Like most Americans, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall awoke last Wednesday to the stunning news that Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, had been assassinated in a brazen act of political violence. Like very few Americans, however, Sepinwall brought to the international incident a vast reservoir of knowledge about Haiti, its history and its people. The Cal State San Marcos history professor is a Haitian expert who has written two books on the Caribbean island nation: “Haitian History: New Perspectives” and “Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games,” the latter of which was published just two months ago. Since the assassination, Sepinwall has been interviewed by several media outlets, including by The Guardian newspaper and RTVI, or Russian diaspora TV (scroll to the 1:11 mark for Sepinwall’s appearance). We spoke with her on Thursday afternoon, when developments in Haiti were still in a high degree of flux.   Question: What was your reaction to learning of the assassination?  Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall: Jovenel Moïse was extremely unpopular and there were many protests in the last year calling his rule illegal, pushing for him to resign and demanding that the U.S. and United Nations withdraw their support for him. So it wasn't like I woke up and said, “Oh, look, this popular, wonderful person was killed.” I just said, “Wow, someone decided to do it.” Then it was just a matter of figuring out who. My first instinct was that this must be a Haitian patriot who was frustrated that all efforts to dislodge him had failed and that people were dying as a result of his misrule, and then decided to take the matter into their own hands. However, as the day went on last Thursday, the situation started to seem more complicated and maybe much sadder – it looked like the result was not going to be things improving and Haitians getting the real autonomy and democracy that they've been pushing for, because instead this was a power play by elites.   Q: What is the prevailing theory on who might be responsible for the killing and what their motivation was?  AGS: In some ways, this is like Clue, where the deceased had so many enemies that it's hard to know which of them did it. Again, it seems that this was not someone from the grassroots. Whoever it was seems to have hired Spanish-speaking mercenaries who claimed they were Drug Enforcement Administration agents and who got into Moïse’s house without much trouble, with his equivalent of the Secret Service really doing nothing to protect him. There doesn’t seem to have been any kind of firefight to enter; they reportedly knew the layout of his house and had some cooperation from the inside. There have been three main candidates. One is various members of the Haitian oligarchy, who often have tried to control the situation in the country and have financed coups d'état against leaders they don't like. Many had been allied with Moïse, but recently he had a falling out with some key members of the elite. A variation of this theory is that this was an internal struggle within Moïse’s party – he had fired his prime minister, Claude Joseph, only two days before he was murdered and announced a replacement (Ariel Henry). So there has been speculation that Joseph’s allies arranged the hit so he would not be eclipsed from power. Another possibility that people were pointing to was the U.S. After all, the assassins said they were DEA. And, unfortunately, the U.S. has had a very long history of intervening and sometimes sending the Marines to Haiti. This would not be the first time that someone in the U.S. government, CIA or Department of State decided that a Haitian president had outlived their usefulness to us in terms of our policy objectives and tried to remove him. That possibility has not seemed the strongest to me because Moïse was wildly unpopular and was depending on the U.S. and UN to shore him up against his people. Haitians were protesting against him for the last few years and especially after Feb. 7, when his term was deemed to be over but he remained in power. It would be like if we did not end up having a presidential transition on Jan. 20. I think there are many other ways that the U.S. could have withdrawn support for Moïse, much simpler than staging a very dramatic assassination. The third possibility that has been floated is that this was ordered by Colombian or Venezuelan narco-traffickers, who had had a falling out with Moïse and hired other Spanish-speaking mercenaries. This theory suggested that they wanted to be free and clear to keep using Haiti as a point for transferring drugs and money laundering. This idea was floated by many in Moïse’s party, which is called the PHTK. But as days have gone on, it has seemed increasingly unlikely, especially as Moïse’s party has remained in power, and Claude Joseph’s faction has used the supposed chaos to declare martial law and shore up its support. As my Haitian colleagues have pointed out, the fact that these assassins were speaking Spanish would help make it seem that this was a foreign attack. And under the Haitian constitution, that would give the president or whoever is leading the government the right to declare martial law. So that is lending credence to the idea that dissenting factions in Moïse’s party planned the assassination to give Joseph’s faction (or the PHTK in general) the upper hand in a situation in which they worried that they were finally going to lose power.   Q: In terms of Moïse’s rule over the last few years, was it already bad and then his decision to stay in power after the election was the last straw for people?  AGS: First of all, many Haitians didn't want to elect him in the first place. The international community has been meddling in Haitian elections since the 2010 earthquake, and even before, by excluding candidates that they did not want to win. In many ways, the PHTK was handpicked by American diplomats, including not just Moïse but the president before him, whose name was Michel Martelly. Martelly is a popular Haitian music star who uses a lot of sexual innuendo – not the first person you’d imagine would become president of the country. But in this period of transition after the earthquake, he was allied with powerful forces and said he would be friendly to foreign business interests. His associates also included former supporters of the Duvalier dictatorship, which was very worrisome. Under Martelly, the PHTK seems to have begun stealing large amounts of money that were given to Haiti. For instance, Venezuela sold fuel to Haiti at a discount. The government was supposed to be able to sell it to citizens, and the difference between what they paid and what they were selling it for was supposed to be used to finance schools and roads. The government sent out glossy brochures showing things they were supposedly building, but they were never constructed. So PHTK officials seem to have been keeping the money and pocketing it. That became increasingly clear under Moïse’s rule after he succeeded Martelly, and there have been protests where people kept saying, “Where did the money go? Where are the stadiums and where are the schools?” That has been going on especially since 2018, and people were just waiting for his term to end so they could get someone different in office. When he didn't leave in February, the situation got so much worse, and the government began shooting at peaceful protesters. Who was keeping the PHTK in power? Essentially the U.S. and the UN, because otherwise they would have been toppled by a revolution, with all of these people in the streets. Q: Did you consider Moïse to be a dictator?  