Theater lecturer Shaun Heard is directing a first-of-its-kind production at Cal State San Marcos.  “It's one of those shows where I feel like a lot of people are going to be in the audience clutching their pearls because it's a play where they don't hold back,” Heard said. “The Motherf**ker with the Hat,” a play by Stephen Adly Guirgis, will be showing Nov. 20-23 in Arts 111 from 7-9 p.m. each night. Tickets can be purchased online. “Google will describe the show as a high-octane verbal cage match about love, fidelity and misplaced haberdashery,” Heard said. “That's the online Google definition or synopsis of the play. However, this play is a love letter to toxic couples everywhere. Couples who love each other so much, but every sign in the world tells you that you shouldn't be together.” The play follows a Puerto Rican couple in their 30s who have been dating since eighth grade and struggle with addiction. “It's a story that needs to be told, especially at a college level,” Heard said. “These types of plays are frowned upon because these are 18 and 19 year olds using curse words. But I'm so grateful that our department decided to do this play because these students are adults.” Heard has been teaching theater at CSUSM for seven years, and the play is part of his course curriculum in his introduction to acting class.  The course is a lower-level general education class and is usually full of students who have never acted before. Heard assigns students scenes and they do an in-class production, but this is the first time the play is being brought to the stage at CSUSM. “I get a lot of nursing majors and business majors, and I introduce them to this play called ‘The Motherf**ker with the Hat,’ ” Heard said. “The play has cursing and it really helps students who are not theater people to let loose.” Five students are featured in the play: Daniel Bjorn Huff, Lunna Mikhail, Arthur Morel, Cayla Munoz and Anthony Varon. For the first time, the theater department hired an intimacy coordinator to work with the student actors in rehearsal.  “That was something that our department decided on through this particular season,” Heard said. “A season is a year's worth of plays. This year we’ve had four plays where actors interact physically. “There are a lot of people interacting with each other, much more than friendship levels. They needed someone here to ensure they feel comfortable with all of this. Also, from a teaching standpoint, it's good for actors to work with a professional actor.”  Heard hopes that when someone leaves the theater after watching the play, they will be open to different types of art forms and can reflect on their own relationships. “I think the way the play was written and the way that I've directed it, there are no clear protagonists or clear antagonists,” Heard said. “It's one of those plays where everyone is flawed, and I hope everyone can look within. I want the audience to leave and think about humanity a little bit more. Give people the benefit of the doubt and understand that people do make mistakes.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Manal Yamout McDermid often feels like she’s standing on the cutting edge of California’s multibillion-dollar green economy.   One day, McDermid will be meeting with a company that is developing what are effectively electric helicopters designed to cover distances of less than 100 miles – basically, an Uber for the skies. The next day, she’ll sit down with a business that’s building a device that captures a semi truck’s carbon emissions directly from the tailpipe, pumps it into a tank, then either buries it underground or sells the CO2 for use in products like soda.   Still other days might include huddles with firms that make rooftop solar panels, heat pump water heaters, even self-driving cars.    “Each of the clients that I work with, I get a chance to embed in their team,” McDermid said. “I get to jump around. And not only is the subject matter different, but the people are different and the vibe is different. I like that diversity.”  Those clients, in turn, value McDermid’s expertise, so much so that they’re willing to pay handsomely for it, in many cases while they’re still trying to get off the ground as a startup. The Cal State San Marcos alumna is the founding partner of Caliber Strategies, a Sacramento-based lobbying firm that helps energy and climate companies – whether sexy startups or stodgy utilities – navigate the regulatory maze that is the California policy arena.   In doing so, McDermid draws on almost two decades of experience in state politics and policymaking, going back to when she was a clean energy adviser to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in her early 20s, only a few years after graduating from CSUSM with a degree in biology.   “I founded this company because it’s really challenging to bring new technologies to market, especially in a place like California where the market rules are quite complex and there are all these different agencies doing different things,” McDermid said. “We focus exclusively on climate and energy, and primarily on what I refer to as disruptive technologies.”  Founded in 2013, Caliber now totals eight employees, and one of McDermid’s fellow partners is Michael Picker, former president of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the nonpartisan body charged with regulating the state’s utilities. The company has almost 50 clients, including investment management giant Blackstone, accounting firm KPMG and Sunrun, one of the nation’s biggest solar installers.  Sometimes Caliber’s clients take the form of a legacy company that’s opening a new product line. A.O. Smith Corporation, for example, has been around for 150 years and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of water heaters and boilers, with annual sales of almost $4 billion. But as California increasingly moves toward the full electrification of all buildings, A.O. Smith is gravitating toward heat pumps, which heat water using electricity instead of gas.   Enter Caliber. The company worked with a team of nonprofit, industry and environmental organizations to help pass legislation to allocate about $44 million in incentives for heat pumps. Caliber then led an effort with this coalition and the CPUC to design an incentive program that would offer state residents payments of up to $7,300 for installing heat pumps.   Another category of clients is fledgling businesses with an innovative solution to a climate-related problem. Charm Industrial is a Bay Area startup with a mission to, as its website touts, “put oil back underground,” an elegantly simple description of the complex science involved in carbon capture and sequestration. Charm approached Caliber in its infancy, seeking to get introduced to the right people, increase its name recognition and create a market from scratch.   “It’s about streamlining the process, and even more so trying to educate regulators,” McDermid said. “We educate regulators and policymakers about what the needs of new technologies are. After the policymaker has already said, for example, we want electric cars and you have the market ready, there remain all these barriers that no one has figured out. So it’s a collaborative process to figure out how we get from where we are now to where we want to be.”  It was at CSUSM where McDermid discovered her twin passions for environmental science and public policy. Having initially enrolled at the university on a cross country and track and field scholarship (she competed for two years before injuries forced her to stop), she decided she wanted to pursue conservation biology and save the earth one planted tree at a time.   At some point in her college journey, however, it dawned on her that planting trees – even 10 to 20 acres worth – couldn’t compare with, say, protecting millions of acres through legislation. As a junior, McDermid spent the fall semester in Washington, D.C., as part of the Panetta Congressional Internship Program, and when she returned, she ran for and was elected president of Associated Students, Inc., for her senior year in 2004-05. She even started a progressive activist organization with some friends.   “CSUSM was this perfect testing ground to try out all these different things,” she said.  Using her student experience as a springboard, McDermid was accepted after graduation into the Capital Fellows Program, an initiative through Sacramento State that offers paid, full-time fellowships in each branch of California’s government. She was assigned to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office for a year, followed by a year working in the office of First Lady Maria Shriver.   In 2008, McDermid got her big break when Susan Kennedy, still early in her tenure as Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, acted on a recommendation to tap McDermid as her top deputy. Kennedy was seeking not an executive assistant but someone who could step into her high-pressure position when necessary and not miss a beat. In McDermid, she found a kindred spirit, essentially a younger version of herself.   “She was perfect,” Kennedy said. “She looked out at the landscape from the perspective of, if she were the chief of staff to the governor, how would you prepare for this? How would you brief him on this? What information do you need from the agencies or the departments or the senior staff?  “It’s a very tough role to step into, and she earned everyone’s respect because she was so good at what she did. She made me twice as good at what I was doing because she was as good as me.”  Near the end of his eight years as governor, Schwarzenegger began to feel a particular urgency to buttress his accomplishments in the climate space. He tasked Kennedy with figuring out how to secure permitting for a host of renewable energy projects being incentivized by the Obama administration, and Kennedy in turn tasked not only Picker – the former CPUC president and current Caliber partner – but also McDermid.   “It was a failure-is-not-an-option initiative by the governor,” Kennedy said. “I gave Michael all the power, and I gave him the most powerful weapon I could think of, which was Manal. The two of them were responsible for basically unlocking gigawatts of renewable energy in California, which completely changed the landscape of the state’s climate initiatives.”  McDermid’s efforts were so successful that, when Schwarzenegger left office in 2011 and Jerry Brown entered, she was among just a handful of staffers retained out of the nearly 100 in the governor’s office. She departed later that year to take a job in Washington as a lobbyist for NextEra Energy, an electric utility holding giant, before Kennedy lured her back to California in 2013.   With her longtime mentor, McDermid launched not only Caliber but also Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS), a company that was born out of the shuttering of the San Onofre nuclear power station in June 2013. That closure created an immediate 20% power shortage in large portions of Los Angeles, a gap that AMS filled by building what McDermid called the “world’s largest virtual power plant” – battery storage systems at commercial sites like Kaiser Permanente, Irvine Company and Walmart. Over time, AMS shifted its focus from developing those large-scale energy storage projects to providing software that allowed others to optimize their own energy storage assets.  When AMS was sold in 2020, McDermid rededicated herself to Caliber, which had been on the back burner for a few years. During the pandemic, she got married and moved from San Diego (where she grew up after her family escaped war-torn Lebanon when she was 3) to Santa Barbara, her husband’s hometown. Manal and Hitch, her husband, have a 3-year-old son, Malek.   McDermid makes frequent trips to Sacramento and to San Francisco, where Caliber has a small office. Not coincidentally, the Bay Area also is the headquarters of the CPUC, one of the regulatory bodies that Caliber works closely with, along with the California Energy Commission, the Air Resources Board and the Natural Resources Agency.  Many for-profit companies have an adversarial relationship with the regulators that establish the rules governing them, but that’s not the case with Caliber or most of its clients. They’re all in the same boat and rowing in the same direction when it comes to the state’s ambitious climate goals, which is one of myriad reasons why McDermid loves the work she does.   “We’re very focused in California precisely because we actually want to get things done,” McDermid said. “I don’t want to spend my time convincing someone that climate change is a problem or that we should put more electric vehicles on the roads. The nice thing about California is, at the highest level, the leadership is completely bought in on what the problem is. And it’s more about figuring out: How do we solve it?”    Manal Yamout McDermid  Major at CSUSM: Biology  Graduation year: 2005  Company: Caliber Strategies  Website: caliberstrat.com  Founded: 2013  Number of employees: 8    Talking Business With Manal Yamout McDermid What's the best advice you received about starting a business?  Work with people you like. It's super simple, but if you pick people you like and admire and want to spend an inordinate amount of time with, you really can't go wrong. In some ways, getting the people right is more important than the idea and the path to market.     What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?  Same advice as the first one: Choose your partners carefully, and choose them based on their character, their integrity and your level of trust in them. Don’t just think about breaking into a market.    What's the greatest challenge in starting your own business?  I think it's the uncertainty and the self-doubt that come with it, like: Should I grow? The greatest challenge is believing that as you scale up, things will work out, and getting the confidence to take that next step.    Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?   No. I'm a firm believer that whatever happens was supposed to happen, and it doesn't mean that it was good. But I wouldn't have done it differently.     What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?   I would say confidence, belief in yourself. The ability to really pay attention to what's happening around you, whether that's the market or the people you surround yourself with.  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Simon Griffith, a graduate student in the Master of Arts of Sociological Practice program, was recently awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for 2024 at the California Sociological Association conference, which was held Nov. 1-2 in Pomona.  Griffith’s research focuses on the sociology of queer life, cities and human agency. He examines what happens to the collective identity of queer neighborhoods as society's perception of LGBTQ+ people evolves. “I investigate the material impacts that arise for individuals within these communities,” Griffith writes on the Master of Arts of Sociological Practice website. “By analyzing the genealogies of queer neighborhoods, I aim to understand the consequences of changes to both the physical and social spaces that exist within them.”  The conference’s theme focused on human rights, policy threats, alliances and community resistance. The keynote speaker was UC San Diego sociology professor Camila Alvarez, who’s speech focused on environmental justice issues. The mission of the California Sociological Association is to promote the scientific study of society among interested persons within the state of California; to stimulate discussion and encourage cooperative relations among persons engaged in the scientific study of society; and to further the aims of instruction, practice and research in the field of sociology. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Melissa Finestone remembers the assignment in her business marketing class that started it all.  Each student was required to develop a business plan based on a product they conceived. Finestone decided to curate a product that combined her passion for cooking with a childhood love of chocolate milk.   But Finestone wanted to develop a healthy alternative to other chocolate milks on the market. She noticed that there was a growing demand for more plant-based options, and she wanted to create a product that would avoid a laundry list of unfamiliar ingredients.  When Finestone couldn’t find a product on the market that met her requirements, she chose to make her own. Using her Vitamix blender to grind almonds in her kitchen at home, Finestone crafted samples of chocolate- and strawberry-flavored, plant-based almond milk. She served it to each student in the class while presenting her product.  “I remember a classmate saying, ‘I do not drink flavored milk, no matter what kind of milk it is, but I would buy this one,’ ” said Finestone, then known by her maiden name of Mandim.  The overwhelming support from her peers inspired Finestone to launch The Mulk Co. in June 2018, only one year after she graduated from Cal State San Marcos with a bachelor’s degree in global business management.  “What she is doing in starting up a food business is extremely difficult,” said Dick Lansing, who worked with Finestone as part of the College of Business Administration’s Career Mentor Program. “There are all sorts of hurdles and problems and costs that you need to go through and take into consideration.  “I generally don't recommend anybody go into the food business, as an individual person, unless they have a lot of money they want to lose. But she had a plan, which was really good and really smart.”  Today, Finestone’s signature almond milk is available at nine farmers markets throughout San Diego County and three in Los Angeles. She has gone from grinding almonds in her kitchen to using a commercial space in Vista, where she produces 10 different flavors and three seasonal offerings. The chocolate and strawberry flavors that she shared in class are among the most popular – and the recipe hasn’t changed much since then.   “I can’t pick a favorite, but I associate each flavor with a memory,” Finestone said. “When I think of strawberry, I think of the student who complimented me in class because I couldn’t believe that she liked it so much.”  Finestone takes pride in using only real ingredients in her almond milk; it contains no additives, fillers or preservatives. She sources her almonds from a farm in California’s Central Valley, where 80% of all almonds in the United States are harvested.  Mulk has become so successful that Finestone has employees to cover the numerous farmers markets, though she still can be found each Sunday at the Leucadia Farmers Market.   “My husband tries to get me to stay home and rest on Sundays, but I just love it,” she said. “There’s just something about the community and relationships you build with other vendors. I love the friendships you make, not just with your customers but with fellow business owners.”  Finestone never intended to be an entrepreneur. It took a one-way ticket around the world for her to discover this path.  Finestone grew up in South Africa, where she earned a bachelor’s in fine arts from Witwatersrand College and then graduated from Inscape Design College. She had a well-established career in interior design, even winning an interior designer of the year award for Virgin Airlines’ launch in South Africa.  When Finestone’s parents moved to Australia, where her sister had landed a job, Finestone decided to move with them. But she quickly learned that Australia wasn’t where she wanted to live long term. Instead, she packed her belongings to find someplace that felt like home. It began a journey that took her from Melbourne to Sydney and then on to Chile, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, India and Thailand.  With visits to more than 30 countries over her lifetime, Finestone credits the globe-trotting experiences for shaping her as a businessperson. In fact, it was a trip to India that inspired one of Mulk’s most popular flavors. The company’s golden almond milk is blended with turmeric, cinnamon and ginger, a nod to the Indian drink masala haldi doodh, which translates to “golden milk.”   “I remember drinking it at Indian street markets, and it was delicious,” Finestone said. “I knew I wanted to create a version of it for Mulk.”  After nine months of traveling, Finestone returned to Australia to see her family. She didn’t stay long, taking an offer to visit a friend in Los Angeles. This trip was different from the others, though. It was her first time in the United States, and she fell in love with Southern California.  Finestone found herself with new opportunities, and she leaned into her passion for cooking, which had been a constant in her life since she was 6 years old and honing her skills with her mother and grandmother. Her talents led to a job as a chef for Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer.  But Finestone yearned for something else. She started studying business leadership and management at Santa Monica College and landed internships in public relations and marketing. She always thought her time in the U.S. would be temporary, that she would eventually return to Australia to be closer to her family. Then she met her future husband, Adam.  One of Finestone’s internships was located next to the packing and shipping company owned by Adam’s parents. She frequented the store to mail packages, becoming such a regular that Adam’s parents invited her to a Christmas party where she met their son, who was visiting from San Diego.  Finestone eventually moved south to be closer to Adam and continued to pursue her business degree, first at Palomar College and then at CSUSM.  “I liked the idea of having a degree that would support any industry,” Finestone said.  Finestone also had support from Adam, whom she credits for inspiring the name of her almond milk business.  “My husband makes fun of me when I say ‘milk.’ It sounds like I’m saying ‘mulk’ because of my South African accent,” Finestone said. “The name just stuck, and I felt like it was fitting for my business.”  Starting any business comes with challenges, and the food industry is notoriously difficult for budding entrepreneurs. It wasn’t just Lansing, a College of Business Administration advisory council member, who warned Finestone about how grueling it could be.   As Finestone grappled with whether to start a business or find a corporate job, she reached out a week after graduation to Jim Hamerly, then the college’s dean.  “I certainly shared some of my concerns and skepticism with Melissa about starting a food business,” Hamerly said. “She told me, ‘Well, I'm manufacturing it in my kitchen at home and I'm crushing my own almonds.’ And I'm thinking, ‘Oh my.’ ”  Hamerly knew that could be problematic for adhering to U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines and that a commercial kitchen would be needed. At the time, Hamerly was helping his brother with a soup stock business, which required Hamerly to learn about packaging and manufacturing fluids. He shared what he learned with Finestone, even connecting her with his brother.  Both Hamerly and Lansing were impressed with Finestone’s drive to launch her business. She decided after meeting with them that she would start small and serve her milk at a few local farmers markets. It was familiar territory to Finestone, who worked as a food service vendor for Bitchin’ Sauce, an almond dip company, while attending CSUSM.  “I knew the lay of the land,” Finestone said. “I was able to create connections with other farmers market vendors and get ideas for my business.”   When Finestone was just starting out, Hamerly was a regular visitor to her booth at Poway’s farmers market on Saturday mornings to support her and purchase Mulk products.   “She's really good with people,” Hamerly said. “I used to sit on the sidelines and watch her sell to people as they came through the farmers market. A lot of CSUSM students start businesses, but she's really got a great head for business. She gets it.”  Six years after launching Mulk, Finestone is familiar with the landmines that come with owning a business. But the happiness that radiates from her customers keeps her going. She is continuing to grow the business, with hopes of one day having Mulk available in Whole Foods.  Finestone still thinks often about the day that her classmates tried her almond milk for the first time. She smiles when she recalls their reaction, and the memory never ceases to fuel her motivation for the future.  “I have had lots of challenges,” Finestone said. “But I believe in my product and I see people’s faces when they find something they like. And when customers keep coming back, it just tells me that I'm actually fulfilling some sort of need. That's really what keeps me going.”   Melissa Finestone  Major at CSUSM: Global business management  Graduation year: 2017  Company: The Mulk Co.  Website: themulkco.com  Founded: 2018  Number of employees: 3    What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?  “Rank on a scale of 1 to 10 how passionate you are about this idea because it needs to be 11. Don't be scared of starting a business. It might fail, but it also might set you up for your next success. I've come across entrepreneurs who have started one product, realized there were a lot of roadblocks with the product and then they switch and start doing something else. And then they actually move forward with that one.”     What’s the greatest challenge in starting your own business?  “Employees and when your equipment breaks. I use industrial equipment and I'm not an engineer. So if something goes wrong, it's really stuck.”     Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?  “It would have been so cool if I was studying business while I was starting a business. Because I think I would learn a lot of principles and it would have helped getting feedback from professors.”      What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?  “Resourcefulness, passion and a high learning curve.”  Media Contact Bri Phillips, Communications Specialist bphillips@csusm.edu

