Biology professor Dennis Kolosov and computer science professor Nahid Majd received the 2024-2025 Kerri Mowen Award, honoring their dedication to advancing undergraduate involvement in research and creative activities that go beyond the classroom.  This award honors faculty and lecturers who have excelled in mentoring and guiding students in research or creative endeavors. It also recognizes those who have significantly increased the number and diversity of students involved in research.  Kolosov has mentored 33 students, most belonging to groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Kolosov provides career-advancing opportunities to his students by offering co-authorship of publications and helping with conference presentations.   He has two publications with student co-authors with nine more in review. Kolosov shows his dedication to mentoring students by participating in professional development opportunities.   Majd has also put mentoring students at the forefront of her career since starting at CSUSM in 2014. She has mentored 40 students in research, 24 graduate students in their master’s theses and 14 undergraduate students. Majd’s mentored students were funded through Summer Scholars and the Learning Aligned Employment Program.   Majd fosters diversity by mentoring first-generation, Hispanic and female students. Many of her students advance to graduate programs or secure competitive industry positions with Apple or Qualcomm.  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

As the end of the year approaches, many are already looking ahead to 2025. But before putting the finishing touches on your list of New Year’s resolutions, let’s take a look back at some of the most-talked-about stories of 2024.   CSUSM Receives Two Gifts Totaling $20 Million, Largest in 35-Year History In a historic moment, Cal State San Marcos received two philanthropic donations totaling $20 million – the largest gifts in its 35-year history. $10 million from Price Philanthropies Foundation will create a first-of-its-kind, three-year accelerated bachelor's degree and workforce pipeline for behavioral and mental health. The other $10 million came from Daniel J. Epstein – a director of the CSUSM Foundation Board – and his wife, Phyllis. Their contribution will serve as a unique dollar-for-dollar matching gift opportunity for all CSUSM donors to double their impact across campus.   Balancing Act: Master's Grad Perseveres Through Challenges A master’s of biological sciences student, Jocelyne Dates was selected last spring as the recipient of the 2024 President's Outstanding Graduate Award, the highest honor a graduating student can receive. She also received the Dean’s Award for Graduate Studies, which recognizes the accomplishments of one master’s student. Jocelyne is continuing her education by pursuing her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt.   'I Just Want to Make Him Proud and My Life to Count' Last spring, at 76 years old, Kathryn Cook walked across the graduation stage as the oldest graduate of Cal State San Marcos' class of 2024. Her path to this accomplishment was not one of a traditional four-year-and-done experience. In fact, it was 50 years in the making, with monumental life transitions and rocky hardships in between. The passing of Cook’s husband in 2019 led her to continue her education at CSUSM and graduate with a sociology degree.   From the Baseball Diamond to 'The Bachelorette' Austin Ott had never watched an episode of “The Bachelorette” when he received a DM on Instagram from the show encouraging him to apply. While nervous, his communication and media studies degree from Cal State San Marcos gave him a foundation to build on. Ott’s first speech in COMM 100 gave him an idea of what being in the public eye might look like. “My time at Cal State San Marcos was probably the best years of my life,” said Ott, who graduated in 2019. “There’s nothing better than playing the game you love and being around your best friends.”   American Indian Student Follows Passion for Animals, Environment Aiden Valverde, an American Indian Studies major from the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, has made significant contributions through his engagement with the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center. As an intern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Valverde was able to connect more with his culture, and his passion for animals and the environment. “Aiden exemplifies everything we strive to achieve in American Indian Studies and at the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center,” said Joely Proudfit, the department chair of American Indian Studies.   Computers a Lifelong Passion for Trustees' Award Winner In 2009, Minh Tran’s family moved to Escondido from Vietnam, the only home that he, his parents and his two older siblings had ever known. Now, the fourth-year student who’s on track to graduate in May, was honored as CSUSM’s recipient of the 2024 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, the California State University’s highest recognition of student accomplishment. Students are selected based on academic achievements, financial need, excellence in community service and personal hardship. Awardees have all demonstrated inspirational resolve along the path to college success, and many are the first in their families to attend college.   