AGS: After Feb. 7, yes, many Haitians called him a dictator. The other thing I didn't mention is he was trying to get rid of the constitution. He was planning a referendum in which the constitution would be overturned and there would be a new constitution that removed any possibility of criminally prosecuting officials for wrongdoing in office. This is the kind of thing that many Haitians were appalled by, and made them say we need to get him out. There also was debate in the U.S. government over Moïse. Whereas the Biden administration continued the Trump administration’s support for Moïse after taking office on Jan. 20, the House Foreign Affairs Committee had been holding hearings and pushing the Biden Administration to stop supporting Moïse. They stressed his harmful effects on Haitians and the need for them to be able to choose their next government without our meddling. This possibly led people in the PHTK to feel threatened and then to sacrifice Moïse so that they could continue to rule. But if they get their wish, and foreign troops come whose task will be essentially to suppress the population in the name of keeping “order,” that's going to be very troubling.    Q: Do you feel like the U.S. and international community could have done more to prevent the assassination from happening?  AGS: Absolutely. Haitians have been crying out for us to stop supporting Moïse. If you look at the signs that people had in the streets in February, they asked us and the UN to stop supporting a president who had become a dictator and was trying to cancel their constitution. That, again, supports the idea that this is manufactured chaos to keep the PHTK in power, as opposed to drug traffickers being responsible, which is the narrative that was getting pushed at first.    Q: Earlier, you mentioned the U.S. policy objectives in Haiti. How would you describe those?   AGS: We like to talk about wanting to spread democracy, but unfortunately our record in Haiti has not supported that. I’d say our real policy objectives are two things. One is the promotion of U.S. business interests. While the rest of us are not always paying attention, we are often interfering with what Haitians want, like a minimum wage (which is especially needed for Haitians working in sweatshops owned by foreign companies). When Haitian leaders have tried to do that, American companies have complained that it will increase the cost of doing business in Haiti. And the State Department has then pressured to have those laws withdrawn or they've had presidents removed, by which I mean not assassinated, but the U.S. Embassy sends a limo and says “your time is up” to Haitian leaders. The amount the minimum wage was going to be raised by is embarrassing by our standards (for instance, we fought against raising the minimum wage to $0.61 an hour a few years ago). But American businesses did not want to pay even a little more, because to them the advantage of this country nearby is that labor is cheap, and it's so much less expensive to ship products from Haitian sweatshops to the U.S. than from China.   The second U.S. policy objective, I'm sad to say, is often keeping things stable there so people don't try to come here. There has been particularly strong anti-immigrant sentiment about Haiti, even more so than, say, from Cuba. Many have said it's because of a kind of demonization of Black Haitian immigrants. In reality, Haitian Americans are wonderful, integral, brilliant parts of our country. Look just at the COVID epidemic; so many Haitians have been on the front lines as nurses, nursing home aids, doctors or scientists. But there are people who think, “Too many Haitians are coming.” We saw this in 2016 in San Diego, where you had Haitians arriving here after their post-earthquake refuge in Brazil turned hostile (they were invited to work constructing buildings for the 2016 Olympics, but once the construction was finished and there was a recession in Brazil, they were scapegoated and often violently chased from the country). There was a wealth of organizations here in San Diego willing to welcome Haitian refugees and help them resettle. But there were also voices who said, “No, there are too many of them coming.”    Q: Would you say that Haiti is still suffering today from the effects of the 2010 earthquake?  AGS: Yes, definitely. And not just the earthquake itself but the way the international community, which claimed it was going to help Haiti, actually made things worse (in the “manmade disaster” that followed the earthquake). One of the people I write about is a Haitian filmmaker named Raoul Peck, who was Oscar-nominated for his film on James Baldwin. He also made an earlier film called “Fatal Assistance” about the international response to the earthquake and how it made things worse. For instance, land was confiscated from Haitians, supposedly to “give them jobs.” But this meant that farmers were kicked off their land and being able to feed themselves, to give the land to South Korean garment manufacturers, which then didn't pay them livable wages. There are lots of stories like that, with money that was supposedly raised and not actually used to help Haitians. In general, the international community directed the reconstruction of Haiti more than the Haitian government did – and they did not listen to Haitians about what they needed. They often imposed policies that benefited foreigners and made things worse for Haitians.     Q: Why do you think stable democracy has been so elusive for Haiti for so long?   AGS: Foreign interventions are one big reason. Whenever there has been a ruler who wants to do things that foreigners don't like, there has been a risk that foreigners will invade and effect regime change. Many people don’t know that the U.S. occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. The U.S. problem with Haiti really goes back much longer, 200 years ago, when Haitians were the first people in the New World to free themselves from slavery and they had a revolution. There were definitely Americans who thought that was good; they saw the Haitian Revolution as being like the American Revolution and thought it was good for Haitians that they managed to free themselves from the French and to rule themselves. But keep in mind, when Haiti became independent in 1804, we had Thomas Jefferson, who was a slaveholder, as president. And Jefferson and other whites did not look at the Haitian Revolution favorably; they essentially said, “Look at those horrible savages who just killed their masters. We better punish them and keep them isolated or enslaved people here will have the same idea.” We've had this long history of demonizing and trying to isolate Haitians, and then seeking to invade them when they try to enact policies that we don't like. One example is the Duvalier dictatorship, which was so destructive in Haiti. The U.S. meddled in the election by which Duvalier first came to power because they did not like his opponent. And then, despite all the evil things that he did, we helped keep him in power for one big reason – he wasn't a Communist. There was this worry that Haiti might “fall” just like Cuba if we didn’t keep him in power. So yes, we've had a long history of meddling. That's something that people often fail to see when they say, “Oh, look at that country, it's so troubled! Why can’t they fix themselves?” I'm not saying Haitians would be without problems if they were left alone. But many problems happen because Haitians are not in fact permitted by the international community to make decisions for themselves.    Q: What do you see as the path forward for Haiti in the wake of this tragedy?  AGS: I would like to see the international community give support, and I'll stress the word support, to Haitian civil society and to the opposition parties to have a transition from this government, which so many Haitians see as illegitimate. What I don't want to see is people saying, “We need to go in there and send troops,” which is what Claude Joseph has been trying to do. Increasingly, his effort to get foreign troops to arrive to create “order” has seemed to be an attempt to make sure the PHTK retains power. And that would destroy real democracy and dash the hopes of Haitians.  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

