Cal State San Marcos has earned a STARS Gold Rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). STARS is the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System that measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education. CSUSM’s report is available on the STARS website. “This is a true testament to our whole community working together to integrate sustainability into the fabric of our campus,” said Juliana Goodlaw-Morris, CSUSM’s sustainability manager. “Obviously, COVID has thrown us for a loop, but now more than ever, it is important for us to become a more sustainable and resilient campus and utilize new ways of thinking and doing to ensure CSUSM continues to lead for many years to come.” With more than 900 participants in 40 countries, AASHE’s STARS program is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly reporting comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance. Participants report achievements in five overall areas: academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, and innovation and leadership. “STARS was developed by the campus sustainability community to provide high standards for recognizing campus sustainability efforts,” AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser said. “CSUSM has demonstrated a substantial commitment to sustainability by achieving a STARS Gold Rating and is to be congratulated for their efforts.” CSUSM received a STARS Silver Rating after completing its first assessment in 2017. “Over the past few years, I have focused on areas where we can grow the sustainability program and align our efforts with our CSUSM Sustainability Master Plan, our campus strategic plan and our CSU mission, vision and values,” Goodlaw-Morris said. “I am happy to say that, over the past three years, we have developed new programming, improved in areas such as campus engagement and are a leading campus connecting sustainability with our diversity and equity efforts under the inclusive sustainability initiative. “In addition, faculty conducting research related to sustainability has increased, and we truly are creating new and innovative solutions to solve some of the biggest challenges we currently face locally and globally.” All CSU campuses are required to use STARS as a reporting tool for the Chancellor’s Office, which shares the reports with the Board of Trustees. CSUSM is one of eight CSUs to receive a gold rating. Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Paul Ecke III awoke on New Year’s Day eight years ago facing the most daunting of resolutions: the house project to end all house projects. On the final day of 2012, Ecke had completed the sale of his family’s storied Encinitas ranch to the Leichtag Foundation, a local nonprofit. As part of the transaction, he had negotiated a one-year lease-back, which meant that he had one year of access to every square foot of the sprawling property – one year to sift through literal barns full of stuff accumulated during more than a century of business for a family that had become, in Ecke’s telling, the Microsoft of growing poinsettias and selling them around the world. Such was their market dominance. What to do, Ecke wondered, with the overwhelming cache of business records, flower catalogs, family photos, correspondence, maps and other documents that surely possessed historical value, given the Eckes’ prominence in the building of North County going back to his great-grandfather’s immigration from Germany in the early 1900s? “Most people just have to clean out their garage once in a while, or they move,” Ecke said. “We hadn’t moved in 100 years. So I found myself digging through 100 years of Ecke stuff, and it was quite a task.” As Ecke dove into the initial legwork, spending months sorting and organizing and, yes, purging with the help of a local historian, he thought more and more about a permanent home for his family’s archives. What better place than a local, growing university that could give the collection the attention and space that Ecke thought it deserved? What better place than the Cal State San Marcos University Library? By the end of 2013, Ecke had donated hundreds of boxes worth of materials to CSUSM, thus establishing the foundation of what became the library’s Special Collections department. Eight years later, the partnership between the Ecke family and CSUSM is stronger than ever. Late last year, the Eckes gave $80,000 to the university in continued support of a collection that formally is called the Paul Ecke Ranch, Inc. Business Records and Family Papers. That raised the family’s total giving to more than $350,000 dating back to their first gift in 1996. “There are so many benefits to having this collection at the library,” said Jennifer Ho, an archivist for Special Collections. “Local history is the main thing. When most people think of San Diego, they think of the coast or downtown or the border areas, but there’s not enough attention given to the North County area. So that aspect is huge. The business was started by an immigrant, so you’ve got that immigrant-hustle, American Dream story. And it started as a small business, so you have some business history there. “And, of course, the poinsettias angle. We think of poinsettias as the traditional holiday flower, but it’s just because of the Eckes’ incredible marketing that that’s the case.” Ho’s position as the archivist in charge of the Ecke collection exists thanks to funding from the Eckes. A 2007 alumna of CSUSM, Ho was hired in November 2019 to build on the work of her predecessor, Aditi Worcester, who organized and created an inventory of the materials in the collection. One of the first things Ho did upon arriving at her alma mater was take a tour of the ranch at the invitation of Paul Ecke III and his sister, Lizbeth. Paul whisked Ho and colleagues Jennifer Fabbi (library dean) and Sean Visintainer (head of Special Collections) around the property in a golf cart, under the theory that it’s easier to understand the history of a place once you’ve seen it with your own eyes. “It was a really great all-day tour, telling us about the buildings and the home they used to live in and all the research and development,” Ho said. “They’re lovely people. And we email a few times a year about materials they want to add to the collection or photos that I’ve put online.” Ho had been in her job for only a few months when the coronavirus pandemic struck and forced the closure of CSUSM’s physical campus, including the library. For nearly a year, Ho has been able to work from inside the library just one day a week, which has slowed the progress of her primary task: scanning the reams of documents and turning them into digital files. She anticipates that the pace will pick up considerably when campus reopens and the library can bring on student workers to assist her.   Having pored through most of the collection himself before he donated it, Paul Ecke has some personal favorites. A canceled check for a 50-cent sack of flour from the Great Depression. The annual catalogs that detailed the ranch’s stockpile of poinsettias and other flowers. Large aerial photos of the property arranged for by his grandfather, Paul Ecke Sr., nicknamed “Mr. Poinsettia” as the man who cultivated the business into a global force.   “For me, those photos are a fascinating historical record for an era before Google Earth,” Ecke said. “I think they’re going to be great for future generations.”  