As the fall semester kicks off, remember to set aside some additional time for your commute to campus. The first few weeks are always a busier period with students, staff and faculty getting back into the swing of things. Whether you are walking, driving or biking, expect a little extra hustle and bustle on the campus pathways and parking areas. Planning ahead can help ensure you arrive on time and stress-free for your classes or meetings. Avoid additional driving stress and parking fees by choosing one of the many free or highly discounted forms of sustainable transportation at CSUSM. Biking, transit, carpool and vanpool options are available here. Contact our sustainable transportation coordinator at 760-750-7029 or commuterprograms@csusm.edu for more information. Welcome back, Cougars, and have a great start to the semester!

Welcome to the new academic year! We hope you have enjoyed a restorative summer. We look forward to our work together in the year ahead in support students’ academic success. Learning & Tutoring Services for Fall 2024 The learning centers are 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.    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 NetTutor supports courses in these disciplines: Business, economics, finance, history, psychology, political science, philosophy, Spanish, statistics for human development, and statistics for psychology Language for Your Syllabi/Cougar Courses 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 drafted language to include on your syllabi/Cougar Courses containers. You also may 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 Aug. 26. Tutoring begins Sept. 3 and is open Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Fridays 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 201 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 STEM Success Center, Writing Center, Supplemental Instruction (SI) program, and NetTutor supported more than 19,000 student visits during the 2023-24 academic year. This includes an 8.8% increase in unique visits from the 2022-23 academic year.  Thank you, 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 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 1-3. 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 supervises Learning & Tutoring Services. You can reach him at apetersen@csusm.edu For Learning & Tutoring Services questions, contact Evan Smith (esmith@csusm.edu), Learning & Tutoring Services 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), 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 for a wonderful fall semester. Dawn M. Formo Dean, Undergraduate Studies Adam Petersen Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Studies

For Juliana Ortiz, ice cream is more than just a dessert.   Ortiz still gets nostalgic recalling childhood trips to Rite Aid to grab Thrifty’s ice cream with her parents. Her go-to flavor was chocolate, and it brought her comfort every time she ate it.   Ortiz cherished the little things. Going for chocolate ice cream with her mom and dad may have seemed ordinary to others. But for her, growing up in a low-income family, it was always a special moment.   “Ice cream was always a reward,” Ortiz said. “I had to do something good to get it. Every time I had ice cream, it was always that sense of accomplishing something, even if it was something small.”   Now, as a business owner, Ortiz looks for special moments like these through customers at her own ice cream shop. Entrepreneurship was never something on her radar, but that changed at Cal State San Marcos. It was a combination of fond memories of eating ice cream with her family and realizing that ice cream shops have the happiest clientele.   “No one goes to an ice cream shop angry, right?” Ortiz said. “Customers are either really happy because they're with family or friends or they've had a really bad day and they want a pick-me-up.”    Since graduating from CSUSM in 2018 with a degree in marketing, Ortiz has launched a successful ice cream business, Cali Cream, with her husband, Ken Schulenburg. Ortiz has helped craft 55 different flavors, including her childhood favorite, chocolate.   Quality is paramount. Cali Cream ice cream is made with 16% butterfat, compared with an average of 12% for most ice cream companies.    “We get it shipped from the farm to us within seven days,” Ortiz said. “It's only seven days from cow to cone.”    Since opening steps from Moonlight Beach in Encinitas in 2016, Cali Cream has expanded to include a bakery and a second ice cream location in San Diego’s downtown Gaslamp Quarter. Cali Cream also has been featured at special events like Comic-Con International and concerts at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.    “I don't know if there was ever a moment where the lightbulb went off,” Ortiz said, “but I think there are times where you're in a place in your life where you just say, ‘Hey, I want to do something different.’ ”    Ortiz came to CSUSM looking for a change, intending to create a better life for her daughter, Leslie.   When she was 16, Ortiz learned that she was pregnant. Telling her parents was difficult, and she didn’t want them to be disappointed in her or think it would keep her from having a successful future.    “It was extremely hard,” she said. “You never want to disappoint your parents. And you never want to do anything that they think might hold you back. Sometimes kids make mistakes. I've learned from it, but I think I've turned it around. I also believe that there are certain things that just kind of happen for a reason, and I feel like she's my biggest motivator. We’ve grown up together.”   