It isn’t the knowledge gleaned from textbooks while attending Cal State San Marcos nearly two decades ago that Tony Pecora carries with him. Rather, it’s the exposure he had to implementing the principles he studied. “Learning how to think for yourself and apply these tools and apply these things that we learned, that's the true benefit to college,” said Pecora, who graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration. “And that's what I tell everyone who's uncertain of what they want to do.” Today, Pecora is the virtual chief information officer, or vCIO, for Managed Solution, a San Diego-based full-service technology provider that offers supportive and strategic information technology services for businesses. But Pecora didn’t always know this was the career path he wanted to follow. Pecora said he wasn’t a fan of school when he graduated from high school and had no inkling of what he wanted to do for a living. “I very much enjoyed – and still do enjoy – working,” he said. “But I realized if I didn't have a step up and I didn't have the exposure experience and didn't know how to bring tools that I didn't know existed from a college course or a college degree that I was eliminating what I could do in the future. I was basically setting an artificial glass ceiling because I just didn't know, and that exposure is so important.” Pecora began by enrolling at MiraCosta College. He said it was the best decision he could have made, both financially and because he wasn’t prepared for a four-year university after graduating from high school. After transferring to CSUSM, Pecora began to see how the principles he was learning could impact real businesses. That was particularly true for his Senior Experience project when Pecora’s team helped a company develop a business plan. “One of the pleasant surprises you get out of it is that you get to see a change; you get to see a difference,” Pecora said. “You're not writing a business plan because it's homework, you're writing a business plan because at some point in your life you are going to need to write a business plan. And if you understand the foundations of how to write it, you're going to be respected and automatically placed higher than your competitors because you have this foundation.” Pecora always had an interest in IT, but he wasn’t passionate about it like many programmers. He always liked the idea behind it, but was more interested in the business aspect and getting it to work for other businesses. That interest has made Managed Solution a perfect fit for Pecora. He joined the company as technical account manager in November 2015. At the time, he was the sole person in the department, working with 120 clients. He has helped the department grow to a seven-person team and was promoted to vCIO in February 2020. In his role as vCIO, Pecora’s responsibilities have shifted from being about 80% technical to about 50% technical and 50% sales and management. “The primary point to my job is to help businesses take their technology and help it transform their business, whether that's saving money, increasing efficiency, reducing costs, reducing their risk footprint by moving it to the cloud, whatever is best for their business,” he said. As Pecora thinks back on his own college days, he encourages today’s students to put in the effort that will help them down the road. “It's a cliché, but you are going to get out of it exactly what you put into it,” he said. “So if you have a drive, direction and understand at least the broad topic of what you want to do – and you put the effort forward – that is going to have lifelong changes. It’s very impactful. “If you have a work ethic at a young age, it will stick with you for the rest of your life. The efforts that you put in during college are going to magnify and increase opportunities down the road.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Cal State San Marcos social work professor Madeline Lee, ACE Scholars Services counselors Laurie Orr and Leigh Quijada, and ACE founding director Jim Mickelson recently had a paper published in the National Association of Social Workers Press journal “Social Work.” The group’s article, “Transforming Lives of Former Foster Youths: A Campus-Based Support Program Grounded in Social Work Values,” details ACE’s model. “Support programs to improve higher education outcomes for former foster youths have emerged in the past 20 years, but literature to guide their development and implementation is limited,” the paper abstract states. “This conceptual article presents the program logic model for ACE (Achieving College Excellence) Scholars Services, the comprehensive, campus-based program supporting former foster youths grounded in social work values at California State University San Marcos.” ACE Scholars Services has graduated more than 100 students since its founding in 2007.   Honors for School of Education alumni Four alumni from the School of Education were honored with teacher of the year awards: Alex Buder, who works at Oak Valley Middle School, was named one of Poway Unified School District’s 2021 School Site Teachers of the Year. Sheen Garcia, who teaches at Del Dios Academy, was named a 2020-21 Teacher of the Year for Escondido Union School District. Joy Leichtfuss, a sixth-grade reading, language arts, and world history teacher at San Marcos Middle School, was named San Marcos Unified School District’s 2020-21 Teacher of the Year. Joe Prechtl, a teacher at Sullivan Middle School, was named a 2020-21 Teacher of the Year for Bonsall Union School District. Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Cal State San Marcos students will be returning to campus en masse in a couple of months, and prominent among them will be four individuals who are especially ready for an in-person school year.  Not only did the COVID-19 pandemic dictate a shift to virtual learning for the 2020-21 academic year, but it curtailed the work and impact of the leadership team of Associated Students, Inc.  This year, the ASI executives – Dylan Crivello and Andrew Gamboa are back from last year’s team – plan to make up for lost time. Here’s the quartet that will try to make the return to campus as smooth and memorable as possible for students.     Dylan Crivello, president and CEO  Graduating year: 2022  Major: Political science  Career ambition: Serving my community in local or state government, hopefully as a legislator  Why did you join ASI? I joined through the volunteer group Lobby Corps, which focuses on advocacy on a campus and statewide level. I have always been passionate about serving students and amplifying their voices, and joining ASI has allowed me to do just that.  What are your goals for the upcoming school year? My goal this year is to make sure that students can return to a safe and welcoming campus environment. I found my place in the CSUSM family when I first came here in 2019, and it is vital that other students are able to have access to resources, experiences and a community where they can excel in and out of the classroom.  What most excites you about returning to campus as the pandemic recedes? I am most excited to go back and see our beautiful campus full of life again. I am also very excited for the late-night study sessions in the library, U-Hour in the USU and the many events put on by our centers and student organizations that were all put on hold during the pandemic.  What do you like to do outside of work and school? I really enjoy listening to music, going on road trips, going out to eat and trying new restaurants, and playing volleyball.  Which leader do you most admire and why? Barack Obama. He is undoubtedly one of the most profound orators of our time, using his speeches to inspire hope and provide assurance to a whole nation.    Andrew Gamboa, executive vice president  Graduating year: 2023  Major: Political science with a minor in business  Career ambition: Teacher  Why did you join ASI? Because I love to assist students and be involved with my campus and community. I wish to support everyone in their journey through CSUSM in whatever capacity that may look like.   What are your goals for the upcoming school year? To get students involved, engaged and active as we go back to campus.  What most excites you about returning to campus as the pandemic recedes? To be back in the campus environment and seeing everyone get to enjoy and use the campus they put so much energy and effort into.  