Materials directly related to the poinsettia business are the primary draw, but as Fabbi says, "this local history collection also provides a magnifying glass through which to examine national and global happenings over many decades.”   There are letters from the brother of Paul Ecke Sr., Hans, who served in World War I and died of the Spanish flu, the last time that the world was in the grips of a pandemic of such severity. A letter from Paul to Hans marked “return to sender” was how the family discovered that Hans had died.  There is correspondence between Paul Ecke Sr. and Japanese farmers who worked on neighboring land in Encinitas. When the farmers were placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they asked Ecke to store on his ranch things like their tractors, trucks and family heirlooms. One letter expressed the family’s gratitude for the Eckes’ role in helping to save their farm.   There’s an abundance of documents connected to the Bracero program, a contract between the U.S. and Mexican governments in the early 1940s to bring more than 4 million Mexican laborers north to work temporarily in agriculture because of an American labor shortage stemming from World War II. The Eckes employed Bracero workers and Paul, who was a boy when the program ended in the mid-60s, remembers his grandfather and father talking about it. “It was an important part of the ranch history because it was hard to get workers and they filled a need, especially after the war,” he said. Ho said the Bracero documents are being digitized for CSUSM faculty to use as research material for their students, in part because of the relevance of the program to the pressing immigration issues of today. “There are a lot of echoes between the Bracero program and today’s immigrants, documented or not, coming in and trying to make a life for themselves, which is exactly what these men were trying to do,” Ho said.  Nearly a decade after he first began tackling the mountain of artifacts on his family’s ranch, Ecke feels as invested in the project and CSUSM’s work as ever. He relishes the regular check-ins with Ho and colleagues to review, explain and clarify things.   “Maybe it’s a lifelong journey for me, meeting with Cal State San Marcos to help them get it right,” Ecke said. “There’s a bunch of stuff around North County with the Ecke name on it, but as people age, as people die, as new people come to town, the memory of our family is going to keep fading. I think they did some extraordinary things in their time, and I’m really excited that, because of this collection, if you want to know who they were, you can find out.”  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Bonnie Bade has worked closely with farmworker communities for more than three decades, and she’s part of a small, tight-knit coterie of researchers who study agricultural labor in California.  So when the coronavirus pandemic struck with a vengeance last March, the thoughts of Bade and her colleagues across the state almost immediately turned to the many ways that the burgeoning crisis would affect migrant farmworkers, that ever-vulnerable population within the labor force. They decided to convene a Zoom conference call, during which two primary themes quickly emerged.  This is really going to hit the farmworkers hard.  What are we going to do about it?  That meeting kicked off a journey that has filled much of the past year for Bade, a longtime professor of medical anthropology at Cal State San Marcos. Early this month, she participated in a virtual press conference at which she and her research associates shared the results of a study titled “Always Essential, Perpetually Disposable: California Farmworkers and the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The study shares harrowing stories of COVID-19’s impact on migrant workers and outlines concrete steps that state lawmakers can take to help protect the people who power California’s $50 billion per year agriculture industry.   “This is really wonderful for me because, even though I am one of the co-principal investigators on the study, it’s a huge collaboration that involves academic researchers, independent researchers and community-based organizations from all over California,” Bade said.   The farmworker study was facilitated by the California Institute for Rural Studies, a Davis-based organization that Bade said funded her dissertation research back in the late 1980s and for which she has served on the advisory board for the last 10 years. Bade designed the study together with Dvera Saxton, an anthropology professor at Fresno State. Among the many contributors, Bade was especially proud of research associates Paola Illescas and Deysi Merino-Gonzalez, both CSUSM alumna who now work for local nonprofits Vista Community Clinic and the FarmWorker CARE Coalition.  The COVID-19 Farmworker Study (COFS) can be broken down into two distinct components. During the first phase, last May and June, organizers conducted a statewide survey of 915 farmworkers, collecting a trove of valuable data about the loss of jobs and wages and other harmful effects. The second phase, led by Bade and Saxton from August to October, involved 63 in-depth phone interviews with migrant workers who had been part of the original survey.   The interviews added human voices to the data gleaned from the first phase and drove home the devastating toll of the pandemic. When she dove into their stories, Bade began to identify several common threads:  Internet access in rural areas tends to be spotty, which increased the already daunting challenge of remote learning.  The closing of restaurants and other food-related industries had a cascading effect on California agriculture, resulting in job and wage losses in farmworker communities.   Farmworkers experienced uneven COVID-19 protections and little enforcement of protocols.   Food insecurity was an issue, from not only wage loss but also increased costs because of school closures and stay-at-home orders.   Bade discovered that most of the concerns of the interview subjects fell under the general category of mental health.   “It all comes back to that,” she said. “These are paycheck-to-paycheck individuals, and they’re really stressed about losing their jobs. They’re stressed about not having enough food to put on the table, talking about adding more rice and beans to the diet and taking away other proteins to make the food last longer. They’re really worried about the mental health of their kids.  “We even had a case where a woman was talking about her daughter, and she said the girl got a little sniffle, started coughing, and then she lost it and began crying hysterically: ‘Mommy, I have COVID, I’m gonna die, we’re all gonna die!’ And the mother just couldn’t stop her.”  Such pandemic-specific worries have been compounded by persistent ones rooted in history.   “It’s the same situation that farmworkers have been in since ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and before, where there are substandard, undignified living conditions, and then labor conditions – although California has a lot of laws on the books, we don’t have a lot of enforcement,” Bade said. “We came across workers with no sick leave of any kind. They were afraid to say they didn’t feel good or they might have COVID because they knew that they would be dismissed along with their whole crew. So there were a lot of pressures not to report. Also, farmworkers tend not to have health insurance.  “And probably more than 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, so there’s the fear of deportation. ‘If I’m infected, are they going to deport me? I’m going to die alone in a hospital bed.’ That was a huge fear that came across loud and clear.”  Bade and her colleagues are now working on a third phase of the project in which they create communication tools that pick up some of the slack from county health departments in terms of educating farmworker communities about vaccinations, testing and other ways they can protect themselves against the virus. The researchers also have met with the California Latino Legislative Caucus as a first step toward influencing policy change by state lawmakers.   In the short term, Bade hopes the government will increase funding for the community-based organizations that are on the ground, building relationships and doing the heavy lifting in support of farmworkers. But as a seasoned expert in the field, she’s even more invested in lasting, structural change.   Estimating that farmworkers try to live off less than $20,000 a year, Bade said she would like to see agricultural labor be treated as a true occupation, enjoying not only a standard living wage but benefits, retirement accounts, sick leave and vacation days. She’s also advocating for more movement across the border so that farmworkers can travel back and forth from Mexico without their entire way of life being disrupted.   “There are families who’ve been here for 20 years or more, who’ve been paying taxes and contributing economically to the state for a very long time, yet they can’t go home to take care of their parents as their parents die, because they can’t cross or they can’t get back,” Bade said. “We need to recognize the contribution that migrant and transnational farmworkers make to this gigantic industry.”  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Jamie De Revere, who received her master’s in kinesiology last May, recently published a paper in the journal PLOS ONE. The paper – titled “Changes in VO2max and cardiac output in response to short-term high-intensity interval training in Caucasian and Hispanic young women: A pilot study” – compares responses to exercise training between Hispanic and Caucasian women. Additional authors on the paper include fellow CSUSM student Rasmus D. Clausen and kinesiology professor Todd Astorino. Astorino noted the importance and relevance of the project because of CSUSM’s status as “a Hispanic-Serving Institution, the large prevalence of Hispanics in the San Diego region, and the marked health disparities which exist in this population.” Astorino also had a paper published as a featured article in the January edition of Spinal Cord, an international journal that has published spinal cord-related papers since 1963. Astorino said the paper, titled “Viability of high intensity interval training in persons with spinal cord injury—a perspective review,” will be widely read by scientists who study the effects of physical activity on health status in those with spinal cord injuries who face enhanced risk of morbidity and mortality.   MPact names Spieldenner executive director Communication professor Andrew Spieldenner has been named executive director of MPact Global Action for Gay Men’s Health and Rights, which “works at the intersection of sexual health and human rights and is linked to more than 120 community-based organizations in 62 countries who are leading innovative solutions to the challenges faced by LGBTI communities around the world.”   Veterans Center building net-zero Solar panels at the Epstein Family Veterans Center are operational and the facility is now net-zero energy, meaning solar produces all the power needed to operate the building. The project was designed and constructed by Facilities, Development and Management. Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Robyn Araiza was an undergraduate student in the Literature and Writing Studies Department at Cal State San Marcos in the early 2000s. She wasn’t 100 percent sure on her career path, but she wanted to explore what the program touts as “the global literary experience.” She took GES 100 (“The Physical Science Around Us”) for a general education requirement, but had no intention of doing anything in science beyond passing the course. That was partly because although she enjoyed science in high school, she had what she described as an “awful” chemistry teacher. “I swore I was never going to take another chemistry class again,” Araiza said. As fate would have it, a few CSUSM professors had something else in mind for her. Araiza’s GES 100 professor convinced her to take his Chemistry 150 course the following semester because he “called me out for not working to my potential.” That’s when she also met Jackie Trischman, who would serve this time in Araiza’s life as her lab instructor but eventually would progress to her mentor, colleague and friend. Organic chemistry was next, a course she completely fell in love with. It wasn’t long before she was changing her major to chemistry and essentially altering her entire life. In addition to earning her bachelor’s in biochemistry, Araiza recently became the first graduate of CSUSM’s master’s program in chemistry and currently teaches two courses in the department. “As a scientist, I very much acknowledged that education is a journey and there's no end to it,” Araiza said. Araiza’s journey through both CSUSM degree programs required equal amounts time and patience. While many of her classmates were relying on a combination of student loans and help from home, she handled the financial burden by working and earning scholarship money from a variety of sources. In her last semester as an undergrad, Araiza worked as a TA for as many professors as she could. Upon earning her undergraduate degree, she had no interest in going into the classroom. “I swore I'd never teach,” she said. “But by the end of it, I was asked to come back and teach Chem 416 labs (‘Instrumental Methods of Analysis’). Even when I started teaching, at first I swore it was a transitionary job.” However, the department sweetened its offer to keep her lecturing by offering to pay for her master’s degree tuition as CSUSM was on the verge of beginning its advanced degree program in chemistry. While it took the next 10 years to get the master’s degree program up and running, Araiza continued to make more of an impact each year she spent in the department. By the time that first cohort began the master’s program, she was already a year in and had access to labs as a faculty member. “So I ended up teaching there the whole time,” said Araiza, who has a 4-year-old son. “I kind of really got drawn into it and fell in love with teaching. And then eventually the master's program opened and I figured that was the whole reason I got the job there. So I did the master's program, but it really hasn't impacted my teaching all that much because it was already what I was doing before.” Araiza finished her master’s last summer and immediately began to rewrite the lab component for the Chem 105 course (“General, Organic, and Biochemistry for Life”) that she taught in the fall. Although students were forced to take their lab kits home because of the pandemic, she developed a program where everyone logged into Zoom sessions to share the lab experiences together. It worked so well that a version is being developed for usage if Super STEM Saturday is forced to go virtual