It’s a tale as old as higher education itself: a college student desperately seeking a job to defray the cost of attendance or just to pocket a little extra spending money.   That was the situation Elijah Schneider found himself in as a freshman at Cal State San Marcos when he attended a Thanksgiving celebration in the fall of 2015. One of the guests that day – Schneider remembers him being a neighbor or a distant family friend – was a business owner who was soliciting opinions about his company’s Instagram channel.   Though firmly in its core demographic, Schneider was no big afficionado of Instagram – he estimates that he had posted fewer than 20 times in about a decade of having an account. He was (and is), however, very opinionated. So while fellow attendees declined the invitation to weigh in, Schneider didn’t hold back.  He told the man that his company’s feed looked ugly, that the images resembled generic stock photography and that he should replace whatever marketing agency handled his social media. A few days later, Schneider followed up with a phone call in which he proposed a rather bold suggestion for who should be the replacement.  As Schneider recalls it: “I was like, ‘Hey, you’re getting ripped off. You told me you’re paying this agency 10 grand month or something. How about you pay me 1,500 bucks a month? I will learn, I will become obsessed with this. Give me three months. If it doesn’t work, get rid of me.’ ”  To Schneider’s surprise, the man agreed to the gambit. Schneider had promised that he would devote 10 hours a week to the enterprise, but he grew so fixated that he doubled it. After a few months, the company’s Instagram following had swelled by a factor of eight, and the man was so pleased that he wanted more services.   “Do you know how to do paid ads?” he asked Schneider.  “No, but I’ll figure it out,” Schneider replied, with a degree of self-assurance that would become his trademark.   He did indeed, to the tune of quintupling a $1,000 investment in paid ads after taking a few courses on YouTube and LinkedIn. By the end of his freshman year, Schneider was managing tens of thousands of advertising dollars, being connected to a second client and hiring his first employee – all while living in The QUAD housing facility and taking classes toward his major in business administration.  As a teenager in his dorm room, Schneider founded a digital marketing agency that he first called Mercury Media before changing the name to Modifly in 2017. He continued to build the company during his five years at CSUSM – eventually moving into an office at Union Cowork across the street from campus in North City – before graduating in 2020.   Today, Modifly occupies a sleek, modern, 8,000-square-foot space in a high rise in downtown San Diego, a short walk from where Schneider lives with his wife, Sarah, an OR nurse at UC San Diego whom he met at CSUSM. Two years ago, Schneider sold a majority stake in his nascent business to a parent company called CourtAvenue, helping his team grow to 30 employees spread across four cities, including Mexico City. Modifly’s current and former clients include such brands as Mercedes-Benz, Nordstrom and UGG boots.    Asked about his unorthodox path to becoming an entrepreneur, the now 27-year-old Schneider said: “Because I didn’t have the baggage of working for other companies, I hadn’t developed bad habits. I had to develop perspective, which allowed me to – with no experience – test things and see what’s working and what’s not. Not having a traditional background is fantastic in terms of the progression of the business because we do things differently. Every time somebody joins the company from another agency, they’re like, ‘It’s not supposed to work like this.’ And I’m like, ‘I know, it’s great.’ ”  How does Schneider do things differently? He conducts a performance evaluation called a 360 review in which every employee of the company evaluates everyone else, meaning that the CEO (Schneider) can get critiqued by a lower-level worker who was just hired.   “It’s not about age or experience,” Schneider said. “Everyone’s perspective is critical.”  How does he do things differently? Even as the young leader of a young business, he’s not afraid to call established companies out on what he sees as flawed marketing strategies and to propose solutions that constitute much more than tinkering around the edges.   Take Poo-Pourri, which devises and sells fragrant sprays for toilets. The company approached Modifly after its previous marketing partner didn’t work out. After a deep dive into customer feedback, Schneider proposed a complete overhaul of its approach, mostly notably removing the “Poo” and broadening to other types of sprays. Now rebranded as ~Pourri, the company peddles fragrances that reduce odors from not only the bathroom, but also pets, cars, shoes, baby diapers, even marijuana.  “Digital media and digital marketing are constantly changing – every hour, it feels like,” Schneider said. “It’s a giant puzzle, and if you have to navigate that as a brand, it can become really confusing. I love this business because it pushes me to think outside the box to solve problems.”  Schneider’s righthand man almost since the outset of his entrepreneurial journey has been Brandon Biancalani. They met at orientation before their first year at CSUSM – Schneider an incoming freshman from San Diego, Biancalani from San Clemente. They soon learned that they would be living a couple rooms down from each other on the same floor of The QUAD (Schneider’s future wife lived a few rooms down in the other direction).   Biancalani initially was struck by Schneider’s outspokenness – a sharp contrast to his introversion – but while other residents of the dorm were distracted by partying or other teenage concerns, he and Schneider bonded over long, late-night conversations about life goals. Having entered CSUSM as a kinesiology student, Biancalani quickly realized it wasn’t for him, and when Schneider dangled an opportunity in the summer of 2016 to be Employee No. 2 for Modifly (then Mercury Media), Biancalani jumped at it.   They moved into an apartment south of campus and lived together for the next 3½ years before graduating in the same class. Biancalani, who’s also married to a fellow CSUSM alumna, is now the head of paid media for Modifly.   “We had this feeling early on that we could be really successful with this,” Biancalani said. “Even when we didn’t have an office, we’d meet at a coffee shop, just a couple kids figuring stuff out. And then it started turning into something big really fast.”  Biancalani says their business partnership works so well because he’s a detail-oriented, data-crunching specialist while Schneider is a big-picture visionary.   “Elijah has done so many personality quizzes that land him in that ‘thought leader’ category,” he said. “If something new pops up, he’s probably three steps ahead and already is best buddies with the person who owns the company. His superpower is that he can predict things and be on the cutting edge and be fearless in voicing that early. And he’s right 99% of the time.”  After Schneider sold his majority stake in Modifly in 2022, he turned over day-to-day operations to a new president, Nico Coetzee, who’s been in the marketing business since Schneider was an infant. Now that he has built a stable company, Schneider is relentlessly focused on its growth. He travels frequently to meet potential clients, speak at conferences and generally proselytize on behalf of Modifly.   Given that he stumbled upon his career in the most accidental way imaginable – giving offhand advice to someone at a family gathering – even Schneider is often amazed by the passion he feels for it.   “I pour myself into this job because I can and because I want to,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like work; it’s my favorite thing. There are definitely days where I’m like, ‘I just want to go home, I’m done.’ But 99 out of 100 days, I love what I do.”    Elijah Schneider  Major at CSUSM: Business administration  Graduation year: 2020  Company: Modifly  Website: wemodifly.com  Founded: 2016  Number of employees: 30    Talking Business With Elijah Schneider What's the best advice you received about starting a business?  Surround yourself with the right people. You are a product of your environment, and if you have morally good people around you, then every piece of advice you're receiving is typically to your benefit. People over everything – that's the biggest thing.     What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?  If you have an idea for a business, just do it. Don't overthink it. Just put it in the market. Also, make sure you give yourself permission to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.    What's the greatest challenge in starting your own business?  For me, it was age and experience. I didn't really have a good mentor system around me. The people I could turn to for advice, I kind of had to build that as we went.     Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?   I would have evaluated myself more. I am good at some things, I am great at others and I am horrendous at others. I wish I had been able to take a step back and evaluate myself in a way where I could place levers of accountability to fill the holes.     What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?   First and foremost is awareness. You have to be aware of yourself, your environment, your strengths and weaknesses. Number two is vision. As an entrepreneur, if you cannot bring people together to accomplish something, whether it's a task or solving a specific problem, you're not going to do well.  Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

I don’t know if it was predestination, but I’ve certainly known for a long time that I wanted to be a scientist.  I still have the picture I drew in elementary school when I was 8 years old. It’s a self-portrait with my dream job scrawled on the paper: “scantist.”  I came across that picture not so long ago and, while my spelling has improved greatly since then, the statistics related to the number of Black people employed in science and engineering remain stark. Just 3% are Black men, according to the National Science Foundation. The numbers are worse for Black women like me – just 2%.  But I’ve never been someone to let numbers define me or statistics deter me from pursuing my dreams.   That’s probably a good thing considering I’m also part of another group that, statistically, struggles to complete college – former foster youth. Less than 3% of former foster youth earn a bachelor’s degree, according to the Education Commission of the States.  I’m proud that I’m part of those small groups since graduating from Cal State San Marcos in May with my bachelor’s in biological sciences. Now I want to help other students do the same and see those percentages grow. Much like me, most just need an opportunity.  It’s a lesson I learned from my grandmother, who taught me the importance of simply showing up and taking a chance on someone. In my grandmother’s case, she took in my three sisters and me when our mother couldn’t care for us.  I’m also grateful to CSUSM for taking a chance on me. At the university, I had the good fortune of being in U-RISE, which is the Undergraduate Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement program. Part of CSUSM’s Center for Training, Research and Educational Excellence, or CTREE for short, the U-RISE program prepares talented and motivated underrepresented students majoring in the sciences to enter and succeed in doctoral studies.   It was in U-RISE that I met some truly special mentors who stepped up on my behalf.  