What do you like to do outside of work and school? I love to travel, I love cars, I love the outdoors, and I love spending time with family and friends.  Which leader do you admire and why? Stephen Hawking, because he was a brilliant physicist who proved that determination and positive thinking can triumph over even the most severe limitations.     Julia Glorioso, vice president of student and university affairs  Graduating year: 2023  Major: Political science   Career ambition: Lawyer or legislator   Why did you join ASI? Because I care deeply about student issues and am passionate about advocacy, politics and governmental systems. Being a part of the ASI Board of Directors allows me to further explore these interests and become a better leader for my community. I want to make a positive impact on every student's experience here at CSUSM, and ASI gives me the opportunity to do exactly that.   What are your goals for the upcoming school year? Better transparency and strengthened relationships with the student body. With that, I hope to create more effective pathways for communication, feedback and engagement. I also hope to get the student body civically engaged and excited about participating in civic opportunities not only on campus but out in the community as well. Lastly, I hope to get more students registered to vote on our campus.  What most excites you about returning to campus as the pandemic recedes? I am most excited to start engaging with students in person through my ASI position, whether it be through events, at meetings or even just as I stroll around campus.  What do you like to do outside of work and school? I like to binge watch TV shows on Netflix and Hulu, spend time with friends and family, play with my dog Daisy, paint occasionally, and travel to new places and explore new restaurants or fun things to do in San Diego.   Which leader do you most admire and why? Late Arizona Sen. John McCain, because he took a bipartisan approach when making many of his political decisions, something that is so rare in politics today. He saw the value in making compromises for the betterment of the country, and he put his constituents’ interests first before his own. I really admire the approach he had toward leadership and governance, and I aspire to embody the same attitude.    Mariano Santana, chair and chief of staff  Graduating year: 2022  Major: Political science  Career ambition: Pharmacist  Why did you join ASI? Because I wanted to make a bigger impact on our campus. I was previously involved in the orientation team, but I felt like I could help students year-round rather than just during the summer.  What are your goals for the upcoming school year? To try to get students involved as much as we can and just have an overall good year as we transition to in-person settings.  What most excites you about returning to campus as the pandemic recedes? I am most excited to go back and see everyone hanging out at the USU during U-Hour, going to events put on by all the different centers, and just seeing everyone in person again.  What do you like to do outside of work and school? I enjoy listening to music and hanging out with friends, whether it be hanging out at the beach or going on a hike.  Which leader do you most admire and why? Bill Gates, due to his focus shifting to education initiatives and health care in recent years.  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

For most graduating students, receiving the opportunity to sing at their university’s commencement would be the performative highlight of the year, if not many years. For Rachael Groeneweg, it was merely the kickoff for what will surely be a summer to remember for the rest of her life. Groeneweg, who graduated from Cal State San Marcos last month with a degree in music, sang “America the Beautiful” at three of the university’s five commencement ceremonies. But before that, she was selected by Fox 5 San Diego following an extensive regional search to sing the national anthem during the telecast of the annual Big Bay Boom fireworks show on July 4 on San Diego Bay. Big Bay Boom is the largest fireworks show in California, and the television audience stretches from San Diego to Sacramento. So even though Groeneweg has sung the national anthem at a few dozen events over the years, this will be her most significant assignment yet. “It’s a very big audience, and this is a big deal to me,” Groeneweg said. “Starting with graduation, it’s been a whirlwind, an awesome experience, and I feel honored and humbled and grateful.” Fox 5 originally was seeking a teacher to sing the national anthem as a tribute to the role that educators have played during the COVID-19 pandemic. The producers who conducted the search, however, were swayed by both Groeneweg’s vocal talent and her personal story. The broad outline is that she’s a military wife who’s married to a staff sergeant in the Marines, and that her adoptive mother is a high school choir teacher. That checks two big boxes for the TV station. But the deeper contours of Groeneweg’s background are even more compelling. She was born and raised in Poway, and her parents divorced when she was 7. When her father left the picture, Groeneweg was stuck with a mother who was physically and emotionally abusive. Always possessing of a dynamic singing voice, she found refuge in youth theater through her church and other community organizations. Groeneweg didn’t tell anyone about the tribulations she was experiencing at home until her sophomore year at Mt. Carmel High School. As a freshman, she had met Marti Martinez, the longtime choir director at the school whose eyebrows were raised when the precocious teen boldly declared that perhaps she was too good for beginner choir, the placement for all first-year students. “She’ll say, ‘That’s when I knew I loved her,’ ” Groeneweg said. “We just clicked right away.” Martinez learned that Groeneweg lived a block away, and since her mother was disinclined to take her to school, Martinez began driving her to Mt. Carmel most mornings. She also cast Groeneweg in the major role of Fantine in the school’s production of “Les Misérables” – she was the only sophomore who earned a part – only to be dismayed when the student regularly missed school and, by extension, rehearsals. When Martinez finally confronted her about her absences and its effect on the musical, Groeneweg broke down – and opened up. “I was shocked,” Martinez said. “I knew her mom wasn’t the best mom, but I didn’t know she was abusive.” Martinez called Child Protective Services, which sent officials to interview Groeneweg, but because she was an older child and had other places to live via friends in youth theater, CPS didn’t consider it an emergency case and thus didn’t remove her from her home. Martinez managed to pull off the delicate trick of convincing Groeneweg’s mother that Rachael would be better off living elsewhere, though Martinez’s own house wasn’t an option because she already had three older sons. Over the next several years, Groeneweg’s mother was arrested twice – the first time on four counts of grand theft and then, after her daughter’s high school graduation, for stealing Rachael’s identity in connection with credit cards. Groeneweg has cut off all ties with her mother and doesn’t even know where she lives. Martinez never officially adopted Groeneweg, but for years they have called themselves mom and daughter. “Even though I didn’t live with her, she’s always been my guardian angel,” Groeneweg said. “We’ve had a bond since the day we met. It’s been mom and family ever since.” Because she has been financially independent since she was 17, Groeneweg didn’t have the typical college experience. After high school, she attended a series of community colleges to earn music credits while holding down jobs to pay her rent and put food on the table. She got a certificate in graphic design from CSUSM Extended Learning and has been working for years as an independent contractor for Mt. Carmel, designing choir posters and programs and doing assorted administrative tasks. It wasn’t until Groeneweg married her husband, Tymon, four years ago that she was able to fully commit to education. She enrolled at CSUSM in fall 2019 and graduated with her music degree two years later, with more than half that time remote as she moved to Fresno when Tymon was assigned duty as a Marines recruiter. She intended to pursue a master’s in vocal performance at Fresno State, but she’s expecting her first child – a boy due in November – so that plan is on hold. Groeneweg had a short but impactful stint at CSUSM. Last fall, she was invited by music professor Mtafiti Imara to participate in the pilot of an exchange program, through the Office of Inclusive Excellence, between CSUSM and historically Black colleges and universities. Designed to be held in person, the program went virtual because of the pandemic, and Groeneweg was mentored by Malesha Taylor, a voice teacher at Clark Atlanta University who’s also a lecturer for CSUSM.  