Marking the Biden-Harris administration’s first visit to California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal came to campus on April 7 to engage with students, learn how the university supports historically underserved and underrepresented college students, and discuss how the government can enact similar best practices on a national level. Kvaal first met with CSUDH administrators, who provided the under secretary with an overview of CSUDH’s unique student population—the university has some of the highest rates of underrepresented, Pell-eligible, and first-generation students in the CSU. Kvaal shared his excitement about the ... Read More
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CSUDH Professor Wins Prestigious NEH Award
CSUDH Professor of History Bianca Murillo has received a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship through the Awards for Faculty program for her next book, Financing Africa’s Future: A Socio-Economic History of Ghana, 1950-1980. The highly competitive NEH faculty awards support advanced humanities research by scholars at Historically Black Colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities. A total of 25 grants were awarded nationally. This is Murillo’s second major project involving Ghana—her first book, Market Encounters: Consumer Cultures in Twentieth-Century Ghana was published in 2017. That book traced the evolution of consumerism in the ... Read More
Parent Leadership Academy Fosters Support for First-Gen Families
For the families of first-generation college students, universities can seem unfamiliar and inaccessible. New terminologies and processes can alienate students and their parents, who want to be able to provide support and guidance to their children. Two faculty members at CSUDH are trying to change that dynamic through the Parent Leadership Academy—a forum through which parents can connect, share knowledge, and navigate CSUDH together. Assistant Professor Yesenia Fernández and Associate Professor Jen Stacy, both in the College of Education, pitched the idea of a parent academy for President Thomas Parham’s President’s Challenge competition in 2020. After their idea received funding, they ... Read More
Homecoming 2022 Brings Toro Alums Back to Campus
CSUDH celebrated Homecoming 2022 on Saturday, Feb. 19, welcoming hundreds of Toro alumni and their families back to campus for a day of fun activities, reunions, and discovery. It was the first large-scale public event on campus since the resumption of in-person courses, and the first chance for many attendees to see all of the changes that have occurred on campus recently. “I couldn’t be more excited and elated to welcome home all these Toro alums, many of whom have not seen the transformation of the campus over the years,” said CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham, who spoke at the event. “I’m thrilled to showcase not just the infrastructure changes, but to highlight the curriculum changes ... Read More
Irene Tung Earns Visionary Grant for Pregnancy Research
Assistant Professor of Psychology Irene Tung has been awarded a Visionary Grant from the American Psychological Foundation in the amount of $19,979. The grant, which seeks to support research that uses psychology to solve social problems, will fund Tung’s pilot study of emotional health and stress physiology during pregnancy for one year. Tung, who joined the CSUDH faculty in January 2022, began researching the impacts of early life stress on children’s development while earning her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. As she advanced throughout graduate school, she became interested in earlier developmental stages and how adverse experiences ... Read More