this year. “She is mentoring research students, active in assembling outreach teams and doing amazing work with Chem 105,” said Trischman, the CSTEM interim dean. “This course is taken by pre-nursing students and kinesiology students. Robyn was instrumental in bringing the lab online, and her work in collaboration with Dr. Kambiz Hamadani has been shared across the system. She also developed good insights into how students approach virtual learning.” She’s also currently teaching “Chemistry of Chocolate” (Chemistry 316) as an upper division GE course. It has 120 students this semester from every imaginable major. The class was set up as an expansion of Trischman’s natural products lecture. “It's the idea of kind of looking at the ups and downs of natural products and how a plant can be used for positive things and negative things,” said Araiza, who said her goal as a teacher is to demystify chemistry. “And natural things aren't necessarily good. And synthetic things aren't necessarily bad. So we kind of tried to make a point with it.” The course also has an international component. “Robyn is working with Robert Carolin and the Office of Global Education to bring her ‘Chemistry of Chocolate’ students together with gastronomy students in Ecuador,” Trischman said. “They will learn about the science their studies have in common from Robyn and about the sustainability of chocolate production that they study in their course in Ecuador. “Robyn is interested in reaching students across the university. She never stops thinking about the relevance of her teaching and how to improve student success.” In a nod to her own experience, Araiza is drawn to teaching non-science majors. Even as a graduate student, she wasn’t necessarily headed toward the Ph.D. route. That’s why the CSUSM program – now in its second cohort – was perfect for her. In addition to catering to people who are already working in the medical field, the master’s program boasts its individualized approach as faculty members typically have only one or two students to work with. “It gives kind of a little bit more directed attention versus these really big labs at some other universities,” Araiza said. “It's also designed for people who work. Since classes are in the evenings, you can do your research on the weekends. So several of the people who ended up in the program have full-time jobs. It's a nice thing to consider that people are already in the industry.” The private industry may come calling for Araiza in the future with a wealth of experience in a lab coupled with her leadership skills. But it’s hard to envision her leaving the place that she has called home for the past two decades. The one-time lit major analyzed her future, rewrote her story, and altered her life path. Wasn’t she supposed to never want to be around chemistry again? “I always laugh at that,” Araiza said. “I’m never going to take another chemistry class again, and here I am teaching them five days a week. No, science was not at all in my plans when I first started. The joke was on me on that one.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

When President Joe Biden unveiled his plan to combat climate change late last month, the term “environmental justice” was prominently featured.  That emphasis might have been surprising to progressives across the country who perhaps didn’t think that a political centrist like Biden was up to the challenge of advancing bold climate policy.  But it mostly was music to the ears of Dina Gilio-Whitaker, a fourth-year American Indian studies lecturer at Cal State San Marcos who’s also a published author and a nationally renowned expert on environmental justice. Gilio-Whitaker, in fact, owns a consulting business that specializes in environmental justice policy planning.  Both in her writing and her advocacy, however, Gilio-Whitaker broadens the traditional meaning of environmental justice to focus on the unique needs of her people. She descends from the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington state and regularly is invited to speak to audiences nationwide about topics related to American Indians.     Question: Can you start by defining environmental justice for people who may not have a good grasp of the term?  Dina Gilio-Whitaker: Environmental justice refers to the ways that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by environmental processes that expose them to risk and harm. We don't have the language for this until the early 1980s, and it comes as a result of activism that's happening in the Deep South, in Black communities in North Carolina. They're fighting against the siting of a toxic waste dump, which leads to studies that argue for this new kind of racism called environmental racism. Even earlier, we see some of these harms and risks in farmworker communities in California. César Chávez comes to mind, how he led the fight for farmworkers’ rights as a result, initially, of the exposures to pesticides in farm practices. That’s another early articulation of ethnic minority communities being disproportionately harmed. The water crisis in Flint, Mich., is a prominent recent example because it largely affected Black communities.    Q: In your 2019 book, “As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock,” you argue that the traditional understanding of environmental justice is insufficient for American Indian communities. Can you expound on that?  DGW: In this case, environmental injustice is a direct result of a centuries-long forced dispossession of Native people from their land. Their whole lives are structured around particular ecosystems, so the forced displacement from those ecosystems results in genocidal processes. Pushing people off their lands is a process, I argue, of environmental injustice toward Native people. And there are all kinds of other ways that we can measure these injustices. For Native people, as people with political relationships to the state, this framework of environmental racism is very inadequate to describe these ongoing processes of injustice. In the realms of policy and law, there's no accommodation for this. So my argument is that it needs to be indigenized; it needs to be expanded to understand the colonial history and structure of the U.S. in order to understand what injustice is environmentally for Native nations.    Q: How do you feel about environmental justice being a major prong of Biden’s climate plan?  DGW: It makes me optimistic, or I would say cautiously optimistic. We heard in the Obama administration some commitments to environmental justice, though not as much. I think the climate crisis is really more ramped up now, especially after four years of Trump and the extensive rolling back of environmental rules and regulations, and downplaying of climate change. There were over 100 rules and laws that the previous administration pretty much eviscerated in four years. Now there's a much more renewed and robust commitment to environmental justice with the Biden administration. I think it's because of the backsliding of the last four years.    Q: Is this something you could have imagined from a political moderate like Biden?  DGW: It actually seems inevitable to me given the state of affairs of the world and the fact that we are in what experts agree is a sixth mass extinction event. We know ecosystems are collapsing. We know that climate change is happening. We see it, we are living with it daily now. So it doesn't surprise me, and I'm happy that there is this very visible, very explicit commitment to environmental justice. I think they're taking it seriously.     