Working with Taylor as well as longtime music professor Merryl Goldberg, Groeneweg completed a project on protest songs that involved a research paper and an original composition. The song, the first one she has created from scratch, is titled “You Is (Kind, Smart, Important),” and it’s inspired by a line spoken by a Black maid to a white girl in the 2011 Oscar-nominated film “The Help.”  On the strength of that effort, Groeneweg was a finalist in the CSUSM Symposium on Student Research, Innovation and Creative Activities, and she advanced to the CSU statewide competition. She also was named the 2021 Scholarship and Creative Works Champion by the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences.   “I feel honored to have had the opportunity to work with Rachael,” Goldberg said. “She is so talented, inspiring, reflective, profound, provocative and empathetic. She is already making a difference in the world. One day, when she’s super famous, I’ll be able to say proudly, ‘I know her!’ ”  Groeneweg is less interested in fame than in returning to her roots. She aspires to earn a teaching credential in music and take over the Mt. Carmel choir program from Martinez when the latter retires in four years.   “I’m really excited to have someone to leave my program to and know it will be in good hands,” Martinez said. “If I could do it tomorrow, I would.”  That’s for down the road. This month is all about preparing for Big Bay Boom. Groeneweg already sat with Martinez for a Fox 5 interview in the Mt. Carmel choir room. She visited a Mission Valley recording studio to lay down the national anthem vocals (“I made the owner cry,” she says proudly). She had a wardrobe consultation and a hair and makeup session. And, most memorably, she boarded the Star of India on a beautiful San Diego night, with tourists on the Embarcadero gawking, to pre-record “The Star-Spangled Banner.”  Groeneweg has sung the anthem dozens of times. But it never has been like this.   “I’m always emotional when I do it, especially being a military wife,” she said. “But filming it on the deck of the Star of India, seeing how we’ve come together as a community, what’s possible in a year’s time, I definitely felt it more than usual. And not only where we’ve gotten as a country, but also myself. If you had told senior-in-high-school Rachael she’d be singing on TV, she probably would have laughed in your face.”  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

One of the foundational rules of improvisational comedy is to say yes. To use a common example, if you’re performing a skit with a partner and they point their finger at you and exclaim, “Freeze, I have a gun,” the scene won’t go very far if you observe that that’s not in fact a gun. You have to say yes to the idea of a finger for a gun. Shaun Heard learned that bit of wisdom during an acting class somewhere along the line. But really, he has been applying it for most of his life, and continues to do so to this day. As a high school senior in Pasadena, Heard was urged by his English teacher, who saw innate talent, to join the drama club, which would require him to arrive an hour late to football practice every day. Heard said yes. As a freshman at Cal State San Marcos in 2009 planning to pursue a nursing degree, he spotted a bulletin board flyer seeking African-American students to audition for a campus play. He said yes. As a master’s student in acting at USC, Heard was approached near the end of his program by his CSUSM mentor, dangling the opportunity to teach a class at his alma mater. He said no, then thought better of it and said yes. And when that initial lecturing gig led to a chance to teach an acting workshop at Duke University this spring, Heard said yes again. The net result of all of those affirmations is that, as of this fall, the 29-year-old will be an artist in residence in Duke’s Department of Theater Studies, teaching acting full-time at one of the nation’s most esteemed universities. He will also find time to continue as an online lecturer at CSUSM and Sacramento State, and squeeze in gigs as an actor and writer in TV, film and theater. Of his impending move across the country to Durham, N.C., where he’ll be teaching four classes in person this fall, Heard said: “It’s all new and scary, and I’ve learned throughout my career that most things that are new and scary are great for me. So I’m jumping in there and crossing my fingers, closing my eyes and hoping I land on my feet.” As with many openings in Hollywood and Broadway, Heard’s job at Duke came as much from who he knows as what he knows. During his graduate studies at USC, he formed a tight bond with David Warshofsky, who’s the director of the Master of Fine Arts acting program in addition to being a veteran character actor, with “Captain Phillips,” “Lincoln,” and “Born on the Fourth of July” among his notable credits. Through industry connections, Warshofsky discovered that Duke was seeking African-American instructors as a means of diversifying its theater faculty. This spring, with more than two years of teaching experience at CSUSM under his belt, Heard led workshops in introductory and advanced acting, but he says he felt like he was really giving a Black perspective on theater study. This fall, one of his four classes will be tailored to Black students and will focus on the works of Black playwrights. “Doing the workshops, it was warming to see a lot of African-American students who seemed like they were longing for that connection,” he said. “In my time at CSUSM and USC, I never once had a Black teacher. So that was inspiring for me to see that things are changing. I commend Duke and I am really excited to get the ball rolling.” Heard grew up in Pasadena as the youngest of four kids, but his siblings were all at least 11 when he was born, so in many ways his experience was that of an only child. He was a voracious reader who would retreat to his closet to devour the plays of Shakespeare. He would make up stories and get lost in his imagination. None of his siblings nor his parents cared much for the theater. His father was a high school football and basketball coach who superimposed many of his own dreams of athletic glory onto his son. Shaun indulged his father and grew to be an imposing football player at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, but his passion had been for theater since he saw “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Pasadena Playhouse at age 8. “It changed my life forever, and I knew that I wanted to be on stage,” Heard said. Everything came to a head during his senior year at John Muir High School, when his decision to join the drama club first caused him to be late to football practice before he ultimately chose to quit the team altogether. His father, and coach, took the news so hard that he cut off contact with Shaun for several years (they have since reconciled, and Heard says his dad has become one of his biggest professional supporters). The first person in his family to attend college, Heard went to CSUSM on an academic scholarship with nine of his Muir classmates through the support of a regional nonprofit. He intended to study nursing because it was the most lucrative career he could think of that wouldn’t require graduate school, but theater kept inserting itself into the picture. That fateful flyer he happened upon led to the lead part in a play called “Just Passing Through,” the first of more than a dozen productions he acted in over the next five years. Through it all, his muse was theater professor Judy Bauerlein, who met Heard through the CSUSM New Play Festival when he was a freshman. “Shaun is a really good comedian; he’s truthful and funny and very reliable. I think that’s what I was most impressed with initially,” Bauerlein said. “Later, during our Acting Shakespeare class where he played Othello, I realized that he was a great dramatic actor, too.”  