Graduate Crafting Career on Helping Children A child and adolescent development major at Cal State San Marcos, Tania Arceo spent the last year and a half working with Voices for Children, a nonprofit organization where volunteers are trained to become court-appointed special advocates. Volunteers like Arceo represent juvenile dependency cases in San Diego County. Since graduating last spring with her bachelor’s, Arceo has started her Master of Social Work program at CSUSM this fall.    Alumnus Seeks Better Mental Health Through Better Cuts John Edwards was only 12 years old when he taught himself how to cut his own hair. By the time Edwards enrolled at Cal State San Marcos as a transfer student returning to higher education in 2021, he was close to completing barber school. Now a licensed barber and a recent CSUSM graduate, he operates a small studio in San Diego, rotating about 25 clients through his single chair. Edwards studied psychology at CSUSM, and it was at the university that he dreamed up the idea of melding his longtime practice of barbering with his fledgling research on mental health treatment.    CSUSM Earns Prestigious Seal for Serving Latinx Students Cal State San Marcos has earned the prestigious Seal of Excelencia, a national certification for institutions that strive to go beyond enrollment and more intentionally serve Latinx students. CSUSM is one of only 17 colleges and universities to earn the Seal of Excelencia in 2024. In 2018, Excelencia introduced the seal to certify colleges and universities for their efforts to become learning environments where Latinx, and all, students thrive. This year marks the organization’s 20th year of service to accelerate Latinx student success in higher education.   Surfer Makes School History With National Title Tanner Vodraska, a Cal State San Marcos business student, became the first surfer in university history to win an individual national title. The junior competed in the college men’s division of the 2024 National Scholastic Surfing Association interscholastic national championships at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point. Vodraska dominated the field. He posted a two-wave score of 17.5 points in the final, far outdistancing his closest competitor. “I feel really proud of myself because I set a goal to win the national title before I graduate, and I accomplished it,” Vodraska said.   Incredible Mulk: Class Project Becomes Thriving Business 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. 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. 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.  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

When Cal State San Marcos holds its annual fall commencement on Sunday, many nontraditional students will cross the stage in their caps and gowns. A nontraditional student, in general parlance, is one who goes or returns to college later in life rather than right after high school. Jonathan Jennings, one of those hundreds of fall 2024 graduates, likes to call himself a “nontraditional nontraditional” student. Not only is he 37 years old and pursuing his second degree, but unlike nearly all of the 50-odd students in his Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program cohort, he does not have an educational background in science. Jennings, rather, graduated from UCLA 15 years ago with a degree in world arts and cultures, which is one of the only academic programs of its type in U.S. higher education. He describes it as a unorthodox fusion of dance and anthropology. “I took everything from ballet to postmodern to African war dances to tai chi – you name it,” Jennings said. “If a culture moves in a certain way, I studied why they move that way, how it affects the way they interact with other people in their culture and how you can respectfully create your own work as an artist without disrespecting the culture.” It's how Jennings applied his first bachelor’s and the path he took toward this second one, however, that elevates his story beyond a mere curiosity. After leaving UCLA, he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a professional dancer. One of his first jobs was as a performer on a Disney cruise ship for nine months, providing on-board entertainment through a medley of shows. Jennings parlayed that opportunity into one that was significantly longer and somehow even more exotic. He worked for much of the next eight years as a dancer at Tokyo Disneyland. Assigned to the wildly popular, Tokyo-specific stage show “One Man’s Dream II: The Magic Lives On,” which featured humans performing alongside Mickey Mouse and many other classic Disney characters, Jennings danced five times a day, five days a week for a total of more than 8,000 shows. “It made for a great icebreaker in the ABSN program,” he said. “Day one of orientation, tell us something interesting about yourself: ‘I used to perform with Mickey and his friends in a show called “One Man’s Dream II.” ’ It’s a unique experience. Not many people have gotten the opportunity to do that.” During his tenure at the theme park, Jennings earned a promotion to line captain, a role that’s responsible for leading rehearsals on days when the director and production team aren’t available, as well as mitigating conflicts between cast members. Away from the job, he enjoyed the minor celebrity status that accompanied being a Disney performer in Japan, while finding time to travel to countries throughout Asia. Asked if he still misses that chapter of his life, Jennings