CTREE and U-RISE have eligibility requirements – and I didn’t meet all of them. It’s not that I wasn’t good at science or passionate about my studies. But my grades weren't at the level that U-RISE requires. I had always been a strong student in high school. I earned a spot on the honor roll each semester and was involved in numerous extracurricular activities. But I struggled when I started college. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought.  Fortunately for me, CTREE’s leaders looked beyond the numbers (in this case, my grade-point average). They took into account the challenges I was working to overcome and saw my potential. They were willing to take a chance on me. And it was truly life-changing.  Becoming part of U-RISE led me to a spot in the lab of biology professor Dennis Kolosov, who was there for me every step of the way. Whether it was answering a question, meeting one-on-one or providing professional development, Dr. Kolosov was crucial to my development and shaping my identity as a scientist.  The support that CSUSM provides is second to none, from faculty like Dr. Kolosov and Dr. Mallory Rice, who inspire students each day, to staff like Shanelle Watkins, the Black Student Success Initiatives coordinator in the Black Student Center.  This fall, I’m starting a Ph.D. program at UC Irvine, where I will be studying immunology. While I put in years of hard work to get here, my support system at CSUSM was critical in helping me reach this point.  I’m looking forward to helping other students like me in the future, whether through a nonprofit organization to give back to the community in my hometown of Rialto near San Bernardino, or by helping STEM students at CSUSM navigate the path toward their degree.  I know firsthand how important representation is for students of marginalized groups, and I know what it’s like to persevere. Each time I have fallen, I have gotten back up. I crawled, walked and ran toward my degree at CSUSM. Now, I want to serve as a positive example and role model to ensure that other students facing similar challenges aren’t left behind.  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Alexandria (Alli) Mulqueen struggled through much of her academic career before learning of her diagnosis of ADHD at 17, a discovery that would alter her life trajectory. “I went through most of school having a really difficult time academically, not thinking I was smart, and not thinking that I could do things,” said Mulqueen, a Cal State San Marcos psychological science senior. “I just had differences in terms of how I communicate with other people.” Mulqueen was recently honored with the President’s Student Champion Award for Inclusive Excellence and Diversity, which is given out every fall. She received the award at the All People’s Luncheon in October. Many 17 year olds in her shoes would have been frustrated over the delayed diagnosis and perhaps the unnecessary struggles that she endured. But those who know Mulqueen know she leveraged her experiences and observations to bring about change. A student who radiates positive energy, she instead went exploring. As a beginning college student, she dove into all the services and support options for neurodiverse students.  What she found was a system filled with dedicated faculty and staff, but unfortunately also a system that nonetheless fell short in many ways. Ever the optimist, she’s interested in identifying issues and then casting a wide but realistic net when it comes to solutions. “In many ways I was very fortunate,” said Mulqueen, who is also minoring in linguistics. “Going to college and having a better understanding of myself gave me the opportunity to really flourish, but in doing so, I've also recognized the needs that need to be addressed.” Mulqueen is a doer. She is co-president of CSUSM Best Buddies, which is the campus chapter of Best Buddies International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to a volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development, and inclusive living for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).  As the only student organization on campus focusing on neurodiversity and disability justice, the student leaders vision a place for community building, belonging, learning, and advocacy for students with disabilities and allies. Best Buddies has a strong partnership with the CSUSM Aspiring Scholars Program, a four-year non-degree university program for students with intellectual disabilities seeking an inclusive college experience and focused on promoting competitive integrated employment. “Both programs serve a very important role in the college experiences of students in the general CSUSM population as a whole,” Mulqueen said. She serves as a peer mentor for the Aspiring Scholars Program, where she provides academic and social engagement support to students in the program. The program is growing each year, necessitating more peer mentors. Sammy Eckard is a psychology major at CSUSM after transferring from Palomar College. He identifies as autistic, although he hasn’t received a formal diagnosis. The cost in seeking a diagnosis as an adult is significantly larger than being diagnosed as a child. Eckard met Mulqueen through an internship class with Allison Jobin, an assistant professor in psychology. Both students have worked with neurodivergent students in various capacities, as peer mentors through the Aspiring Scholars Program on campus and as providers within community organizations supporting early development for individuals with developmental disorders including autism. Eckard was immediately drawn to Mulqueen’s upbeat energy and positive outlook with anyone she encounters. “She helps them out, be it making connections at the club, helping them make friends or talk to people and making sure that everyone's enjoying themselves in the club she's a part of,” said Eckard, who has future aspirations of becoming a relationship counselor specializing in neurodivergent clients. Jobin is principal investigator and director of the SPARCC Lab on campus. Her psychology research lab is dedicated to improving community-based services and supports for autistic individuals and their families. Mulqueen, who is interested in studying socioemotional and relationship-based therapeutic strategies for neurodivergent individuals, knew upon her arrival on campus that she wanted to get involved in helping others. She just wasn’t sure how. That is, until she met Jobin. Mulqueen credits meeting Jobin with “sparking” her interest in research. “Our lab is really focused on doing community-partnered work,” Jobin said. “There’s research to tell us how important that is…the work that researchers are doing doesn't always reflect the needs of the community. And so one thing that I'm really proud of Alli for doing is seeing, hearing, listening. Hearing a need, even experiencing a need, as a student.” Jobin describes how community-engaged scholarship can be challenging, but it is worth it. “Not only are we working on making sure that our work is collaborative with the community — that makes research really hard and messy —but also that it has an impact,” Jobin said. “And she's just a beautiful example of doing that.” Mulqueen plans to pursue a doctoral degree, where she can expand her clinical and research training, after graduating from CSUSM. There’s still significant work that needs to be done. Chiefly for Mulqueen is a center for disabled and neurodiverse students and allies on campus, and the integration of disability and neurodiversity into DEI efforts. CSUSM has been lauded for the physical spaces — mostly in the University Student Union — provided for traditionally underrepresented groups of students. The Student Life Centers for Identity, Inclusion, & Empowerment celebrate, educate and create spaces for students to find a sense of belonging. The latest to open this fall semester was the Asian & Pacific Islander & Desi American (APIDA) Student Life Center. The American Indian SLC should be the next space to open on campus. Mulqueen emphasized the need for a dedicated center for students with disabilities or who identify as neurodivergent, highlighting the lack of such a resource despite CSUSM’s diverse campus community. Her mentored research examining neurodivergent college students' social belonging aims to address these gaps. “There's still work that needs to be done and implemented, and I want to create that opportunity for as many people as possible because I know that there are people who are struggling,” Mulqueen said. Along with other student leaders and faculty mentors, she sees a need for a student life center that recognizes neurodiversity as a unique aspect of student life, invests resources to increase neurodiversity-oriented programming efforts on campus and in the community, and increases access opportunities for students and allies to gather, experience belonging, and make their unique experiences known and heard. “To find that one student organization can't meet the needs of everyone who needs a community and who needs the support and sense of belonging that they don't really get elsewhere,” Mulqueen said. “I'm just going to push.” Although she empowers her students to be at the forefront of the push for a disability and neurodiversity student center, Jobin is right alongside them. Many difference-makers on campus have heard from Jobin. “We talk a lot about thinking big and thinking long term, about sustainability and impact,” Jobin said. “And these are students who are so passionate and driven to bring about change. Their presence on our campus is transformative in and of itself.” A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball 77 years ago, famously shared this thought on self-reflection. Eckard remembers the day he first crossed paths with Mulqueen. What stood out the most in that meeting was the immediate feeling of inspiration she provided through her impactful words. “She has this aura of kindness and understanding,” Eckard said. “Alli has a way of making ripples, and to her, it's a very small thing. But those ripples eventually lead into waves that she doesn’t even see. She doesn't even realize it. If it wasn't for meeting someone like Alli, I wouldn't have thought someone would listen to me. I feel heard with her.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

 Cal State San Marcos’ CLIMB program celebrated its 20^th anniversary last month by welcoming three distinguished alumni to campus to share their experiences with current students. CLIMB, which stands for the Center for Leadership Innovation and Mentorship Building, was established by the College of Business Administration in 2004 with the goal of serving “the leadership development needs of the surrounding community through innovative research and collaboration with various internal and external constituencies.” Raj Pillai, a professor of management and the executive director of CLIMB, co-hosted a special session of the signature “In the Executive’s Chair” program featuring alumni Quynh Pham, Jimmy Thai and A.J. van de Ven on Oct. 22. “Each one of these individuals embodies the principles of CLIMB,” Pillai told a group of about 80 students who attended the event in Markstein Hall. Pham, a 2016 graduate, is the director of coaching for Leaderology, which provides customized executive coaching and leadership development. Thai, who earned his MBA in 2000, is the president and co-founder of the Build a School Foundation, a nonprofit that provides educational opportunities for poor children. Van de Ven, who was named CLIMB’s 2023 Outstanding Business Leader, is the CEO and president of Calsense, which creates sophisticated smart irrigation solutions built on a foundation of technology, education and partnership. Pillai and co-host David Berry, a lecturer in the management department, asked the panelists a series of questions designed to help students as they prepare to navigate the transition to the professional world. Three teams of students concluded the session by asking the panelists additional questions. Three more “In the Executive’s Chair” events are scheduled for November. The sessions are open to all CSUSM students, alumni and community members. Learn more at the “In the Executive’s Chair” website. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Paola Romo and Denise Garcia were honored with the Anne Neufeldt Staff Hero Award and the Harvey Neufeldt Faculty Hero Award, respectively, during the annual Campus Heroes event on Thursday. The awards honor a staff and a faculty member for their contribution toward the achievement of the university's mission and demonstrated service to the campus community. Romo, the resident director of North Commons, previously worked at campus housing during her time as a student at CSUSM. She was a resident adviser in CSUSM Housing & Residential Education in 2016, and a senior RA for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years. During that time, Romo led conversations and programs that focused on personal development and cultural differences. In 2021, Romo returned to CSUSM as resident director of North Commons, the first-year-only on-campus housing. She works alongside the Residential Learning Communities and Residential Peer Mentors (RPM) and, through her personal approach, encourages them to become trusted mentors who help develop a stronger community.  Romo recognized the need for intentional engagement and crafted initiatives that helped improve the RPM program and empower students to thrive academically and personally.  Garcia, a biology professor and the director of CTREE, has brought in millions of dollars in external funding to CSUSM. In addition, she is an effective grant writer and offers formal and informal training for junior faculty on grant writing and acquisition of external funding. Garcia seeks out grants and other forms of support to ensure that students are supported through mentoring, access to resources and that they receive funding to support their research and education. Garcia supports undergraduate students by helping them with networking opportunities and by providing funding through her training grants, allowing students and their mentors to attend conferences to help advance students' professional development. Garcia’s work and the work of CTREE was recently recognized by the National Institutes of Health where CSUSM was recognized along with nine other universities as recipients for Institutional Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Ever since Cal State San Marcos student-athlete Jada Blake was 6 years old, the volleyball court had been her sanctuary — a place where family issues and everyday struggles could fade into the background, leaving just her and the game. That was, until she reached her freshman year of high school.    Quickly, the court she loved so much became a source of distress, and Blake found herself faced with her biggest opponent yet: depression.  “I stopped caring about volleyball,” Blake said. “I even ended up not finishing club that year. I was just going through a lot mentally and couldn’t continue having that pressure on my shoulders.”  Blake began skipping school to cope with her loss of motivation and overwhelming anxiety. She no longer had the desire to connect with her peers and spent most of her time isolated from loved ones. As Blake disappeared inside of herself, she found it increasingly difficult to face the outside world.  “My house was walking distance from school, so my mom would drop me off and I would just walk back home once she was at work,” Blake said. “I didn’t want to be at school. I knew I would just go to the bathroom and cry.”  Blake was raised in a single-parent household. Her father, who died in July 2023, was not in the picture due to addiction issues, so Blake grew up surrounded by her mom, older sister and younger brother. Having only each other to rely on, they became a team, always ready to support one another.    As Blake’s streak of unexcused absences continued to grow, her mom learned of the situation from Blake’s high school counselor. Taken aback by her daughter acting so out of character, she knew it was time to intervene.    “Jada’s freshman year was a struggle,” said Brianna Becker, Blake’s mom. “I would get that automated phone call every day at 4 p.m. saying your child missed class. There were even times I left work early and would find her at home. So, I started staying at home more and going into work late. Anything I could to make sure she went to school.    “As a young single mom with no child support, it was just us most of the time. I feel like I grew up with them. I always want my kids to be open with me, and I feel like they can come to me about anything in the world. If there’s something I can’t do for them, we’ll figure it out together.”  Blake’s first year of high school progressed, and with the help of her family, she started to throw herself back into school and social activities. As she regained a sense of motivation, she felt ready to resume her athletic pursuits as well. Her sophomore year, she kickstarted a long-standing reunion with the court and concluded the last three years of her high school sports career on a high, playing on varsity and being a candidate for league player of the year.    Unfortunately, when it came time to explore colleges, her volleyball recruiting process was derailed by the pandemic. During such a time of uncertainty, it was practical for Blake to stay with family and attend community college in her hometown of Phoenix. There, she gained a strong foothold on her academics and started to feel confident in her schoolwork.   “In high school, academics didn’t come naturally to me,” Blake said. “I always felt discouraged in that realm. I knew that I wanted to go to college, and while my sister had academic scholarships that were taking her there, I didn’t have that. I only had volleyball, and I had left it for a time.   “You don’t realize when you’re super young that just one semester of making the wrong decisions and not prioritizing the right things can throw a lot of opportunities down the drain. My sophomore, junior and senior year were mainly just focused on fixing my freshman year.    “But I’m actually very happy that I started with community college because it helped me with the transition from high school to university. Those two years in junior college taught me so much about how I could excel as a first-generation student athlete. In fact, that first semester after the pandemic was my first semester ever getting straight A’s.”   When it came time for Blake to transfer to a four-year college, she was introduced to CSUSM’s head volleyball coach, Andrea Leonard. It felt like an instant connection between the two, and Blake knew she had found the school for her. As she made the plunge and moved to California last fall, she felt like she could finally breathe. She had earned her scholarship and could now play volleyball while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in communication.   Blake’s freshman year of high school was no longer a regretful memory, but a marker of her resilience and ability to overcome any challenge thrown her way.  “I knew Jada was going to be an impactful player in our program,” Leonard said. “She really embodies all the core values that we look for, someone who is resilient, accountable and driven. She has this energy that bounces off the team and brings joy to everyone around her.”  Blake lives with her great aunt, a local volleyball legend in the San Diego area, and her great aunt’s daughter, a fellow volleyball player. Although she was initially anxious about moving away from her family and falling back into old habits, Blake found a second home, dubbed “the volleyball house,” where she is excitedly taking on this new journey and staying on top of her volleyball and academic commitments.  After her freshman year, Blake learned the importance of seeking outside help when needed. She now stays on top of her mental health by meeting with a therapist and talking with her family every day. They are her biggest supporters and regularly make the six-hour drive to San Marcos to watch her games. Knowing she can always count on her family to be by her side, Blake feels like she can overcome any barrier that stands in her path, mental or physical.  “I just love watching her play,” Becker said. “I’m so proud of her and so happy that she’s in the position that she is in now. Seeing how far she has come and how things have turned around for her — it makes me emotional. At the end of the day, there’s going to be things in life that knock you down, but you have to pick yourself back up and fight for something that you are truly passionate about. And she did. And she has so much more to look forward to.”  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Clayton McCabe never thought that college would be in his future. Not when he graduated from high school and decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. Not when he exited several years later and found himself rudderless without the structure provided by the military. Not while he worked a series of odd jobs and dabbled in multiple blue-collar professions. McCabe figured that he was destined to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both of whom were lifelong construction workers. “I thought that I was going to do some kind of manual labor,” McCabe said. “I was like, ‘I can’t do college. I’m not smart enough.’ ” That mentality prevailed until the end of 2021 when, feeling like he was out of viable options, McCabe elected to use his GI Bill benefits and enroll at Palomar College. Three years and a transfer to Cal State San Marcos later, he has arrived at the definitive conclusion that college is indeed for him. A senior, McCabe is on track to graduate next spring with a degree in human development. His grade-point average at CSUSM is 3.9 – a vast improvement over the 1.7 he recorded in high school – and he has made the dean’s list every semester. McCabe, though, has found his most meaning and purpose outside of the classroom. Continuing the work he started at Palomar, he was hired as a student assistant in the Epstein Family Veterans Center through the federal work-study program before being promoted to a School Certifying Official (SCO). An SCO acts as the middleman between a university and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In that role, McCabe helps CSUSM student veterans or the dependents of veterans access the VA benefits that they’re entitled to, in the process working frequently with the offices of Financial Aid and Student Financial Services. He also serves as a de facto academic adviser, assisting military-affiliated students with course selection and scheduling. “This is the best job I've ever had, and I've had a lot of jobs,” he said. “I get to work with veterans all day. I get to work with veteran families. And I like working at a college.” Christopher Ramirez, the interim assistant director of Veterans Services, met McCabe when the latter was a Palomar student expressing a desire to transfer to CSUSM. Impressed by McCabe’s passion for supporting fellow veterans, Ramirez tapped him for the work-study role, then bumped him up to SCO when his experience with Palomar’s veterans center allowed him to outshine his peers. “To be successful as an SCO, you need to have a desire to help people, which Clay has,” Ramirez said. “He truly cares for people and goes above and beyond to help students, from talking to them about applying, to assisting them with signing up for classes, to discussing benefits with them.” McCabe, 28, is the youngest of three boys in a family from Kansas City, Mo. After high school, he tried a local community college for a few weeks but disliked it so much that he dropped out in favor of the Marines in 2015. He attended boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego and underwent combat and job training at Camp Pendleton, where he learned how to be the crewman of an amphibious assault vehicle, 26-ton tanks that can carry 23 Marines and float in the water. He went on two deployments – neither to combat zones, to his great relief – and traveled to 10 different countries during his time in active duty. “I got to see a lot of the world,” McCabe said. “I’ve been to the Arctic Circle. I’ve been past the equator. I’ve seen the Northern Lights. I got to go through the Suez Canal. I’ve done a lot.” McCabe not only saw the world through the Marines, he also met his future wife in the military, at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. McCabe married his wife, Sydnee, in 2017, he retired from the Marines two years later, and Sydnee remained in until last February. The couple moved to Temecula in 2019, only a few months after McCabe’s exit, and his transition out the military was daunting. There was a stint in HVAC school. There was a period working as a pipefitting apprentice on a huge construction site in Riverside. There was a dalliance with becoming a police officer or sheriff’s deputy. There were jobs with UPS, Home Depot and a fitness center. What there wasn’t, however, was a clear sense of direction or mission. That came about when McCabe discovered higher education, and specifically CSUSM. And in two more developments that younger Clay couldn’t have imagined, he’s hoping to stay in the Veterans Center as a full-time SCO after graduation and begin a two-year Master of Sociological Practice program next fall. Make that three developments: He and Sydnee had their first child, a daughter named Mia, in May. “I get a huge dopamine rush whenever I am able to help people,” he said. “Whenever I talk to somebody in my job and they have no idea what they are entitled to, I'm like, ‘Yeah, you can use this. Your kids’ stuff can be completely paid for.’ And you just see in their face that this changes everything.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Murchison Falls National Park is a safari park in Uganda that boasts some of the best wildlife in the world, home to 76 different species of mammals and 451 species of birds. It’s located more than 9,000 miles from California, and a multiday safari there costs many thousands of dollars.   On a Thursday afternoon in mid-February, a group of residents at the Bayshire Carlsbad assisted living facility made the exotic trip for free when white virtual reality headsets were placed over their faces.   “You better hold on to your seat!” a resident named Jim Conley exclaimed as he craned his neck back and forth and spotted elephants, gorillas and monkeys in his field of vision, with a spectacular mountain range as the backdrop. “Boy, that is one pretty picture.”  While Conley, seated in the first row of chairs, grew increasingly enmeshed in the virtual paradise around him, Jeremy Ford walked among the couple dozen other residents on hand for the VR session, carefully fitting them with their own headsets. Nearby, Tracy Ford, Jeremy’s wife, chatted with a couple of the residents as if they were old friends.   After the safari experience, the residents hopped on a (virtual) plane and traveled to Cuba, then to Argentina and South Africa. A little less than an hour later, they were back at Bayshire, their eyes transfixed, their spirits lifted.   “Every month when they come, I’m one of the first people out there,” said Conley, 72, a former boxer who has trouble walking now. “We saw a lot of cool stuff today. How often do you get to be that close to an elephant? After a while, you have to remind yourself that it’s not real.”  That type of transporting experience is just what Jeremy Ford himself went through three years ago when, on an ordinary shopping trip to Best Buy with his wife, he strapped on a VR headset and found himself soaring over the Golden Gate Bridge like an eagle. Jeremy is a technophile who always has been an early adopter when it comes to electronic gadgets – he has waited in line for multiple iterations of the iPhone – and this would be no exception. Tracy bought him an Oculus Quest 2 for his birthday, only a year after it had been released.  Neither Jeremy nor Tracy studied business as students at Cal State San Marcos – Tracy graduated with a degree in criminology and justice studies in 2007, Jeremy with a degree in sociology in 2015 – but both possess an entrepreneurial bent that sees them frequently bounce ideas off each other. Here was a golden business idea staring them in the face: the opportunity to combine Jeremy’s technological savvy with Tracy’s interpersonal skills and their mutual desire to help people.  Following a year dedicated to research and development, the Fords purchased 20 of the Quest 2 VR devices and in October 2022 launched Lightning Tours (the name was inspired by their son, Colton, now 5, and his love of the character Lightning McQueen from the Pixar film “Cars”). They considered multiple demographics as their target audience before deciding that senior living facilities made the most sense.   “It started out with just putting on a headset, experiencing it for ourselves and wanting to share that with others,” Jeremy Ford said. “We’ve always had a passion for helping others and putting a smile on people’s faces. And that’s what we do, day in and day out.”  Almost two years after the company was formed, Lightning Tours still hasn’t spent a penny on marketing. In the early days, the Fords pitched their concept to multiple facilities in North San Diego County by giving free virtual tours, and they gradually attracted paying customers by positive word of mouth. Now, they have grown to almost 40 VR experiences per month, and in total have given more than 500 throughout Southern California.   As the tech guru, Jeremy handles the VR side of the business – buying and maintaining the headsets, selecting and loading the proprietary travel software, rigging the equipment so that it’s as comfortable and user-friendly as possible for an older clientele. He also has used his background in sales to drum up more customers, and he has personally directed all but one of the VR sessions (the single exception was when he had to travel for a funeral).   Tracy, meanwhile, shoots photos and videos for the company’s social media channels while also taking the lead on communication with the residents of the facilities.   “I try to build relationships with the seniors,” Tracy said. “I’m more of an emotional person, so I like to come in and see how they’re doing, how their day is going while he’s getting everything set up. I’d say he’s the brains of the operation, and I’m maybe more heart.  “Although,” she added with a smile, “he does have heart.”  Most of Lightning Tours’ clients value its service so much that they have booked standing monthly experiences. Each time, the tour is to a different country or region of the world – with rare exceptions, the destinations are places that the seniors are incapable of traveling to at this point in their lives.   The effect can be powerful. Jeremy recalls a woman at a facility in Irvine who was initially reluctant to participate before he convinced her to give it a try. She agreed and sat quietly for the whole hour, turning her head in every direction. After the tour of Paris ended and Jeremy removed her headset, he saw that she was crying. When he asked her what was wrong, she related that her husband had died a few months earlier and that the sights during the tour brought back exhilarating memories of their frequent trips to the City of Light as a couple.   “It was a moment that will stick out forever in terms of being able to provide that to her,” Jeremy said. “We want to bring joy to people, connect them to something that they might not otherwise be able to connect with, whether it’s the technology or whether it's the location.”  Residents have been known to clap when the Fords enter the facility each month and to cheer after the experience. Some sites have introduced passport books, with seniors receiving stamps when they visit a new country. Olah Tupuola, the resident program director at Bayshire Carlsbad, said Lightning Tours has been a “transformative program” since the Fords first came to the center last September.   “Their professionalism and kindness have made a significant impact on our community,” Tupuola said. “With Lightning Tours, the concept of a vacation is redefined, as residents can explore the world virtually, often while reliving cherished memories.”   Jeremy and Tracy Ford are accidental entrepreneurs in more ways than one. A San Marcos native who’s the son of a Marine, Jeremy transferred to CSUSM from Palomar College and played on the first men’s basketball team in university history, coached by Jim Saia. He aspired to go to law school after graduation but ended up working in sales, first for a law firm and then for two large national life insurance companies.   Tracy grew up in Oceanside and hoped to parlay her criminology degree into a career in law enforcement. But she graduated into a poor labor market caused by the 2007 recession and instead took a job in finance for 24 Hour Fitness. Unfulfilled by it, she transitioned into a role as a personal trainer for the same business. In fact, Tracy and Jeremy met at a 24 Hour Fitness gym, and they got married seven years ago.   Both feeling boxed in by their corporate environments, they tried to turn a couple of their other late-night brainstorms into businesses, but nothing took off. Then came the fateful visit to Best Buy. Not that the birth of Lightning Tours came without hurdles. For the first 10 months of the company’s existence, Jeremy kept his full-time position at Ethos Life Insurance.  “But there came a point where my wife was driving me to tours and I was working in the passenger seat, trying to do both jobs,” Jeremy said. “It was like, ‘OK, this isn’t sustainable. We’ve got to figure something out.’ ”  That something was his decision to leave Ethos and dedicate himself fully to the startup in August 2023, which was accompanied by a different challenge in terms of the loss of his monthly paycheck. Jeremy called it a big leap of faith that makes him anxiety-ridden just by thinking about it.   “They say it’s not easy to start a business, and they weren’t lying,” Tracy said. “But now we know exactly what to tell future entrepreneurs: If you think you’re ready to quit your job, wait at least six months, then do it.”  Almost all of Lightning Tours’ clients are assisted living facilities, but the Fords have dipped their toes into other waters as well. They have brought their VR experiences to a few different daycare and after-school programs in the region, allowing children the same opportunity to see distant lands as the seniors get. This summer, they introduced a travel tour called “Around the World in Five Weeks” to the Boys & Girls Club of the South Coast Area in San Clemente, with passports and stamps for the kids to document their adventures. They also are in the process of getting approved by the San Marcos Unified School District to offer tours in local schools.   Some of the sessions don’t even involve virtual travel. Lightning Tours has conducted some guided meditation experiences for the sales departments of businesses or for employees of high-stress jobs, such as firefighters and police officers.  “Brick by brick, we’re building those partnerships,” Jeremy said.   Yet the senior population remains the Fords’ primary focus, which makes sense given that there are more than 50,000 facilities for assisted living and memory care in California and they have been to only about 50 of them. The company’s growth continues apace.  Lightning Tours has two other partial owners (unpaid for now) specializing in partnerships and strategic innovation, and it’s on the verge of hiring an employee to run some of the tours and free Jeremy up to source more business.   Last spring, the Fords bought 20 more Quest 2 headsets (the company is now owned by Meta, Facebook’s parent), doubling their inventory, and deployed them in the Inland Empire through a licensing agreement with a couple who lives there.   “I think this will go as far as we can take it,” Jeremy said. “We’ve done things strategically because if we grow too fast, the base can be flimsy and it can all fall apart. But thinking big picture, Lightning Tours could be national, it could be in every state, every big city.   “Where we are now is trying to put the pieces together, get this technology out there and in the hands of as many seniors as possible. We want to provide high-quality experiences and the joy of travel, get them outside of those four walls that they’re in daily.”    Jeremy and Tracy Ford  Major at CSUSM: Jeremy, sociology; Tracy, criminology and justice studies  Graduation year: Tracy, 2007; Jeremy, 2015  Company: Lightning Tours  Website: lightningtours.co  Founded: 2022  Number of employees: Four     Talking Business With Jeremy Ford What's the best advice you received about starting a business?   Have goals. Having goals gives you strategic direction, and if you don't have them, you'll be spinning your wheels. When you have those goals, it enables you to focus on the main categories that will be the catalyst for your business moving forward.     What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?  Be prepared for long hours, a lot of late nights. On those late nights, it can seem like you're on an island by yourself. What we learned the hard way is that having a team is very important – bringing others in to help support certain aspects of the business. Your reach expands when you let other people in to help.    What's the greatest challenge in starting your own business?  If you already have a full-time job, it can be difficult to decipher when it's time to quit and give your business the full attention.     Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?  I would have waited longer to quit my full-time job. And I would have focused more heavily on the revenue-producing aspects of the business. Even though we do have quite a robust product now, there were times when we were building it up where the churn was at a higher rate than the income that was coming in.     What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?  I can sum that up in one word: perseverance. If you do not have perseverance, you will not be an entrepreneur; you will go back into the workforce within months. If you have the ability to persevere, the ability to plan things out and execute that plan, you have a much better chance of being an entrepreneur for longer than just a few months.   Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