Heard connected deeply with not only Bauerlein, but also her son Max, whom she and her husband adopted as a 2-year-old in 2010.   “I would go to her office and babysit her son for hours, and I would read Shakespeare to him,” Heard recalled. “Our relationship formed through the theater, but it was the love of her son that really brought us together. Judy and I kind of became family. She’s everything to me.”  It was Bauerlein who encouraged Heard to pursue his MFA, an idea he initially resisted before embarking on that path three years after graduating from CSUSM in 2013. And it was Bauerlein who recruited Heard to return to CSUSM as a lecturer in 2018.   “Students need to see that acting is a process; it’s not something that just happens overnight without great effort and commitment,” she said. “It’s a lifelong pursuit, and it just keeps getting better if you keep doing the work. As a recent graduate of one of the best MFAs in the country, Shaun brings a wealth of knowledge to our program. He’s living his life as a young professional actor, and he shares his knowledge and experience with our students.”  Heard’s first love remains the theater, but he understands that it doesn’t exactly pay the bills, so his team of representatives in Los Angeles and New York have been trying to secure roles in movies, TV and commercials. His IMDb page features 13 acting credits, with most of his work appearing in short films. He created two short videos during the pandemic that went viral, including one called “I Can’t Breathe” produced in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and he also has written a TV pilot about a Black family and the supernatural that he’s currently pitching.   Whatever the future holds, he expects to keep saying yes.   “I want to be a creative, and I don't want to be limited,” Heard said. “I would obviously love to be an Oscar winner someday and I would love to still teach at CSUSM and I would love to still teach at Duke. I would love to direct plays like I have been doing at CSUSM the past couple of years. In a perfect world, I would simultaneously do theater and film and TV and teaching. As long as I’m being creative and inspired.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Godfrey Gibbison joined Cal State San Marcos as the new dean of Extended Learning and Global Programs on Jan. 18. Most recently, he served as the interim dean of the Graduate School at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Born and raised in Jamaica, Gibbison is a first-generation college graduate. He earned a bachelor’s in economics from the University of the West Indies, a master’s in Agricultural Economics from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech. His career in education has included numerous faculty and administrative roles, including dean of the School of Professional Studies at the College of Charleston and director of the School of Economic Development at Georgia Southern University. Gibbison is a Fulbright Scholar and co-author of the book “Crime and Development: The Jamaican Experience.”   Question: How does access to education change the trajectory for an individual? GG: Education has multiple generational impacts. I was the first person in my entire family who went to college. But the generations in my family after me who have gone on to a college education — and graduate degrees — has been extraordinary. Among my nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, I have a high school principal, a well-regarded journalist in Jamaica, a pharmacy tech, a medical doctor and so on. I met that grandniece four years ago and she said to me, “I’m a doctor because once you went to university my mom would never let up on me. She would always say, ‘Godfrey did it; everybody can do it.’ ”   Q: What about the impact of education on the community? GG: If you look at the broader society, there are so many decisions that require an educated populace — issues that affect the day-to-day lives of people. You need to be able to think critically about them, evaluate them and make the conscious decision to participate. We know that economic development is directly linked to the quality of the labor force. When you have an educated talent pool, companies perform better, are more profitable and hire more people. The cycle is an upward spiral.   Q: You earned your Ph.D. a little over 20 years ago. How do you continue to feed your curiosity? GG: I’ve been involved in leadership development over the last few years and I’m a big reader. Right now, I’m also trying to learn Portuguese. My husband, David, and I went to Portugal a couple of years ago, and we absolutely fell in love with everything about the place. We want to retire there, so I thought I would take the challenge and start to learn some Portuguese.   Q: What is your favorite way to unwind or reduce stress? GG: I like to run and when I run, I solve problems. In college, I used to do mathematical proofs in my head while I was running. Sometimes I would stop and beg somebody for a piece of paper because I wanted to write the proof down before I forgot. I also like to garden. In South Carolina, I would have a couple of boxes with different vegetables and all kinds of plants. There’s something about the smell of soil that I find very relaxing.   Q: San Diego has unique outdoor pursuit within an hour or two in any direction. Are you a beach person, a desert person or a mountain person? GG: I’m definitely a mountain person and David is a beach person through and through. I grew up 3,000 feet above sea level in rural Jamaica. In fact, my one confession is that even though the sunshine is great, I do love a good rainy day because where I grew up, it rains every day. And when it rains, the temperature drops by 20 degrees so I can tolerate a good chill.   Q: Let’s bring this full circle to CSUSM. Your career has taken you from Jamaica to South Carolina, with stops in Iowa, Virginia, Georgia and more. At what point during the interview process with CSUSM did you know that you and CSUSM would be a good fit? GG: When I started to look around at the community college network, I realized that the community college tuition is fairly low in California. When I saw that, I knew the state is serious about education. I also got the sense that the staff members in Extended Learning are really serious about their jobs and that CSUSM is serving the community in a significant way. And I thought, “I want to be part of that.” I care about access, I care about meeting the community’s needs, and I care about helping students have better opportunities in their community.   Q: What do you want the San Diego and CSUSM communities to know about you as you get started in your new position? GG: I am here to work with all kinds of people to meet the community’s needs and to serve our students. In a sense, we were all put into the same circumstances as our students during the pandemic. We had to manage children and pets and aging parents and our jobs all together at home. That’s what our students do all the time. Let’s use this crisis as a way to ask, “Can we recast some of the ways we think about education to make sure more people have access?” Let’s have that conversation and not just move on from the pandemic. Let’s create something new when this is over.   