said: “Every day, though I think it’s mostly nostalgia now. I was young. I was making good money. The world was my oyster.” Dancing is often a young person’s profession, and when Jennings reached his early 30s, he realized that he would need to discover his second act. In December 2019, he took part in the final staging ever of “One Man’s Dream,” returned to his hometown of Spring Valley and retired as a dancer. As he began to contemplate what would come next, he thought about things that brought him joy. He thought about his love of babies, shaped by a formative experience helping to care for a newborn cousin who lived with his family when he was just 10 years old. He thought about his exposure to caretaking through poor health suffered by his stepfather and grandfather. He thought, in other words, that nursing – especially pediatric nursing – might be a good fit. So early in the pandemic, he spent a year at Cuyamaca College knocking out the science prerequisites required for him to attend nursing school. Once those were complete, he applied to CSUSM and began studying in its ABSN program in spring 2023. While he battled feelings of imposter syndrome in the classroom from his lack of science training, Jennings sought out any and all chances he could uncover to gain nursing-adjacent seasoning. One such opportunity came through CSUSM’s Mobile Wellness Initiative, which engages students from the seven disciplines of the College of Education, Health and Human Services (including nursing) in community-based health education and promotion events. Starting in February, Jennings volunteered for about seven events in the community, doing things like blood pressure screenings for adults and healthy eating activities for kids. “Recognizing my own ignorance, the fact that I don't have health care experience, I wanted to expose myself to as many scenarios where health care is provided and communities to which is provided as possible,” he said. “It put a very human face on health care for me, in a way that's not in a hospital room where everything's beeping.” Matt Mincey, a nursing lecturer who established the Mobile Wellness Initiative, has witnessed Jennings in action at several community health events and seen how the outsized personality and stage presence that Jennings brought to his dancing career translate to the field of nursing. “One of the things that nursing students struggle with is confidence, especially when it comes to speaking with others,” Mincey said. “Most students find a way to break through that barrier, but it comes at different times for everyone. Jonathan just had this ability from the get-go. He is humble, but he is also confident in what he knows and he is eager to share with anyone who will listen. “I am excited to see where he goes after graduation but already feel the loss in our operations that will be hard to replace.”  For his final semester this fall, Jennings worked an externship in the cardiothoracic ICU at Rady Children’s Hospital (one of the top such units in the country) and also did clinical rotations in telehealth at UC San Diego and as a school nurse. He has interviewed for a full-time job at Rady and hopes to have received a job offer by early next year. If he gets the position, he won’t be dressing up in costumes and dancing for patients. But he perceives almost daily the ways in which his previous life benefits him in his new life. “Other than actual textbook content, I don't think there's a corner of nursing that my old career doesn't apply to, which was surprising to me,” he said. “It's being versed in a lot of soft skills that I didn't recognize were skills until I had to apply them in a field where that's not the dominant thing that we're using to create value. If something's going wrong and the doctor has to run out and get a new piece of equipment, I can stand in that room and hold the audience and distract them from pain or whatever they're feeling, as opposed to freezing and standing there awkwardly or leaving the room. I didn't see that as a marketable skill in nursing, but now I do.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The periodic review of Jessica Berger, vice president of University Advancement, has been completed. I would like to thank the Periodic Review Committee and everyone who participated in the review for their contributions to the university in providing this valuable service. I congratulate Jessica on her continuing success as VP and look forward to her leadership in meeting the goals we established at the end of the review process.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence invites you to join us for an information session on resources and support for CSUSM's undocumented and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) students and employees. The session is Thursday, Dec. 12 at noon via Zoom (link to be provided upon registration). Learn about the resources and support available to undocumented, TPS and immigrant members of the CSUSM community. This session will provide information on campus and community resources, highlight available services, and discuss ways to foster a supportive and inclusive environment for all. The event is open to students, staff and faculty interested in learning more about these important resources and how to support members of our campus immigrant community. Click here to register. For questions or accommodations, please contact the Office of Inclusive Excellence.