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

After spending a few days at the White House meeting with the National Advisory Council on Indian Education, I flew directly from Washington, D.C., to Arizona. As I sat among distinguished tribal leaders and advocates at the Gila River Indian Community on Friday, Oct. 25, I witnessed a moment that generations of Native Americans have long awaited. President Joe Biden delivered a formal apology on behalf of the United States for the devastating legacy of Indian boarding schools – a system that sought to erase our people, our culture and our languages for over 150 years. "I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did," Biden said in strident remarks. "It's long overdue." “The federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history,” Biden said. As both an academic leader and Payómkawichum and Tongva woman, my presence for this historic moment carried profound personal and professional significance. The presidential apology, following the U.S. Department of the Interior's comprehensive investigation and "The Road to Healing” tour, represented more than just words – it marked a crucial step toward acknowledging the intergenerational trauma that continues to impact Native communities. "For too long, this nation sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children, but now your voices are being heard," Biden declared during the ceremony. I’m the director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, and these words resonated deeply with our ongoing mission to preserve and advance Native American culture, history and sovereignty. One of the most meaningful aspects of the day was sitting alongside members of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, especially with a particular board member: Pauma-Yuima band of Luiseño Indians matriarch Juana Majel-Dixon, a longtime mentor and powerful force for Native American rights. Our connection spans years of advocacy work, including a memorable moment when, as she reminded me during the event, we participated in a crucial Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) call with then-Sen. Biden. Juana's tireless work led to President Barack Obama giving her one of the pens used to sign the VAWA reauthorization – a pen that now holds a place of honor in our California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, serving as a daily reminder to our students about the power of activism and engagement. While we appreciate President Biden's apology, there is so much more that must be done. We hope Biden will follow up by effectuating meaningful and appropriate action throughout his administration. Even as Native people receive this first-time official apology from the commander in chief, the U.S. Army continues to refuse to fulfill repatriation requests, pursuant to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, to return the remains of the children who died at one of the first and most notorious federal Indian boarding schools, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The federal government must take concrete steps beyond apologies. A critical priority must be implementing fully funded, as I coined, "Language of the Land" initiatives requiring all schools to teach the Indigenous languages of their regions. This would include restoring original place names across the landscape – from mountains and rivers to cities and streets – returning them to their Indigenous names in Native languages. Such restoration of language and place names is not merely symbolic but represents a fundamental act of cultural justice and healing, returning what was systematically erased through colonization. Additionally, the government must fully fund tribal health care and education systems, protect tribal sovereignty and self-determination, strengthen tribal jurisdiction, honor all treaty obligations, protect sacred sites and cultural resources, ensure meaningful tribal consultation on federal projects affecting tribal lands and resources, address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and provide comprehensive resources for cultural revitalization programs. We hope President Biden's apology provides leadership for federal officials and personnel to foster cooperation between the U.S. and tribal nations so that Native communities may continue to heal. It was heartening to see and share this day with so many friends and colleagues, and it was particularly moving to reconnect with individuals like Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, whose documentary “Sugarcane” powerfully captures the boarding school experience. I plan to bring this film to campus for a special screening and discussion. Their work ensures that these stories will continue to educate future generations. As an educator and advocate for Native American rights, I recognize that while this apology is historic, it's just the beginning. When Gila River Governor Stephen Lewis and the people of Gila River opened their homelands for this historic event, they created a space not just for an apology, but for a new chapter in Native American history. At the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center and within our American Indian studies program, we remain committed to supporting the healing process, preserving Indigenous knowledge and empowering the next generation of Native leaders. Indeed, it was a good day to be Indigenous. But more importantly, it marked the beginning of the real work – transforming this historic apology into meaningful action and lasting change for our communities. As I return to campus, I carry with me a renewed commitment to our mission and the knowledge that through our continued efforts, we will ensure that this moment becomes a catalyst for the healing and empowerment of Native peoples. While we have much work ahead, we are moving in the right direction.   Proudfit is the chair of CSUSM’s American Indian studies department and director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center on campus. Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Throughout November, Cal State San Marcos will be celebrating and recognizing the contributions of American Indians with a series of special events as part of Native American Heritage Month.  CSUSM invites the campus community to honor Native American Heritage Month through the following events.    Tukwut Coloring Contest  Nov. 1-30 Pick up a coloring page at the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, located in Social and Behavioral Sciences Building 1118. Coloring is from Nov. 1-15, with pages to be dropped off at the center. From Nov. 16-30, people can vote for their favorites on the Instagram page of the American Indian Student Alliance (@csusm_aisa). A winner will be announced on Nov. 30 and given a prize.    Exhibit Reception at the Sasse Museum of Art Saturday, Nov. 2, 1-3 p.m., Sasse Museum  Join us for the gallery viewing of featured artists Dr. Eric Tippeconnic, Monica Zavala and Lanise Luna.    Rep Your Tribe Spirit Day  Monday, Nov. 4 Come dressed in your tribal gear to show representation of what tribe you are from.   Honoring Native American Veterans Social  Tuesday, Nov. 5, noon-1 p.m., Veterans Center Join us as we honor Native veterans.    Beading Workshop Wednesday, Nov. 6, noon-1 p.m., CICSC (SBSB 1118) Learn how to create beadwork with the help of an instructor. Supplies are included.   Traditional Bow Making Workshop Thursday, Nov. 7, noon-5 p.m., CICSC (SBSB courtyard) Come learn how to create a traditional bow with Dr. Stan Rodriguez. Instruction will take place from noon-1 p.m., and the workshop area will be open from noon-5 p.m.   Rock Your Mocs Week Nov. 10-16 Take advantage of a positive opportunity to be united and celebrate tribal individuality by wearing moccasins. We honor our ancestors and Indigenous peoples worldwide during Rock Your Mocs events.   Native Fashion Day Tuesday, Nov. 12 Rock all your beadwork, including medallions, earrings and lanyards. Accessorize your wardrobe with your favorite ribbon dress or ribbon skirt.   ‘Reservation Dogs’ Marathon Wednesday, Nov. 13, CICSC (SBSB 1118) Join us to enjoy a full day of watching the acclaimed TV show “Reservation Dogs.” Snacks will be provided.   Outdoor Native Movie Night Thursday, Nov. 15, 6-8 p.m., Serenity Circle Bring your chairs and blankets and enjoy some snacks.   Storytelling Under the Stars With Dr. Stan Rodriguez Thursday, Nov. 14, 6-8 p.m., Serenity Circle Bring your chairs and blankets and join us for our annual storytelling event. We will provide hot drinks and treats.   Read a Native American Children's Book Day Monday, Nov. 18 Decolonize and indigenize your reading. For a full book list, visit caindianeducationforall.com.   AISA Gathering and Bird Social Thursday, Nov. 21, 5-8 p.m.  Come join us for an evening of bird dancing and singing.   College Motivation Day Friday, Nov. 22, 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m., USU Ballroom Join us for college readiness workshops, a campus tour, raffles and more.   ‘Dark Winds’ Marathon  Wednesday, Nov. 27, CICSC (SBSB 1118) Join us to enjoy a full day of watching the TV show “Dark Winds.” Snacks will be provided. Media Contact Jerry McCormick, Director of Strategic Communications jmccormick@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-4010

Cal State San Marcos students approved a referendum this week to build a new wellness and recreation facility slated to open during the 2026-27 academic year. In the vote that took place from Monday through Wednesday this week, 64.6% of students voted to increase their fees, with 35.4% percent against. The turnout was 1,807 students, which is 11.9% of eligible student voters.  As a result of the “yes” vote, the student recreation fee will go up by $210 per semester, to $245 total, at the start of 2026-27. After that, the fee will increase 3% annually.   The fall referendum was described by Campus Recreation leaders as a now-or-never opportunity after a similar referendum in April failed. A renewed educational campaign called “Vote for U.” was led by student ambassadors from Campus Rec, CSUSM Athletics and CSUSM Housing, among other student groups and organizations.  “I want to commend the student ambassadors for leading this referendum with such passion and determination,” said Viridiana Diaz, CSUSM’s vice president for Student Affairs. “Their efforts in ensuring that students were educated and understood the importance of their vote had a significant impact on the level of student participation. Our students have left a lasting legacy for future generations of Cougars."  To reduce costs and maximize value, CSUSM will partner with the developer of North City and lease space in a new mixed facility boasting 49,200 square feet for wellness, recreation and basic needs services, plus 550 new student housing beds. The building will feature, among other amenities, more than 10,000 square feet for cardio machines and strength training equipment; dedicated wellness areas; an outdoor rooftop deck with a synthetic turf field for fitness programs, intramurals and sport club workouts; two standard-sized indoor courts; multipurpose rooms for a variety of individual and group activities; and a commuter lounge and e-sports collaboration den.  The wellness and recreation facility will be located across Barham Drive from University Village Apartments and directly next to The QUAD housing complex.  Since 2016, CSUSM students consistently have expressed a desire for more spaces dedicated to wellness, basic needs and recreation to support their growth and well-being. Now, thanks to the “yes” vote, CSUSM no longer will be one of the only California State University campuses without a dedicated facility for wellness and recreation.   “As someone who has lived on campus at The QUAD, I always felt like our school was missing a facility where students could go to truly be themselves and recover from a long school day,” said Jacob Brown, a junior kinesiology major and Campus Rec student assistant. “This facility not only will improve the lives of all students here on campus, but also those who live off campus. This building also will offer more spaces for programs like kinesiology and athletics, allowing them to become bigger and better than ever.”   In response to student feedback after the failed referendum in April, CSUSM made three important changes:  The increase to the recreation fee was reduced by $20, to $245 per semester (versus $265 previously).  The fee will not be charged until the year when the facility opens, which is projected to be 2026-27. Students objected to language in the previous proposal calling for them to start paying the higher fee in fall 2025, one year before the building’s expected opening.  The facility will be able to support more diverse programming. Large spaces like the indoor courts, rooftop terrace and outdoor courtyard can be reserved for student organization, department or student life events, which will expand programs to promote recruitment, retention, community and student success.   “A new rec facility at our school will be incredibly beneficial, offering students a place for physical activity and relaxation,” said Arman Rahgozar, a senior psychology major and CSUSM student-athlete. “More modern facilities will help to foster a strong sense of school spirit with students at CSUSM. With how fast the school is growing, a new rec facility is needed for the student experience to continue to grow as well.”  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