For more information on the programs available through CSUSM Extended Learning, please visit csusm.edu/el. Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Hollywood is notorious for shying away from certain subjects while severely watering down others. One such seemingly untouchable subject has been the Haitian Revolution, which ended in 1804 with the successful uprising against French colonial rule by self-liberated slaves in Saint-Domingue. It was the first successful revolution by enslaved people in modern history. A decade ago, Cal State San Marcos history professor Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall began studying the entertainment industry’s omission of what she considers a turning point in world history. Fast forward to 2021, and Sepinwall’s extensive and thought-provoking work on the subject has recently been published as a book titled “Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games.” “It was one of the most important events in world history, but most people don't know about it,” Sepinwall said. “So the question becomes why that is. Why are there movies about so many different revolutions and so many historical events, but why has there not been a major movie on the Haitian Revolution? That was one question that I started with.” “Slave Revolt on Screen” is Sepinwall’s third published book, following “Haitian History: New Perspectives” (published in 2012) and “The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism” (2005). The latter title, which was just released in paperback for the first time this month, focuses on a Catholic priest who was involved in the French Revolution. He also argued for the abolition of slavery and criticized prejudices against Jews and others. Sepinwall’s new book touches on the fact that although Haitian Revolution stories are missing in Hollywood, they have been shared in other cinematic forms around the world. Filmmakers in Haiti, France and even smaller budget films in the U.S. have told this momentous story. The book analyzes completed films as well as planned projects that were never made. “I discovered that there were many more films that I knew about, including films by Haitian filmmakers who have very interesting perspectives on their own history. But it's harder for them to get the word out,” Sepinwall said. “One of the big issues that I look at in the book is who gets to tell history on screen? Who gets to decide and from what parts of the world? Americans and French people are able to make films that the rest of the world sees, but Haitian filmmakers shouldn't have a harder time making films and having people see their versions of their own history.” The book also is one of the first on video games written by a historian, something that has earned Sepinwall praise. She explains that “historical video games are a multibillion-dollar industry, and players spend countless hours playing them. Then students come to my classes with ideas about history that they’ve gotten from games. But historians in the U.S. have largely not been evaluating these games; we’ve assumed that they’re simplistic and not worth our time. I think it’s important that we take seriously how history is depicted in video games to help guide the public toward better games or warn them away from awful ones.” Professor Tyler Stovall of Fordham University, a leading historian and former president of the American Historical Association, called Sepinwall’s book a “pathbreaking study” for this reason, noting how innovative it is for her to be paying “attention to video games, in many ways the greatest entertainment form of the 21st century.” Sepinwall also was featured in a podcast from the “American Historical Review,” the leading scholarly publication for historians in the U.S., explaining the importance of studying historical video games. Sepinwall’s CSUSM students have been keenly interested in her research. In 2013, one of her students surprised her with news that there was a new video game that aimed to portray slavery in Haiti before the Revolution. “Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag” was released that year with a single-player downloadable content addition called “Freedom Cry.” “After I started to look at this game, I discovered that there were other games on slavery and slave revolt that scholars had not written about,” said Sepinwall, who was impressed by the overall accuracy of “Freedom Cry’s” storyline. “At that time, I thought I was just writing an article because I didn't think there were that many films, and I only knew about this one game. But as I was researching, students told me about other video games. I later discovered games made by a pioneering French Caribbean developer named Muriel Tramis. I realized that the Haitian Revolution in video games has become a ‘thing.’ So a big question of the book is, why is it that Hollywood hasn't made a major film about the Haitian Revolution? And how is it that video game companies have been willing to find games on slave revolt in Haiti when film producers haven't?” For the book, she was able to interview “Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry’s” writer Jill Murray, as well as Tramis and makers of other films and games Those interactions helped give her insight into the creative effort that goes into producing games and films. It also gave further credence to the path she was on and why it’s of critical importance to learn from true stories of the past. “As a human and a historian, it's important to me that we learn about all of the things that happened in the past and not only the good things,” Sepinwall said. “I teach about the Holocaust to students, and I also want to teach about slavery and other things that are difficult to learn about. It makes students be aware of still other parts of history that we don't talk about. So it's part of this larger issue, which is what happened in history versus which parts do we talk about? “Learning about all of the past gives us more compassion and empathy for other people, which is really important. There are some people who think that learning about the sad parts of history is wrong, because it makes people feel bad about themselves. And I look at Germany. How terrible would it be if people did not study the Holocaust because they said it would make German people feel bad? Or if they tried to pretend that it wasn't as horrifying as it was? It is important to study history, warts and all – the good, the bad and the ugly. I love having students who embrace learning about all aspects of the past, and who are eager to analyze films and games with me.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Jim Hamerly thought the first time he retired from Cal State San Marcos would be the last. Hamerly was the director of business community relations, responsible for leading the College of Business Administration’s Senior Experience program, for nearly seven years when he decided to retire in 2013 to spend time working with alumni start-up businesses. It turned out to be a short-lived departure. About a year later, Hamerly was coaxed out of retirement to serve as CoBA’s interim dean. “When they initially asked me, I think I turned down the provost three times,” Hamerly said. Encouragement from Ron Gerevas, a member of the CSUSM Foundation Board and the CoBA Advisory Board, helped change Hamerly’s mind. And it wasn’t long before that interim title was removed for a more permanent one. “I fell in love with the place again,” Hamerly said. After nearly seven years as dean, Hamerly has decided it’s time to retire from CSUSM for a second time. He will step down at the end of June, with longtime professor of management and entrepreneurship Bennett Cherry stepping into the role of interim dean beginning July 1. “We have great faculty and staff, and the best thing you can leave on is full confidence that they will carry the college strongly forward,” Hamerly said. Hamerly has always had a wide array of interests, which kept him moving throughout his career. A glance at his résumé shows that he rarely remains in a position more than five years. Notably, both of his CSUSM stints lasted