Q: What is another example, other than the climate plan, of where you’re seeing that commitment?  DGW: I sat in on a webinar a couple of weeks ago that was put together by the Biden-Harris transition team. It was an informational webinar that they directed to people with environmental justice expertise to apply for jobs everywhere in the federal government. They talked about this thing called the Plum Book, which I had never heard of. It’s a directory, like 237 pages long, of all the jobs in the federal government, all three branches. They encouraged us to study the book and find out where we think our skills as an environmental justice activist or leader would best be put to use. So it's a very broad-based approach where they're seeming to want to infuse all aspects of government with environmental justice expertise. It's pretty interesting.     Q: Were you tempted at all? Have you perused the Plum Book?  DGW: I was tempted, but I'm so busy. I don't want to go to work for the federal government. I don't want to move to Washington, D.C. I would love to be an adviser to people in high-level positions. Assuming Deb Haaland gets confirmed as Secretary of the Interior, I could see ideally being consulted at that level or some other level, maybe in the EPA. But to be a 9-to-5 employee of the federal government, no. I'm able to have more impact doing what I do as a teacher and in my consulting work.     Q: I'm glad you brought up Haaland, who would become the first American Indian to hold a cabinet position. How encouraging is that for Native communities?  DGW: A Native person, let alone a Native woman, being appointed to a cabinet-level position is real progress. And I think her politics are in the right place. My concern, though, is that the structure is the structure. It's just a revolving door of people and personalities who fill those positions, and they’re based on a very particular structure that is fundamentally colonial, built on logics of dispossession and injustice toward Native peoples, and it's upheld by the scaffolding of federal Indian law that is really problematic for Native people. It's not a system that is designed to deliver justice. There are massive forces that are in conflict with tribal interests. So it will be really tricky for her to get some serious work done amid all of that. I'm skeptical about what actually will be accomplished.    Q: Getting back to the Biden climate plan, have you had a chance to delve into it? What do you think about the meat of the plan from an environmental justice framework?  DGW: I haven't really looked at it. From what I’ve read, people are saying it's basically the Green New Deal without the title, and I do know about that. I wrote an article in 2019 for High Country News about the Green New Deal and how it, along with environmental justice, needs to be indigenized, or adapted to be responsive to Indian country. One of the things that worries me is that things won’t fundamentally change under Biden compared to the Obama administration. For Native people, that's a problem because it was under the Obama administration that we got energy independence through fracking processes in the Bakken oil fields. That has led to massive problems for Indian country; that's what gave us the Standing Rock conflict. We continue to have Native peoples fighting oil pipeline projects. What concerns me is the continuing reliance on fossil fuels as part of an everything-on-the-table approach to energy.    Q: What would you say are the biggest ways that Native populations are endangered by climate change?   DGW: It varies from region to region because of the different ways that climate change impacts different ecosystems. What endangers one community won't be the same for other communities. For example, one of the big threats of climate change for peoples in the Pacific Northwest, like in the Columbia River watershed, is the warming water temperatures, which endanger salmon species. Salmon species are already collapsing because of the proliferation of dams over the last 80-100 years, which block salmon from migrating to the places that they used to migrate to. And now with climate change, it leads to warmer temperatures in the water, which further endangers those salmon species.   I come from a tribe that is salmon dependent. Salmon was for our people what the buffalo are to the Plains people; it's the center of our cultures. But after the building of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1942, the Colville reservation has not seen salmon in the upper reaches of the Columbia since then, because of the flooding of a major salmon fishery that we relied on for thousands of years. So not only is it a culturally genocidal impact, it also led to the inability for us to access a traditional food. There are dozens of other traditional foods that, due to development, have been diminished. And that has led to the kinds of health impacts that Native people experience as a result of these colonial processes. All these things are intertwined.     Q: If you were Joe Biden for a day, what would be the most important step you could take to address environmental justice issues for American Indians?  DGW: I would pass an executive order with a commitment to free, prior and informed consent. FPIC comes out of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and it's a commitment for governments to not just consult with tribes on development projects that involve their lands, but to obtain consent for those kinds of projects. Consultation doesn't mean the same thing as consent. Those are massive differences when it comes to these kinds of development projects.  The United States was the last nation in the world to affirm the declaration, three years after it was passed in the UN General Assembly in 2007. When Obama finally signed the U.S. on as a signatory, he did so with a 15-page declaration full of disclaimers, basically rationalizing how U.S. federal law is already the framework through which all of this stuff will happen. Ultimately, federal law is the problem. It's the structure that maintains this relationship of injustice between tribes and the federal government. Native people are just saying, “Look, you agreed to support free, prior and informed consent, but you're not doing it.” More and more, they’re holding the government's feet to the fire on this concept. And if they actually are able to enshrine consent over consultation in federal law, it'll be a major step forward.   Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