When the Department of Education released a new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, more commonly known as FAFSA, it was supposed to simplify the financial aid process for students across the country. While the form was condensed from 108 questions to 40, the rollout of what was supposed to be a streamlined process was plagued by delays and glitches. A form that normally is made available on Oct. 1 didn’t become accessible until Dec. 31, which was by law the latest it could be opened. Even when the form finally opened, seemingly endless issues caused stressful delays for many students who couldn't find out how much aid they would be receiving. Cal State San Marcos political science student Sarah Flores was among those affected. The myriad issues she had with the FAFSA caused so much consternation that she was called upon to provide testimony about the difficulties to the California State University Board of Trustees in September. “I worry about not having enough money for school and living expenses as I haven't been able to successfully submit my financial aid application through the new system,” Flores told the trustees. “Financial aid is my lifeline. At first I thought it might be a glitch or maybe I typed something wrong, but after trying again and again the same issue kept happening. “As deadlines loomed and the clock ticked, I couldn't access the one thing that would help me afford my education and living expenses. It was incredibly frustrating knowing that the solution to my financial aid worries was just out of reach.” But CSUSM is at the forefront of trying to make it a smoother process for students across the country when the FAFSA opens Dec. 1 for the 2025-26 financial aid cycle. CSUSM was one of two CSU schools selected to participate in FAFSA beta testing, which will provide students with early access to complete the form and then provide feedback to the Department of Education. The early access also means CSUSM will be able to process financial aid packages sooner. All currently enrolled CSUSM students are eligible to participate in the FAFSA beta testing. Students were informed via email and text message about the opportunity to complete an interest form by Oct. 25. Those who complete the interest form will gain access to the FAFSA form in mid-November, weeks before it becomes available to students across the country. “Our students will have the ability to provide direct feedback to the Department of Ed on what is working well and what has to be corrected,” said Julie Lindenmeier, CSUSM’s director of the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office. “They're going to have the ability to say, ‘This question doesn’t make sense, or I had a technical error in this area.’ And that's important, because making the process easy to use was what this redesign was for.” As one example, Lindenmeier said a question about whether students wanted an unsubsidized loan if their tax contributor was unable to complete the form caused confusion. Many students clicked yes thinking they wouldn’t otherwise be eligible for a loan. But by answering the question incorrectly, their parents were never even invited to complete their portion of the FAFSA. “The beta is important not only because our students will get first access, but they'll have a real opportunity to contribute to the national discourse and make this better for everyone,” Lindenmeier said. Lindenmeier encourages all CSUSM students to complete the interest form so that they can participate in the early access. She said it’s critical that students use the email address that they’ve previously used to access the FAFSA rather than their campus email. Students who need more information about the beta testing can contact the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships at finaid@csusm.edu. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Cal State San Marcos is ranked among the top universities for Hispanic/Latinx students, according to Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine.  CSUSM received recognition in the following categories:  No. 39 in total bachelor's degrees granted; No. 84 in total enrollment among four-year schools; No. 9 in family and consumer sciences/human sciences; and No. 10 in social science degrees.  Hispanic Outlook annually publishes its “Top 100 Colleges and Universities for Hispanics” issue, which draws on the latest data from the federal National Center for Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to provide enrollment numbers from two- and four-year institutions and degrees granted by level and field of study.  The university has placed highly in other recent rankings, including: 97th out of 500 in the Wall Street Journal 27th out of 200 in Washington Monthly’s “Best Bang for the Buck: West” 38th out of 589 in Washington Monthy’s list of schools that award a significant number of master’s degrees Tier 1 school in Third Way’s Economic Mobility Index Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 stirred up an alarming degree of hate against people of Asian descent throughout the United States. In response, in March 2021, Cal State San Marcos formed a workgroup charged with identifying the needs of Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) students at the university and offering recommendations. That group produced a report that, among other recommendations, created the APIDA Success Initiative. A couple years later, the faculty and staff behind the initiative are reporting laudable progress toward their goals. The most impressive development is that they have secured more than $1 million in grant funding, including a $600,000 grant from the Stop the Hate (STH) program through the California Department of Social Services. The STH funding, which started last year and will run through 2025, marks the first time that CSUSM has received money from the organization. As part of the grant, CSUSM started a project called Unifying APIDA Communities Together, or U-ACT. “The grant funding that CSUSM received connects us to a statewide movement to bring greater visibility to APIDA communities that have been underserved, overlooked and have faced discrimination – and support them collaboratively in repairing harm and bringing healing,” said Dr. Theresa Suarez, a sociology professor who’s the project director and principal investigator for U-ACT. Joining Suarez on the U-ACT team from CSUSM are Dr. Madeline Lee, associate professor of social work; Dr. Christina Holub, associate professor of public health; Dr. Sara Constantinescu, project coordinator; Dr. Grant Muāgututi’a, assistant professor of liberal studies, consultant and community liaison; Joshua Galea'i, consultant and community liaison; Lia Mauga, consultant and community liaison; and Cheryl Landin, assessment lead. Through U-ACT, CSUSM is partnering with various nonprofit organizations to help them offer free intervention and prevention services in communities and neighborhoods within the university’s service area. Two of the most prominent are ’Umeke, which is dedicated to the preservation, perpetuation and education of Hawaiian culture; and Save Our Streets (SOS), which focuses on reducing community violence by engaging all Oceanside youth through athletics and performing arts within a context of Samoan cultural values to promote healh, wellness, healing and safety. Two other noteworthy grants are $400,000 from the National Institutes of Health (with Holub as principal investigator) to support Pacific Islander community health and $375,000 from the California State University system to launch the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Student Achievement Program at CSUSM. Members of the original APIDA Student Success Workgroup team (including Suarez, Lee, Landin and Mae Talicuran) co-wrote a proposal in collaboration with the Office of Inclusive Excellence that secured funding for the latter program in spring 2024. It’s designed to provide culturally responsive services to enhance student educational experiences and promote higher education success for low-income, underserved and first-generation AANHPI students and other underrepresented students.  Collectively, the grants are funding campus support and activities, language and cultural preservation/revitalization, and research and archiving for the APIDA community. Suarez said she is seeing positive effects from the work enabled by the grant funding – both on and off campus. “We do notice that our community partnerships are strengthening with time as we demonstrate CSUSM’s commitment to belonging to our region – and not just the other way around, of insisting people feel belonging to a university,” she said. “Some may never become students here, for any number of reasons, but our region should know that CSUSM cares for communities and neighborhoods.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Cougar Madness first started as a Cal State San Marcos event in 2016. A spin on the traditional Midnight Madness, Cougar Madness signals the start of the college basketball season. After a five-year hiatus due to COVID, Cougar Madness returned to CSUSM on Oct. 10, with students filling the Sports Center seats focusing on the scene unfolding in front of them.  The scene? Introductions to the players from all of CSUSM’s sports teams. Basketball was the final sport introduced to the crowd. With both the men’s and women’s teams running through a huddle of cheerleaders and fog, waving to the crowd as their introduction videos played on the scoreboards.  “I’m excited for the energy of the students,” said Morod Shah, CSUSM’s athletics director. “What I really want to do is help promote student life, campus life and school spirit.” The event was full of energy. After introductions, the student emcees led the audience in a series of basketball-related games. One game was called, “Musical Cougs,” an alternate version of musical chairs where volunteers from the crowd attempted to make a basket and return to their seats before the music was paused. A few more games were played to further hype up the crowd.  The event also featured performances from CSUSM’s cheer and dance teams.  A dunk contest among men’s basketball players wrapped up the event. A group of judges sat at half-court and held up the number they felt the dunk fell on a 10-point scale.  The judges demonstrated school spirit by wearing T-shirts with the number 25 and the word family displayed in the middle. “We just completed 25 years in athletics,” Shah said. “We are a Cougar family, and the Cougar family is about not only our student athletes but the student body in general, and you can tie that into the power of CSUSM, the power of us. It's all just one big family.” CSUSM’s basketball season begins in November. The first men’s game is Nov. 8 at 12:30 p.m. against Biola at The Sports Center, while the first women's game is Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. against Point Loma as part of the PacWest/CCAA Conference Challenge at Azusa Pacific. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314