longer than that. But Hamerly said the time was right this time around because the college achieved two important goals: Receiving accreditation from the prestigious global organization Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB); and Improving the college culture. Cherry, who has been at CSUSM since 2000, can attest to the importance of both of those achievements. “Jim’s leadership as dean came at a critical time in the life of our College of Business Administration. For decades, the college had been discussing and taking small steps toward AACSB accreditation, but Jim and Mohammad really launched us into a coordinated and strategic multiyear plan to actually achieve it,” said Cherry, also noting the vital contributions of associate dean Mohammad Oskoorouchi. “It is one of Jim’s greatest achievements as dean. “For many staff and faculty, Jim’s focus on improving the culture of CoBA will be regarded as one of the most significant touchstones of his legacy.” CoBA received word of its AACSB accreditation in April, putting the college among the top 5% of business schools in the world. “The AACSB accreditation team commended us for three or four major areas where we were out in front,” Hamerly said. “These are deans who come in to evaluate us and said, ‘Not only are you guys doing a great job, we're going to copy what you're doing.’ So that's an affirmation that we're on the right path.” Changing the culture in CoBA was something that Hamerly knew was necessary when he accepted the position as interim dean. It’s something he has done at every company he has run or started. It’s never a quick fix, but it’s one he knew was necessary to put the college on a strong path forward. CoBA has implemented training on communication and behavioral styles while utilizing tools such as CliftonStrengths assessments and 360-degree reviews, among others, to improve collegiality throughout the college. “The cooperation among faculty, between faculty and staff, and our community engagement is amazing,” Hamerly said. “It's astounding to see how our team comes together and how they help each other out. It's an awesome environment to work in.” Hamerly also is proud of CoBA’s focus on student personal and professional success. He noted that the college has recruited more than three dozen professionals who volunteer as Executives in Residence, helping to guide students through the Business Professional Development program and develop the professional skills they’ll need in their careers. That external community engagement has been a boon to the college and its students. And though Hamerly is retiring as dean, he will be staying busy. He serves on advisory boards of four alumni startups and he has dozens of hobbies, including participating in triathlons, hiking and growing the largest sequoia grove in Southern California. As Hamerly prepares for the next chapter, he does so knowing that CoBA is in position to continue to thrive. “We have people who know how to do it and they're good at it,” Hamerly said. “They might need me as a cheerleader, but I've contributed the best of what I can and they're ready to move forward, which is great.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Naturally a glass-half-full person, Arun Sethuraman is known to friends, family and colleagues as a source of happiness and a conduit of positive vibes. It’s not unusual to see Sethuraman smiling while teaching, sitting in on a meeting or simply walking around the campus of Cal State San Marcos. But forgive the biological sciences professor if his smile has been extra wide these days. Earlier this month, Sethuraman was granted early tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor starting with the upcoming fall semester. That announcement came on the heels of his National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award being recommended for funding. It’s a prestigious award that puts Sethuraman in rare company as he’s believed to be one of just two CSUSM professors to ever win it. The other was biology professor George Vourlitis in 2002. Sethuraman’s grant will cover a period of five years and is worth a total of $608,360. “It's a career-building opportunity,” Sethuraman said. “It’s set up to both engage our student population in science and to make sure that we communicate it. We want to be able to communicate our science to the general public with all sorts of engagement activities and programs.” The NSF CAREER Award is for early career researchers. The award aims to provide financial support and assistance to those who have just started out on their careers and are trying to establish a program for themselves. Only assistant professors and tenure-track assistant professors can apply for it. The award needs a scientific or public community engagement component for it to work. That won’t be a problem for Sethuraman, who with an NSF grant earlier in his career as a postdoc student at Temple University established a summer workshop program for high school teachers in the Philadelphia area. That program trained teachers basic programming skills to take to their high school biology or chemistry classroom after a week of learning different types of exercises. As soon as next summer, Sethuraman plans on implementing a similar program for San Diego County high school teachers, one in which potentially 25-30 lesson plans can be given to each teacher. “That’s one part of (the grant),” said Sethuraman, who earned his bachelor’s in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India, and his Ph.D. from Iowa State. “The other part is, I write for a popular science blog called ‘The Molecular Ecologist,’ and my goal as part of this career was to incorporate my own graduate students and teach them how to do science communication to the general public. They will work on tutorials and articles, which we’ll then publish as part of the science blog accessible to the general public. So there's a number of other sort of synergistic outreach and community engagement activities that are also part of the brand.” Sethuraman isn’t waiting until next summer to make his latest impact. The second annual Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program that he and biology professor Betsy Read co-run began on campus last week and runs for 10 weeks. There were more than 250 applicants from all over the country for this year’s program. Ten students will do research projects in different labs and receive training in genomics and bioinformatics. The program will end with a poster presentation on Aug. 13. Whether it’s earning tenure, receiving a prestigious award or being the driving force for an important summer program, Sethuraman has big goals for his career beyond just the classroom and lab. “I've already started to think about sabbatical years and things that I want to do in those years,” he said. “My immediate goal would be to teach a lot of genetics classes here. I've noticed over the years that genetics textbooks and resources are not very inclusive, and actually that's also written into my NSF CAREER grant.” Last spring, Sethuraman co-taught a one-unit seminar course with kinesiology professor Richard Armenta that is open to the entire campus called the genetics of minorities. In that course, he discussed the genetic basis behind ethnic and racial minorities, sexual orientation, weight and people with pre-existing conditions, and how there are different types of minorities and disabilities that are also affected by sociological perspectives. “It’s also actually written into my CAREER proposal that the goal is to offer that class as a three-unit course on campus to explore the sorts of things that are not in the textbooks and not talked about or not studied enough just by virtue of the fact there's no resources in parts of the world that are highly underrepresented or for sections of the society that are highly underrepresented,” Sethuraman said. “So my goal, whenever I'm eligible for sabbatical, would be to eventually write about genetics of minorities in a much more inclusive genetics book.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314