As Cal State San Marcos faculty and staff continue to go above and beyond on behalf of students and the campus community during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re pleased to highlight some of the campus heroes as nominated by students and colleagues.   Chad Huggins, technical director, CHABSS School of Arts Responsible for the Arts building, Huggins has been on campus numerous times during the pandemic to supervise upgrades and major repairs, including replacing the dance floor. The nominator noted that he also led and supported all on-campus efforts, including classes that met on campus during the fall and ones meeting on campus this spring. “This has meant much work with health and safety to establish distancing guidelines, access to PPE, etc., in our classrooms and throughout the building,” the nominator wrote. “It has also meant planning and budgeting kits for students who pay lab fees for their classes. Chad has worked with shop technician Judy Ryan to budget, purchase and distribute these kits that include materials and supplies for students so they can benefit from their art studio classes. Chad has worked with technician Albert Rascon on the digital equipment, including check-out that gives access to photo and video equipment to our students.”   John Pili, library services specialist, Library User Services Pili was lauded for continually seeking out new methods of connecting with students, including starting up Virtual Library Learn sessions and providing students with encouraging study spaces through Virtual Study Sessions. “John has been so thoughtful and compassionate toward our students while we all attempt to navigate this virtual world,” the nominator wrote. “John always puts our students first, and he has not let COVID-19 get in the way of that. He is using this unique opportunity to expand upon his skills in order to improve the experience of our users and ensure they are getting the most out of their experience at CSUSM.”   Blake Schilling, Inspiration Studios coordinator, IITS Before the university moved to virtual learning last spring, Schilling contacted instructors to make arrangements for them to visit Inspiration Studios to record their lectures as quickly as possible. The nominator noted that when one instructor wanted to visit to record his lectures last fall, Schilling redesigned the learning glass technology so the instructor could record without needing Schilling’s assistance to ensure social distancing. “Blake further revised the method of using the learning glass so the instructor could record the lectures to the cloud and have immediate access to post them for the class,” the nominator wrote. “The instructor was so pleased with the new functionality, he continued to come weekly and recorded lectures he had previously made because the quality had improved so much.”   Rosa Solorio, custodian, Facility Services Solorio is assigned to Craven Hall, and her nominator noted her diligence in ensuring that all areas are clean and disinfected. “I see her disinfecting all of the high-touch surfaces multiple times a day,” the nominator wrote. “There have been so many tasks and cleaning duties added to her already busy schedule, and she has taken them on with a smile and a great work ethic. I have never seen her sitting down or taking a break. I feel safe working in Craven Hall because I know Rosa is there doing her best to keep us safe. “The work of our custodial team plays a key role in the university’s return-to-campus policies. Without their hard work and dedication, returning to campus would not have been possible. Rosa stands out in that essential department.”   Hugo Wong, library services specialist, Library User Services Wong was nominated for his instrumental role in ensuring users continue to receive services from the library throughout the pandemic. The nominator noted that Wong’s impact extends beyond the library, as he also monitors the university’s CougarBot. The nominator noted that during the transition to virtual hours, Wong has helped support numerous events, including the library’s virtual open house and other virtual services. “With his constant drive to learn and help others learn, I am grateful to work with Hugo and have more opportunities to hear what new skills he has discovered and how we can use those skills to improve our services and workflows,” the nominator wrote. “Hugo has always gone above and beyond, and he continues to be an essential part of the University Library and of CSUSM.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Twenty-five years ago, Cal State San Marcos was a four-building campus full of bright-eyed optimists with individual paths but the common goal of making it a home of inclusion, a place for caring, a community of learning and inspiration. Sharon Hamill had just arrived on campus as a young assistant professor. She was also pregnant with her third child, facing the challenge of establishing herself in a brand new educational setting while not knowing anybody. She was also recently diagnosed with melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer. Her hills to climb were many. But she was thrown a lifeline. It may be more accurate to say a quilt figuratively covered her with a sense of community. “I don’t think I ever shared with anybody who I was quilting with what was going on with me, but that connection to people and sense of normality made all the difference,” said Hamill of the lunchtime quilting in the University Commons building. “I think of it as hearts connecting. I think of what Pat and Leslie did in a very simple gesture to invite others in. I still have such tremendously positive feelings about that.” Pat and Leslie are Pat Worden and Leslie Zomalt, legendary CSUSM faculty who had large impacts across the university. Some of the quilts the duo facilitated the creation of have been hung in various spots around campus like the library. Fast forward to a new century, a campus that looks nothing like it did in 1996 and the challenge of creating caring programs when the community perhaps has never needed it more. Introducing the CSUSM COVID-19 compassion quilting project, which will soon begin creating a campus quilt to commemorate the community’s collective experience around the pandemic. For Hamill, giving back has no expiration date. “President (Ellen) Neufeldt has set the stage for a culture of care, and COVID has provided the opportunity to really show where the rubber meets the road; are you able to live what you espouse?” said Hamill, who in addition to her roles as psychology/child and adolescent development professor and chair of the Academic Senate, is the founding faculty director for the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care at CSUSM. “Across all universities it is a real struggle with students’ mental health and physical health. Staff, faculty, administrators – everyone is feeling it. One of the things that make a big difference is just opportunities to show our common humanity. And when you see suffering – and that is what our campus is doing right now is suffering – there’s a beautiful opportunity for people to reach out to one another and lend a hand, lend a heart and help people to feel like they’re not alone.” Members of the CSUSM community are encouraged to create a panel to honor someone who died during the pandemic, honor someone who has performed exemplary service during this time or to simply show expressions of gratefulness during the challenge of the past year. The CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care at CSUSM office is partnering with Hamill. Michael McDuffie, the faculty director for the IPC at CSUSM, has worked closely with Hamill on the details. Jillian Dunn, a graphics and public relations specialist, has created a video to show how to make your own 10” quilt panel. When campus reopens, the plan is to gather people in the CSUSM community who like to sew, have an artistic bent or simply want to help. Those who don’t know how to sew can be taught. Once the piecing happens (when the top of the quilt is put together), the stitching will proceed perhaps in front of the University Student Union with tables and volunteers in an open setting that hopefully encourages shared experiences