Cal State San Marcos will remain the only public university in San Diego County to hold a fall commencement when it celebrates its mid-year graduates this month.   CSUSM will host its second fall commencement on Sunday, Dec. 15 in the Sports Center on campus. More than 700 students are expected to cross the stage across four ceremonies, and more than 5,500 guests have registered to attend.   Since the inaugural occasion last year, fall commencement has grown to the point that CSUSM expanded the number of ceremonies from three to four. There were more than 500 graduates in 2023. CSUSM holds fall commencement to offer students who are graduating in December the opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments with their families without having to wait until spring.  Commencement is an especially important milestone for the more than half of graduates at CSUSM who are the very first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree. Each of the four ceremonies will be streamed live on the CSUSM commencement website and mobile app to allow viewing by family members and friends who can’t attend.  More information on CSUSM’s commencement ceremonies is available online.     What: CSUSM hosts its second annual fall commencement When: Sunday, Dec. 15 9 a.m. – College of Business Administration Noon – College of Education, Health and Human Services; College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics   3 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Session 1) 6 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Session 2) Where: The Sports Center, Cal State San Marcos, 333 South Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos   Media: Members of the media who wish to attend any of the commencement ceremonies are asked to contact Jerry McCormick, director of strategic communications, in advance at JMcCormick@csusm.edu or 619-549-9438. For easy access to the ceremony site, media are asked to park in Lot O or Parking Structure 2. 

“Once in ACE, always in ACE.” Those were the words said by Leigh Quijada, director of ACE Scholars Services, that helped welcome Deborah Hawkins back to Cal State San Marcos.  A sociology major, Hawkins began her college journey at Mt. San Jacinto College before transferring to CSUSM where she was part of ACE, which supports former foster youth. However, Hawkins withdrew from CSUSM in 2017 feeling like she wasn’t ready and it was too much to handle.  But in 2022, she was inspired to return by her 3-year-old son, Zion.  “When I had my son, I was like, ‘No, I have to go back to where I started,’ ” Hawkins said. “I have to go back to my goals and I need my son to see that I can graduate. I need to have a career that I know I want, so I decided to buckle down and bear through the hardships.” Hawkins was born into foster care and remained in the system until she was 18. Much about her past remained unknown to her. For example, she recently found her biological mom and nine siblings.  Being in foster care put Hawkins through plenty of ups and downs.  “I actually got a placement when I was 7 that was pretty stable so I was in that home for a long time,” Hawkins said. “However, there were a lot of things that went on inside that home that no one knew about, not even the social workers that came in. It was hidden. Social workers have a lot on their plate, and so growing up, I just knew that I wanted somebody to pay attention.” Hawkins plans to be the person who pays attention toward people with stories like hers. She understood from a young age that school was the way out of the system, and the way to open a better future for herself and others. “I didn't know what the next steps looked like for me when I turned 18,” said Hawkins, “but I knew I wanted somewhere stable to live. My goal was to finish high school and then go live at college. It didn't work out that way, but I think that one of my main motives to go to college was stable housing, because that was the only thing I knew would make me stable.” Hawkins had almost no choice to attend school, and no choice to do so on her own timeline.  “On graduation day in high school, I went home and my bags were packed outside of the house,” Hawkins said. “So it was ‘go time.’ I had no choice but to sink or swim. I was just trying to go to school and be stable. I didn't know I would graduate.” When Hawkins, a first-generation student, reapplied to CSUSM after her son was born, Quijada was the first person to reach out to her, leaving Hawkins in shock. “Leigh has been following me since day one, just walking with me. So I'm so grateful for that.” Hawkins said. “I didn't even know I still qualified. I'm older, so I didn't know I still qualified for the services. They were like, ‘No, once in ACE, always in ACE.’ ”  This support from Quijada and Laurie Orr, an ACE counselor, helped give Hawkins the extra support and push to graduate this fall.  Hawkins works as a social worker assistant in Riverside County, and her graduation this fall will open the opportunity for her to become a full-time social worker. Eventually, Hawkins’ goal is to open her own nonprofit helping foster youth.  Specifically, she wants to help those who are about to age out of the system.   “I remember that when I turned 16 in foster care it's when your wheels start spinning and you realize you’re going to be 18 in two years,” Hawkins said. “You don’t know where you’re gonna go. You don't have solid advice or people to help you.  “So I would want to start with helping kids who are about to be former foster youth, and then help transitioning and former foster youth as well.” Although Hawkins has gone through challenges, she is determined to make her son proud.  “He was the main motivator, because it seemed daunting, especially having to withdraw and the weight of it all just felt bad,” Hawkins said. “But I knew I had to go back, so I reapplied.” Zion will be attending commencement on Dec. 15 and will grow up to recognize how big of an accomplishment graduation is for his mom.  “I'm still in shock,” she said. “I'm graduating. It sounds crazy to me, I still haven't processed it all yet, but I know it's gonna mean a lot. “I am so grateful for my village that has become family that have helped me along the way. I couldn't have done this with out their support as well as the support of ACE.”  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Cal State San Marcos celebrated its 10^th anniversary of Giving Day with a record-shattering day that saw the university raise $748,362 from 2,143 donors in just 24 hours. “This record-breaking achievement will empower our students to excel in their academics and beyond,” said Jessica Berger, vice president of University Advancement. “From hundreds of social media posts to ambassadors advocating for their programs and gifts of all sizes, your collective support is a testament to the strength of our dedicated community.” Giving Day is part of Giving Tuesday, an international day focused on philanthropy. The Giving Day highlights included: ·       A number of matches were met, including $200,000 from the Epstein Family, $15,000 from SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, and over $100,000 in individual area frontline matches that impacted the results for 132 campus programs. 79 ambassadors spread the word, bringing in a collective 238 gifts. 258 students donated. Nearly one in five gifts were made by alumni. “Even more impressive than the total amount raised was the number of people who made it possible,” Berger said. “From students and employees to friends, parents, alumni, and community members, everyone came together to make this day a phenomenal success. “Your support will have an immediate and lasting effect on our campus community. We couldn't do this important work without you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!” Did you miss your chance to donate on Giving Day? You can still make a meaningful impact on the program you love. Give today! Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Longtime sociology professor Marisol Clark-Ibáñez has won the Harry E. Brakebill Distinguished Professor Award, which annually acknowledges a Cal State San Marcos professor who demonstrates excellence in teaching, research, creative scholarship and service to the university and region. CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt made the announcement in a campus message Wednesday. Clark-Ibáñez has been a faculty member at CSUSM since 2003, and she gained full professor status in 2016. In the sociology department, she serves as the associate chair of student success and student challenges, and was previously department chair, internship coordinator and graduate coordinator. “I feel very overwhelmed and overjoyed,” Clark-Ibáñez said of winning the award. “Putting together the material for the nomination dossier was a big task – and it gave me meaningful reflection about how lucky I am to work with incredible colleagues and students since the moment I got here in 2003. I am really proud to contribute to many efforts creating meaningful change with and for students, for our campus, and in our communities. Thank you to the award committee and President Neufeldt for this humbling recognition.” Clark-Ibáñez has served on committees at the college, university and California State University system levels, including as a member of the CHABSS Chicanx studies leadership committee (2012-18) and American Indian studies curriculum committee and advisory council (2012-16), as the faculty lead for the Hispanic-Serving Institutions grant Pathways to Academic Success and Opportunity (2015-17) and as a reviewer of sociology course descriptors from community colleges for the CSU Chancellor’s Office Lower-Division Transfer Patterns project (2006-08). She also served from 2016-20 as Faculty Center director for the National Latino Research Center, where she and her team brought in nearly $10 million in external grants and contracts. Funded projects included civic engagement and leadership development for Latinx, immigrant and Spanish-speaking families as well as formerly incarcerated individuals. Clark-Ibáñez’s research addresses critical social issues, with two major focuses: undocumented immigration and computer science education. Her work on undocumented immigration has resulted in published books, journal articles and practical guides that illuminate the educational experiences of undocumented and mixed-status students. She co-led, with computer science professor Youwen Ouyang, a five-year, $1 million National Science Foundation grant project to provide scholarships, mentorship and career preparation for low-income computer science students, bridging gaps in student retention and the students' social capital and community cultural wealth. “Over the past 21 years at CSUSM, Dr. Clark-Ibáñez has exemplified excellence through her impactful teaching, innovative initiatives to connect STEM fields and the social sciences, and dedicated service to the campus community, her colleagues and students,” Neufeldt said. CSUSM has given out the Brakebill Award since 1998. It’s named for Harry E. Brakebill, a former executive vice chancellor of the CSU system and a valued adviser in the early years of CSUSM. The award was established by his daughter, Ann Bersi. Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The Art, Media and Design Department will host a new exhibit, “(RE)GENERATION,” with an opening reception in the arts building lobby on Dec. 5 from 3-6 p.m. The exhibition will be available to view through Jan. 24.  “(RE)GENERATION” explores themes of renewal, transformation and the past, present and future. The show features artwork produced by students about to graduate.  The show is open to the public and free of charge, providing visitors with the opportunity to engage with thought-provoking works that offer new perspectives on the cycles of life. "We are very excited to showcase this wonderful collection of projects produced by our talented students, which respond to some of the most pressing issues that impact our lives,” said Misael Diaz, associate professor of art, media and design. “For this reason, we hope the exhibition will offer students on campus and visitors from around our region a space to reflect and envision how we can regenerate engagement and connection with one another and with the world around us." For more information about the exhibition, including directions and parking information, please visit the “(RE)GENERATION” website. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Every fall on high school campuses across the country, football becomes the thing to do on Friday nights. Local TV station KUSI News for the past 26 years has broadcast a highlights and interview show called “Prep Pigskin Report," also known as “PPR,” that canvases San Diego County every Friday night to bring high school football stories to tens of thousands of homes. Cal State San Marcos may not have a football team, but a couple of communication students — one an alumnus and one about to be one — are heavily involved in the game locally as they comprise the “PPR” team that covers North County’s biggest game each week. Matt Candelario is set to graduate from CSUSM this month. He handles the camera, interviews athletes and posts to social media before and after games. The on-air talent Candelario films is Nick James, a Chula Vista native and former communication student from the class of 2001. “Just being out there with Nick and it's like we got our own little locker room feel where we're prepping for the interview, we're prepping for the game,” said Candelario, who played high school football in the Bay Area. “Who do we got on this team? Who do we got on that team? That kind of thing. So just being out there on Fridays kind of gives you the nostalgia of being out there on Friday night as a player.” When they’re not scrambling to put together segments on tight deadlines every Friday in the fall, the duo work together in various formats. In addition to creating content, a lot of their collaboration is focused on giving Candelario high-level sports broadcast industry experience. After answering an email from KUSI that was forwarded from the CSUSM communication department, Candelario immediately jumped in with editing training. He eased into the position with a veteran mentor but one who didn’t do much beyond camera work and posting to social media. Candelario was eventually paired with James, who was losing his student producer at the time to graduate school. According to James, Candelario was lacking solely in hands-on experience. What he clearly wasn’t missing was passion, an inquisitive attitude and a natural excitement for telling stories about local sports. That eager spirit helped him quickly close the gaps in experience. “Before he was just with the photographer and doing social media so he wasn't doing a lot of editing,” said James, who did an internship for ESPN after college. “He wasn't doing a lot of the hands-on gritty stuff that we do. Now with me, he has to do social, he has to shoot, he has to shoot a little bit when we need him to shoot and stuff like that. And he edits. He edits the games. If I tell him something, he knows what I'm talking about.” James has an infectious energy fueled by working for accomplishments every step of the way. While playing football at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., he made the decision to quit the game and transfer to CSUSM. He wanted to study communication and be closer to home to begin a career in sports media. While James learned a lot at CSUSM, he has forged a path in the field based on outworking his competition. “He knows what he's talking about because you can just tell by the way he prepares and all the stuff he does when it's live,” Candelario said. “He never bats an eye. He’s always ready, and it's so cool to work with him. Ever since I started working with him, I just learned so much.” Like most in the sports media industry, James has forged a meandering path that has included stops in small markets in Cheyenne, Wyo., Roswell, N.M., Lubbock and Lufkin, Texas, and Bakersfield before landing back in his hometown in April 2020. Among his duties as Candelario’s friend and mentor is to offer advice on the road awaiting him. “I just tell him to keep grinding,” James said. “Because he's already in a good position. He was one of the people that got hired to get extra hours each week on top of already working with me. So every Saturday he comes in and he works four or five extra hours that they allotted him to come in and do social media work. So I know he's got bigger aspirations in life. He’s already applying for jobs and whatnot, as he should be. I keep telling him to put your hat in everything because you have nothing to lose.” In addition to