Leslie was born prematurely, weighing just 4 pounds. Ortiz was facing adult responsibilities at a young age, but Leslie was a constant source of inspiration and motivation.    “At that time, it was so difficult to try to navigate everything,” Ortiz said. “But I ended up just striving forward again. I'm not going to be a statistic. I'm not going to let something like that hold me back. I needed to give my family – and I needed to give my daughter – a good example.”    When Ortiz was introduced to Rebeca Perren, a CSUSM marketing professor and former faculty mentor in the College of Business Administration’s mentorship program, she was clear that going back to school at age 30 was all for Leslie. And Perren was excited by the possibility of helping Latina students because when she was a student, she rarely saw people like her in the classroom.   “I wanted to help students who were like me,” Perren said. “And just by chance, Juliana was the student who was assigned to me. I got to know Juliana and her story, not just as a first-generation college student, but as a mother. She had a teenage daughter and she wanted to get her degree before her daughter went off to college. I had children myself, and we connected on so many different levels.”   Perren and Ortiz would meet to discuss class assignments and the struggles of being Latina in higher education. Ortiz saw that Perren regularly met with other business students, and she suggested that they all come together and start gathering as a group.    Perren invited Josefina Espino and Chris Santos to join, and they all bonded instantly. They met twice a month, usually at the campus Starbucks, and talked about how they pictured their lives after college.    The mentor group evolved into CoBA’s Latino Business Student Association, with Perren serving as the faculty adviser for seven years. Espino remembers when Ortiz revealed to the group that she was interested in entrepreneurship and wanted to start an ice cream business. Ortiz and Espino even used her business idea for a research project in a marketing class taught by professor Kristin Stewart.    Starting a path to entrepreneurship was exciting, but also nerve-racking for Ortiz. She didn’t know how she would balance being a student and mother while quitting her job as a marketing coordinator at Pacific Records, Inc. in San Diego.    “I remember one of the most important conversations I had to have with Juliana was about being generous to herself,” Perren said. “She, of course, had so much to offer, and one of the most difficult decisions she had to make was investing in herself. She is such a generous and loyal person. It felt difficult to let go of some of her commitments and give back to herself.”    Now, as an entrepreneur, Ortiz shows her generosity in the creative ways she connects with her customers and employees. When a customer comes into Cali Cream and talks about an ice cream flavor that holds significance for them, Ortiz goes out of her way to make it.    “Ice cream is such an emotional product,” Ortiz said. “We've made special request ice cream orders, because maybe it's a birthday present or it’s their parents' favorite. It’s so cool because I get to be the decision-maker. I can say yes or no, but if someone were to ask any other ice cream company, the answer is always going to be no. But my goal is to always make people happy.”   One of the most rewarding parts of Ortiz’s job is supporting her employees through college. It’s her way of giving back. A photo wall in the Encinitas location displays the logos of the colleges that her employees are attending. Ortiz even established a rule that if an employee performs well during the summer, they are guaranteed a job when they come home from college.    “I remember going to Cali Cream and seeing that the tip jar said ‘college fund’ on it,” Perren said. “It’s really awesome to see how college is built into the company culture. It's great when you see our alumni not only make a difference in their own life, but also how she can inspire and create social mobility in her family and in our community.”   Juliana Ortiz  Major at CSUSM: Business marketing   Graduation year: 2018  Company: Cali Cream  Website: calicreamicecream.com  Founded: 2016  Number of employees: 35-80 (depending on the season)    Talking Business With Juliana Ortiz What’s the best advice you received about starting a business?  Do what feels right for you and don’t be afraid to take risks. Not every risk is going to be successful, but there's certain risks that are very rewarding. I think if you do your work and research time, then it minimizes the damage.     What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?  I would say go for it. I think you never want to regret not making a decision because of the fear of failure.     What’s the greatest challenge in starting your own business?  The greatest challenge for me was trying to understand the process for getting health permits.    Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?  For us, it's a weather-based ice business. I have to look at weather for the next week and for the next couple of days to see how it impacts our business. That’s something that most people don't think about.   I would also make sure to work with a team and ensure that if there's a new product, we have to educate them. If your team's not good and if they're not educated, it falls back on you. They also don't want to be put in a position where they don't know how to communicate to their guests.    What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?  With changes in just about anything, whether it’s regulation or COVID, you have to be able to adapt and you have to be able to transition.  Media Contact Bri Phillips, Communications Specialist bphillips@csusm.edu