and feelings. “It’s a way to allow people to give a name to the losses they’ve had or to those individuals and things they’re grateful for and to share it with other people,” said Hamill, who was one of nine children in her family and has three sons of her own. “Where it has an impact is not just on the community but on the individuals themselves. There’s a lot of research out there on using expressive arts as a way to deal with your own grief, your own stress.” Depending on how many squares they get, the plan is to have an exhibit on campus in the spring of 2022. Most likely there will be multiple quilts rather than one massive quilt because after the exhibit it will be important to share it. Individual quilts could be put in places like the library, and the IPC at CSUSM senate offices as a reminder that this is now part of the campus history. Much of Hamill’s career research has focused on family caregiving. In fact, her and graduate student Sean Griser are currently conducting a survey on caregivers of family members with Alzheimer’s disease during COVID-19. She is starting to see an increase in the number of college students doubling as caregivers for family members. The hope is that the study will further understanding of how COVID-19 is impacting caregiving and what caregivers need for support. Hamill teaches a class on risk and resiliency. While students, faculty and staff all deal with life’s challenges on a daily basis, doing it when you’re isolated and feeling like you’re the only one not handling it well can be overwhelming. Positive effects need to come out of the experience. “A big part of resiliency is learning how to cope with the stresses that you have in very healthy ways,” she said. “That includes expressive art, mindfulness, communicating with other people and common projects. Those are ways for us to build community. It will have the benefit of improving our own mental and physical health if we do that.” While on sabbatical in 2017, Hamill took a quilting class at Grand Country Quilters on Grand Avenue in San Marcos. Virginia Palomari was the expert quilter who taught her, and neither Palomari nor anyone else she watched or quilted side-by-side with had any affiliation with CSUSM. But Hamill couldn’t help but think of her quilting experience at CSUSM’s Dome two decades previous when the campus was a fraction of what it is now in population, architecture and influence. It was another one of those serendipitous moments that showed her that life is more than just a series of random events, but rather a tapestry of experiences that are defined by how people treat each other. How our hearts are shaped. How much love we put out in the world. “The sense of community around creating something and connecting with other people was so powerful,” Hamill said. “We really need to build opportunities to connect with others over things we love. When things get rough, people do rise up and they reach out and they look for opportunities to connect with other people. We have our issues. But what I see is a real drive in people to make changes to create a better campus and a better world. “As hard as it is (with COVID), we still every day see people coming up with yet another way for the campus community to connect. That’s what gives me the hope that when we finally are able to return to campus it won’t be coming back to exactly the way it was initially, but the heart will be there.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Not long after arriving at Cal State San Marcos in the summer of 2019 as the university’s fourth president, Ellen Neufeldt kicked off her Listening and Learning Tour. It was Neufeldt’s way of combing a then-unfamiliar campus and discovering the many people and programs that make CSUSM the special place that it is. It was supposed to last for the entire academic year. By March, of course, the world had devised a different plan. That was when the coronavirus began to affect the United States in earnest, and life as we know it began to change overnight. The physical campus shut down around the middle of that month. Out the door went the remainder of the in-person Listening and Learning Tour. On a dime, CSUSM pivoted to remote instruction. Almost a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic still governs much of the daily reality in higher education, though Neufeldt can find some levity in the situation. “Of course, every new university president expects there will be challenges when accepting the job. But navigating a global pandemic? And nobody warned me about an impending economic crisis!” Neufeldt said Thursday morning. “I can tell you with confidence neither were on my list. I’ve now spent over half of my tenure at CSUSM as president to a primarily virtual campus. “I, like you, have never spent so much time in my own home in my entire life.” Neufeldt was speaking at her second, and CSUSM’s 17th, Report to the Community, an annual tradition in which the president spotlights the university’s achievements to a broad cross section of regional business, nonprofit, education and government leaders. Typically, the event is held before a crowd of several hundred attendees who congregate under a giant, enclosed tent on campus. This year, because of the pandemic, CSUSM held its first virtual Report to the Community, though Neufeldt addressed the audience not from her home but from SEAS Productions, a Carlsbad event production company whose president, Zach Grant, is a CSUSM alumnus. The overarching theme of her address was the pandemic – the many ways that CSUSM has responded to the crisis to keep serving its students and the community, and how the university will recover and confront a post-pandemic world. “Despite the difficulties of this time, we continue to get up every morning with the same sense of purpose and mission,” Neufeldt said, “to be the engine of this region, partnering with you to solve our most pressing issues and preparing our students to be the leaders of our changing future.” While Neufeldt spoke, dozens of community residents were lined up outside The Sports Center on CSUSM’s campus, waiting to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. On Sunday, CSUSM became one of only four San Diego County-operated “super stations” in the region, with the capacity to vaccinate as many as 5,000 people per day as the county’s supply increases. The super station host status is the outcome of a partnership with not only the county, but also Tri-City Medical Center, Palomar Health and UC San Diego Health. Meanwhile, on the other side of campus Thursday, people continued to stream into the Viasat Engineering Pavilion, the location since August of a county-run COVID-19 testing site. Neufeldt said the testing center has served up to 2,500 individuals per day in its six months of existence, playing a critical role in the county’s efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. “As an anchor institution of North County, contributing to the health and well-being of our region is a vital and foundational part of our mission,” she said. “We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community.” Neufeldt spotlighted other examples of the leadership and resolve that CSUSM displayed after the pandemic struck last spring. Faculty brought their courses online, with almost no advance notice, in a matter of days. Staff worked rapidly to ensure that students would have access to the services and resources they would need in a virtual setting, while also facing immediate challenges related to health and safety.   