cutting highlights, essentially producing segments and managing social media, Candelario’s experience has also included developing a podcast. He also got the opportunity to meet one of his sports heroes this fall when he and James covered a Santa Fe Christian game. One member of the coaching staff was Super Bowl MVP quarterback Drew Brees. “You're sitting there and Drew Brees is 10 feet from you, and you're like, this is Drew Brees,” Candelario said of his YouTube video interview. “I'd never been in a situation like that. I was just thinking, let me ask these questions without messing up. And then I messed up the first try. Thankfully because it's not live, it’s on YouTube, Drew said, 'You're good, man.' And then I just got right into it. He's such a nice guy. He was really cool with us.” KUSI has several other CSUSM communication department graduates. Photojournalist Mike Millburn is from the class of 2007 and producer Nick Pollino graduated in 2018 after spending some time as the CHABSS ASI representative. The “PPR” has another communication alumna in Bri Savant from the class of 2019. In addition to her work on the show, she is on-air talent for sports segments on KUSI and Fox 5 San Diego. Another member of the CSUSM class of ’19 is Candelario’s brother Joseph, who was a criminology and justice studies major and is now working toward a career as a probation officer. Candelario was drawn to CSUSM based on his brother’s positive experiences here. He’ll soon be the third person in his family to graduate from college, following in his brother and sister’s footsteps. “He just said everybody's really welcoming at San Marcos,” said Candelario of Joseph’s experience on campus. “He never had a bad experience. He lived at the Quad just like I did. So we had a similar experience. He was telling me all that stuff before I went to San Marcos. And then once I actually got on campus, I saw everything, and I was like, ‘Yeah, this is where I want to be.’ ” Candelario has parlayed his experience off campus with play-by-play stints on the CCAA Network with CSUSM’s baseball and softball programs. Although he enjoyed the experience, he hopes his next steps in the industry will be reporting on sports such as a sideline reporter on one of the college networks like the ACC or SEC Network. He has fond memories of listening to the radio with his grandpa on the way to a game so a career in sports radio is a strong option. But like his mentor James, Candelario knows it’s an industry that usually requires baby steps before huge leaps. Just getting a foot in the door is his focus now. That door is already partially open thanks to the experience he’s gathered as a student here. “It’s really important to try and look for different internships or look for any little door that's open to work in the space if this is something you want to do, especially for sports media, sports journalism,” he said. “I've used my KUSI internship, and that's how I was able to do the play-by-play for the baseball team the past two seasons here because I sent them my clips. This is what I want to do. So as if you know what you want to do and that's what you want to do and you're serious about it, just jump into it and don't be scared. You just got to get your feet wet no matter where it is.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Giving back seems to be part of Dawn Myers’ DNA. As a teenager, Myers started a small nonprofit to raise money for cancer treatment and research in honor of a friend who had leukemia. Years later, as an incoming freshman at Cal State San Marcos, Myers secured a job with Associated Students, Inc., as a student receptionist. The role helped her meet a network of students involved on campus, which led to her involvement in CSUSM’s Student Philanthropy Council and, eventually, to participating in the inaugural CSUSM Giving Day in 2015. “I think my exposure to the student philanthropy world and the CSUSM Foundation Board came from different student connections through ASI,” Myers said. “But giving was always part of what I did as a student, including as an adolescent.” On Dec. 3, when CSUSM hosts its 10^th annual Giving Day, Myers will do what she’s done every year since that first one – give. Myers is one of 15 people – and one of just three alumni – who have donated on CSUSM Giving Day every year since its inception. CSUSM Giving Day is part of Giving Tuesday, an international day focused on philanthropy. For 24 hours, donors have an opportunity to choose from dozens of programs to support. Last year, CSUSM Giving Day raised nearly $460,000 with contributions made by 2,410 donors. A variety of giving challenges are planned this year, including a dollar-for-dollar match from the Epstein family on the first $200,000 given up to $10,000 per gift. In addition to donations, people can support CSUSM Giving Day by: Becoming an ambassador and helping to promote the program they love by reaching out to their personal networks on CSUSM Giving Day using their own custom link. Re-posting and commenting on their favorite CSUSM Giving Day social media posts to increase engagement and inspire others to give. Learning more about the causes that can be supported and the immediate impact that can be made by giving on Dec. 3. Myers has supported many programs over the years, including the student philanthropy endowment fund, a variety of scholarships and the economics department from which she graduated in 2017. “I give because I believe in philanthropy,” said Myers, who leads sales operations for Carlsmed, a commercial stage medical technology company and leader of the personalized spine surgery market that is based in Carlsbad. “I believe also that education and access to education is the crux of societal and personal change. I think that it is the solution to bringing awareness to societal issues. “And in responsible hands and minds, money is really quite a renewable resource. So philanthropy and giving back is really like giving blood – it will come back, and the impact it will make is bigger than the impact you'll feel. And that’s something I appreciate.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