I’m proud to be of American Indian, Guamanian and Mexican heritage. But I’m not going to lie – being from a multicultural background comes with more than its share of challenges.  There are many days when you feel like you're never good enough, never enough for the population that you’re around that particular day.  Some days, I'm not Native enough because I'm not fully Native or because I don't speak my Native language. Other days, I’m not as Mexican as others if I’m not speaking Spanish consistently. Or it could be my lack of a certain tattoo to represent my Pacific Islander heritage.  I’ve learned over time to switch between those identities – usually without even thinking about it – depending on the circle of people I’m with in that moment. It’s like a light switch that I can turn on and off as needed.  But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Emphasizing one of my identities over the others can also bring about self-doubt and sadness because I’m doing it to be accepted by the person or group I’m with in that moment.  I’m grateful that my time at Cal State San Marcos has helped me navigate those challenges.  My journey in higher education been a windy road, from starting at the University of Hawaii-Manoa as a marine biology major to earning three associate degrees at Grossmont College to now finishing my bachelor’s in psychological science this spring at CSUSM.  It’s certainly not a traditional path, and there were many days that I worried about not living up to some imaginary timeline of how long it was supposed to take me to get my degree.   Today, I can appreciate an untraditional journey that has taken six years to complete. And I’m especially thankful that this path led me to CSUSM. It’s here that I reconnected with my American Indian heritage while also having the opportunity to fully appreciate and explore my Guamanian and Mexican identities.  I am a descendant of Navajo Nation, and my clan spans the four corners of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Most of my family lives in Arizona, including half on the reservation. I spent much of my childhood growing up in Arizona near my Native family. But I lost touch with much of that part of my identity as a teenager when we moved to San Diego. Even though Southern California is home to a significant Native population, it’s always different when you’re coming from a different place and not used to the customs or practices.  While different tribes have many shared experiences, I'm also cognizant of being a guest here because this is not my traditional homeland. There’s a responsibility to show respect for where you are, respect for the land and knowing that this isn't mine personally or my ancestors’. It's about finding the proper balance.  That’s something I’ve strived to do at CSUSM. When I came here, I didn’t even know the university offered an American Indian studies major. My first American Indian studies course came when I saw it being offered to fulfill an upper division general education requirement. I was fortunate that my professor, Lara Aase, encouraged me to visit the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center on campus. That led me to meeting Joely Proudfit, the center’s director and the department chair of American Indian studies, and learning about the American Indian Student Alliance (AISA).  I’ve had the privilege over the past year of serving as president of AISA, which was honored by CSUSM’s Student Leadership & Involvement Center as the Student Organization of the Year for 2021-22. I also joined Associated Students, Inc., as the representative for diversity and inclusion. In this role, I’ve worked to ease racial tensions and create a space where dialogue and conversation can occur.   It has been rewarding to see so many different organizations, both cultural and religious, come together. We know that we won’t resolve every issue or problem, but acknowledging that we see one another and recognize one another is a step in the right direction. We try to focus on how we can help and uplift each other.  My multiculturalism has been a tremendous asset in this work. It’s allowed me to be an ally for so many groups on campus. As AISA president, I’ve encouraged members of our organization to embrace and learn about other cultural and religious groups on campus. And doing so doesn’t invalidate our identity, it’s simply making space for others to also be recognized and seen, something that so many groups are fighting for on campus.  One of the biggest opportunities we have is to continue fostering an environment where all groups have space to grow and be recognized.  It’s something that’s a big part of where I am at now, too, as a person. I’ve learned through my higher education journey the importance of communicating your thoughts because, ultimately, we’re all trying to advocate for ourselves. And that’s an important lesson for everyone, because if you don't advocate for yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.   Self-advocacy is a skill that takes practice, to be sure. But once learned, it allows you to better express your concerns, helps people hear you in a non-adversarial way and makes them more inclined to listen. And that's what will bring about that change that we all want to see.  Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314