revolutionary Europe. She incorporates firsthand historical accounts like diaries, plans surprise “field trips” to campus locations such as the White Rose Memorial (which commemorates German students killed for resisting Adolf Hitler) and invites diverse guest speakers like Holocaust survivors and recent refugees. Her research on topics including the history of gender discrimination in France and early Haitian intellectuals became the foundation for a host of new courses.
“I strive to get to know my students and help them toward ‘aha’ moments, when they realize how history connects to their lives,” Sepinwall said. “I love bringing them information from the cutting edge of my field, where I publish on topics from the history of racism to historical video games. My classes challenge conventional expectations about history, recovering stories that have been pushed to the margins and allowing students to see themselves in historical narratives.”
Sepinwall extends her passion for history and teaching beyond the classroom, as she has organized more than 30 special lecture, performance and film events for students and the community; given more than 30 guest lectures and panel presentations for campus colleagues; and done more than 50 community talks, including a live interview with famed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Sometimes interactions with students end up informing her research. After students expressed interest in the subject of depictions of history in video games, Sepinwall became one of the first historians to write about it, and that work eventually became the basis for her 2021 book “Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games.”
As part of the award, Sepinwall will receive a $20,000 prize that is provided through a gift from CSU Trustee Emeritus Stanley T. Wang and administered through the CSU Foundation.
Sepinwall holds bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from Stanford University.
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- Periodic Review of Vice President for University Advancement Jessica BergerDear CSUSM community, As many of you know, our vice president for University Advancement, Jessica Berger, joined CSUSM in July 2021. Given that our campus policy requires that I conduct a periodic review of vice presidents in the third year of their initial appointment (and at intervals no greater than five years thereafter), I write to inform you that this process has begun and to invite your participation and feedback. Not only is it California State University policy to inform our university community of this review and to allow members to submit comments that respond to the specific criteria, but your participation is also important to me. Your feedback will support CSUSM’s forward progress, particularly as it relates to the leadership of University Advancement. The Periodic Review of the Provost and Vice Presidents policy provides details of the process and criteria. Your feedback and letters are invited on Vice President Berger’s approach to: Leadership and management Strategic planning University and community partnerships, and Functional oversight and management Please note that I am unable to accept petitions and unsigned letters. Please submit an email or letter no later than Tuesday, May 7, addressed as follows: Email: Periodicreview@csusm.edu Dr. Ellen Neufeldt, President California State University San Marcos Administration Building 5302 333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Road San Marcos, CA 92096-0001 Following the deadline, the written responses will be summarized into a report that will be discussed with Vice President Berger. None of the commentators will be identified by name, and responses will be treated in confidence to the extent permitted by the law. Please keep in mind that this is intended to be a constructive process that should benefit both our vice president and university. Thank you again for your participation in this important review process. Sincerely, Ellen J. Neufeldt, Ed.D. President
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Having noticed that more than half of the 23 California State University campuses boast makerspaces in their libraries, CSUSM’s library dean, Jennifer Fabbi, took the idea to a group of administrators and faculty in 2019. They began to develop the concept, surveyed professors about how they would use it and even visited some existing makerspaces around the state. Then the pandemic struck, shelving the project for more than two years. It was revived in fall 2022 with the hiring of Gerritsen. She had graduated the previous year with a degree in arts and technology/applied physics, and was working as a STEAM ambassador for Center ARTES, an on-campus arts organization founded by CSUSM music professor Merryl Goldberg. Lucy HG Solomon, another School of Arts professor and Gerritsen’s main faculty mentor, heard about the makerspace opportunity and thought Gerritsen would be a good fit. “And it turns out I was,” Gerritsen said. Gerritsen set about designing the 2,280-square-foot space with Char Booth, the library’s associate dean; the Office of Planning, Design and Construction; and an internal library group. Funding came from a Kellogg Library building endowment that is specifically to be used for library renovations. The Makery was chosen through a campus naming contest. It was the overwhelming winner over the other two finalists: “Sandbox” and “Buildbox.” “A makerspace in the library allows for a centralized space that is accessible and open to everyone in the campus community,” Fabbi said. “The Makery is a space where students, staff and faculty can use information to create new knowledge, which is what the library is all about.” The creative flair and sense of whimsy that Gerritsen brought to the design of The Makery is evident even before you step into the room. A large neon sign hanging above the door displays the name of the makerspace in blue, green and orange letters. To the immediate right past the entrance is a collection of 27 high-density foam cubes that can be used for sitting in a large group collaboration or for alternate purposes like building a wall or other structures. On either side of a desk where a student assistant is stationed to welcome visitors are two enclosed rooms. One of them, called The Pantry, features a few desktop computers for people to work on digital projects in a quiet atmosphere. The other is named Gina’s Game Corner in tribute to Georgina “Gina” Lopez, a longtime library employee who passed away last year. It has a game table and shelves that are stocked with games, puzzles and other forms of entertainment. “I wanted to have a place where people can relax and have fun, unload a little bit,” Gerritsen said. “We ultimately settled on a game room, in part because Gina enjoyed those types of things, and also because we have a lot of games in the library and many people don’t know about them.” The rest of The Makery is a large open area with half a dozen square tables topped with butcher blocks and surrounded by bright, colorful chairs. All are on wheels so that the furniture can be moved into any configuration. On an afternoon last month, two of the tables had been pushed together to display a paper welcome banner that visitors could draw and color on, and a third table held a container of purple kinetic sand. The star attraction of The Makery, however, is the back wall. There you can find the primary making equipment, such as sewing machines, embroidery machines, a cameo cutter machine, button makers, a craft printer, a paper cutter and a power drill. There also are bins upon bins of arts and crafts supplies like paint, beads, string, ribbons, clips, rubber bands, markers and dozens more miscellaneous items. The opposite wall is lined with shelves that showcase some of the creations that students already have made during the limited time that The Makery has been open. “It's been cool seeing them make things on their own without direction,” said Ryan Dorsett, a 2015 CSUSM alumnus who in January shifted from a different job in the library to run the makerspace with Gerritsen. “It's like, ‘Wow, you made that here.’ We really wanted people to be excited about the space, and there's been a lot of excitement that students have expressed. They've been very clear in their joy.” Gerritsen said her goal for the rest of this semester is to work out any operational kinks that crop up while gathering data on user numbers and behavior. Starting next school year, she plans to incorporate more programming and foster more partnerships with the campus community, which could include student orientations and campus tours stopping by The Makery or holding academic classes in the space. “We’ll see how much of that can happen by the fall,” Gerritsen said, “but it’s going to grow as time goes on.” The Makery is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The coordinators are seeking donations of craft supplies, office supplies or “anything that you can use to make stuff with,” as Gerritsen put it. Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306