It was a visit to Cal State San Marcos in the fourth grade that taught Aiden Valverde, a fourth-year American Indian Studies major, how to spread his wings. And it was an internship with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that really helped him take flight. “My love for animals and conservation happened when I was really young,” Valverde said. “My mom and I would always go to the San Diego Zoo or Safari Park and ever since then, I've loved animals. When I got older I learned about them, and how they're in danger and being illegally poached and harmed.” Because of Valverde’s passion for animals and the environment, he enrolled at CSUSM as an environmental studies major. But Valverde found a way to combine his passion for the outdoors with his heritage after being connected to American Indian Studies Chair Joely Proudfit.  “After taking one class, I was like, ‘This is it,’ ” Valverde said. The class was American Indian Studies 101, an introduction to the California tribes.  As a descendant of Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, Valverde was happy for the opportunity to appreciate his culture and learn more about it, and he officially changed his major to American Indian Studies. Valverde was exposed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife internship from an email sent to multiple California universities. The Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office was searching for a Native student who was interested in conservation.  Valverde jumped on the opportunity, aced his interview and began his job as an intern. “There are three listed species of butterfly that I was assigned to research,” Valverde said. “With the Quino checkerspot butterfly, the Hermes copper butterfly and the Laguna Mountains skipper, my job was to research these butterflies, their biology, their habitat, populations, everything about them.”  All of these species of butterflies are federally endangered. In order to go out in the areas where they are located, permits are needed. One of Valverde’s internship responsibilities was to help expedite the permit process for tribes and their traditional practices. He talked to the community, and then wrote a report explaining the effects on the habitat.  “It would take six months to a year to get a permit for our tribe to go out in these areas,” Valverde said. “Our traditions are really seasonal and we just have to go out when we see it, get our hands dirty. By that time it's too late to get the permit. The report would help expedite the process of getting that permit. When land managers have to issue the permits, they can just read my report and issue the permits right away. That was the main goal.”  Throughout the year at his internship, Valverde went on several field visits to places like Palomar Mountain and San Diego National Wildlife Refuge. “I was able to go out with park rangers, entomologists and biologists,” Valvderde said. “I would research these plants and actually see them. It was amazing.” While he was a part of several projects during his internship, most notable was the Pond Turtle Restoration. Valverde helped lay a rock foundation and put out logs for the turtles to sunbathe. This effect was positive and direct; a week later, the turtles were spotted using the newly implemented resources, making it clear how much the environment has benefited from Valverde’s time in the internship.  “Aiden exemplifies everything we strive to achieve in American Indian Studies and at the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center,” Proudfit said. “As a Kumeyaay scholar, he has masterfully woven together his cultural heritage, academic pursuits and professional aspirations in wildlife conservation. “His journey from a student passionate about animal welfare to a researcher helping shape federal-tribal collaboration policies showcases the transformative power of education grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing." Working with the butterflies was Valverde’s favorite part of the internship. Following a day in the field, Valverde got a call from someone on the Tribal Communication team letting him know they had officially found Laguna Mountain skippers on Palomar Mountain. “They hadn’t been found out there in full butterfly form,” Valverde said. “They've only been found out there in their pupae or caterpillar form, and finding one means they're surviving. If there's one, that means something is going right. That means that others will be able to follow. This is historic.” While the year-long internship ended last May, Valverde is looking toward a future in conservation after his expected graduation in fall 2025. He is entertaining a handful of ideas, hopeful for an opportunity that can include both the environmental and tribal side of things.  “It's not a need to be there,” Valverde said, “I want to be there. I have to be there. It's like a burn in my heart, where it's like it just spreads whenever I go back.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

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