To celebrate its 2020 graduating class in the absence of a traditional commencement ceremony, CSUSM dreamed up a safe, creative event billed as Graduates on Parade, which attracted national media attention as one of the first graduation parades of its kind. And, last summer CSUSM became the first campus in the California State University system to win approval of its fall 2020 operation proposal.   “People at every level of this university went beyond the call of duty, raised their hands to volunteer, and stepped up when the moment called for it,” Neufeldt said.  Looking ahead to the next academic year, Neufeldt reiterated the university’s intention to return to campus on a modified basis this fall. CSUSM is working through various repopulation scenarios, with several different committees established to deal with the many issues involved in going back to an in-person university.   In other highlights from Neufeldt’s speech:  More project-based learning practices are planned for the fall based on the success of the electrical engineering program, which switched to a laboratory-at-home mode soon after the campus shutdown that allowed students to conduct experiments and complete extra projects in their own residences.   Patricia Prado-Olmos, CSUSM’s chief community engagement officer, and Jim Hamerly, dean of the College of Business Administration, will chair a new economic development committee that will examine how the university furthers its commitment to the region’s inclusive growth and economic recovery. Prado-Olmos also will organize a summit on the topic in partnership with the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, MiraCosta College and the San Diego Community College District.   This spring, CSUSM’s new Innovation Hub will launch a pilot program in which a team of students will develop concepts and technologies for the U.S. Department of Defense.   The University Library is conceptualizing a makerspace that would provide tools allowing community members to enter with an idea and leave with a prototype or project.   CSUSM will hold forums this spring to gather campus input on the university’s strategic planning process that started last fall as it reached 30 years of serving students and the region.   The Innovation Hub last fall hosted a San Diego Regional EDC virtual conference focused on innovating for a diverse and inclusive workforce. Data was revealed during the conference showing that, by 2030, North County will need 20,000 additional skilled workers for top occupations and 42% of all new jobs will require a degree or credential, but that countywide only 39% of people ages 25 and older have graduated with at least a bachelor’s degree. “Of those, people of color are disproportionately underrepresented. But not here at Cal State San Marcos,” said Neufeldt, pointing to CSUSM’s percentage of students who are first-generation (55) and Latinx (about 42). “We play a critical role in offering the people of our region access to social mobility via an affordable, quality education.” Report to the Community was emceed by Scotty Lombardi, senior manager of global talent management for Hunter Industries and a member of CSUSM’s University Council. Two accolades were handed out before Neufeldt’s remarks: the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency received the CSUSM Community Partner of the Year Award, and Javier Guerrero received the Fran Aleshire Leadership Award, given to an outstanding regional leader who reflects the spirit and character of the late Fran Aleshire, who designed the program that’s now called Leadership North County. Guerrero is the president and CEO of Coastal Roots Farm in Encinitas.   Lombardi praised Neufeldt’s stewardship of CSUSM.   “Each day, President Neufeldt works toward making CSUSM a national model for guiding students throughout the student life cycle so that they become engaged and active alumni in the community while fueling the needs of our region,” he said.  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Acceptance to the Panetta Congressional Internship Program typically means spending two weeks at the Panetta Institute in Monterey to prepare for a nearly three-month stint in Washington, D.C., working in the office of a California congressional representative. Alexa Loera was hoping for that experience when she applied to be Cal State San Marcos’ representative in February 2020. Needless to say, those plans were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. But that doesn’t mean the program was any less valuable for Loera. “It has definitely opened a lot of doors for me,” said Loera, who graduated in December with a bachelor’s in political science. The Panetta Congressional Internship Program annually selects one student from each California State University campus, Dominican University of California, Saint Mary’s College and Santa Clara University. The internship usually starts with an intensive two-week prep period in Monterey at the Panetta Institute, which was founded in 1997 by former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and his wife, Sylvia. Interns then go to Washington to work on Capitol Hill for 2½ months. The Panetta Institute covers all program costs, and interns receive 20 semester units. The application window for the 2021 Panetta Congressional Internship Program is open until 1 p.m. Feb. 26. By the time Loera learned last May that she had been selected as CSUSM’s representative, she knew the typical internship experience was in jeopardy. “They didn't tell us anything for sure in May, but they weren't sure if Congress would be open, so they just told us to be mindful,” she said. “So it wasn't a shock when they told us that we weren't going to go.” Loera was still able to participate in the two-week academic session, which was held virtually and included more than three dozen sessions covering an array of topics from well-known experts. One of the highlights for Loera was a session titled “California’s Law Enforcement Role and the Attorney General’s Office,” presented by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Law has long been a passion for Loera. She was inspired to pursue it from her grandfather, who was a lawyer. She worked at the courthouse for three years and is now working at a family law firm in North County while she prepares for the LSAT and completes law school applications. A lifelong Vista resident, she is hoping to stay close to home and attend USD or California Western School of Law in fall 2022. Loera’s experience with family law has her considering that as a career, but the Panetta internship also opened her eyes to potentially pursuing cyber law. And, while Loera found the Panetta program’s academic sessions invaluable in shaping the direction of her law studies, she also is grateful for her time with other interns. “Even though we didn't get to meet each other in person, we still would talk outside of the internship and talk about our assignments and everything,” she said. “We created such a bond. It's really nice to have because when you have people who have similar values and goals, it's so much easier to accomplish things.” Information about the Panetta internship is available online or by emailing Dr. Cynthia Chávez Metoyer, faculty director of the Office of Internships, at cmetoyer@csusm.edu. Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314