CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

Press Releases

CSUDH Professor, Students Explore Port of LA in Photography Exhibit

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By Ellie Zenhari, on display at Angels Gate Cultural Center
Ellie Zenhari
Ellie Zenhari

Students from California State University Dominguez Hills and their professor are featured in a two exhibitions, “LA Living Space: Photographs by Ellie Zenhari” and “We Will Be Heard: Work by CSUDH Students,” at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro from April 23 to May 30 that explore the environmental impact of the Port of Los Angeles. An opening reception on April 30 at noon includes an informative exhibit tour, and a student dance performance.

The LA Living Space exhibition tour at 1 p.m. will be led by Zenhari, assistant professor of art and design, and Vivian Price, professor of labor studies at CSUDH, who wrote all the accompanying text for the exhibit. The student dance performance, “Refill Please,” which is choreographer by Mayra Pedraza and performed by CSUDH dance students Mayra Pedraze, Lily Cabrera, and Zantino Bustos, will begin at 2:30 p.m. “We Will Be Heard” includes photographs by students of the Los Angeles Port and its inherent environmental issues.

“LA Living Spaces documents how the Port of Los Angeles is a huge economic engine for our region, providing thousands of jobs and major revenue, but at the same time the communities near the port are constantly exposed to pollutants from the port,” said Zenhari.

My photos reflect this dichotomy—we need the port in all its industrial beauty, yet people live out their lives immediately adjacent to the smoke stacks of the refineries, and constant traffic from huge trucks.– Ellie Zenhari.

Zenhari’s solo exhibition photographs focuses on San Pedro, Wilmington, and the Port of Los Angeles, and its environmental impact on the surrounding cities. It builds on her original visual photo narrative, The Toxic Port Project, and her latest images continue to explore environmental justice issues. Curated by Martabel Wasserman, curator of community engagement at the cultural center, and organized in three areas: The Old Port, Housing and Environment, and Labor and Refineries, Zenhari’s ongoing photography series on the port is part of collaboration between CSUDH’s Art Design Department and Price.

Art student Alexis Gonzalez, “Coca Cola Climate Change,” on display at Angels Gate Cultural Center.

Also on display will be Subvertisement posters, where student designers have subverted advertising to focus on social justice issues, zines designed by students as part of the DH Art Collective and curated by student Allison Garcia, and selected paintings and mixed media sculptures by students from CSUDH Art and Design Studio Art classes. Coordinator for all the exhibits on behalf of the university was Kathy Zimmerer, director of the University Art Gallery and the Art and Design Department at CSUDH, with participating faculty member Michele Bury, chair and professor of Art and Design Department, and Zenhari.

Angels Gate Cultural Center is located at 3601 S. Gaffey Street, in San Pedro. There are two entrances to Angels Gate Park and Angels Gate Cultural Center. The driveway at 36th Street and Gaffey Street is normally locked after sunset. The main gate at 32nd Street will remain open and lighted until 10 p.m.

For more information visit the Angels Gate Cultural Center.

Labor, Social, and Environmental Justice Fair Connects Students with Activists

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Students, faculty, labor and community organizations from across the greater Los Angeles area will come together to celebrate the Ninth Annual Labor, Social and Environmental Justice Fair hosted by the California State University Dominguez Hills Labor and Social Justice Club and Labor Studies Program from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 25.

The day-long fair is designed to connect students and members of the community with local unions and community organizations that are doing social justice work, while enjoying art, music, dance and theater.

“We’re proud to be sponsored by unions, student government and individual donations. We’re overjoyed to have the participation of over 40 social justice organizations with useful resources and information. As attacks on people based on race and religion and free speech mount under this administration, and the rights for a clean environment and good, safe jobs shrink and the very right to organize collectively is in jeopardy, we need to share our resources and work together.” said Vivian Price, Labor Studies Program coordinator and one of the advisors for the fair, which is organized by students. The Rose Black Resource Center is a co-sponsor, and Jonathan Henderson, director of the Center, is a key organizer.

WHO:
Workers’ rights and community leaders, social justice artists and musicians and students from CSUDH and neighborhood high schools and community colleges.

WHAT:
Ninth Annual CSUDH Labor, Environmental and Social Justice Fair.

WHERE:
Loker Student Union East Walkway and inside the Student Union
1000 E. Victoria St. Carson, CA 90747

DATE:
Tuesday, April 25
9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Speakers include poets Yosimar Reyes and Claudia Rodriguez, Watts Writers Workshop veteran Odie Hawkins, Indigenous Rights scholar Sara Obenauer. Among the topics of discussion will be how to organize against attacks on workers’ rights, particularly from the Supreme Court and Congress. Know your Rights trainings will be taking place during the day hosted by the ACLU and UNITE HERE, as well as workshops by students in the CSUDH Negotiation Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Program for high school guests.

Students and visitors will hear the sounds of live music including Earth Arrow and Inner City Dwellers. Art groups like Legacy LA and students from CSUDH Art and Design Department will table with innovative opportunities for participants to create art and silkscreen shirts with social justice themes.

The fair is open to the public, with free entry, free food (while supplies last), and parking is only $6 for those without permits.

This event’s sponsors include the California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities; United Food and Commercial Workers; California Faculty Association; the ILWU 13 (International Longshore and Warehouse Union); the ILWU Credit Union; ILWU Pensioners; International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees; Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; California Teaching Association; American Federation of Teachers College Guild; Ford & Wallach Law Firm; Lanzone Morgan Law Firm; the Service Employees International Union 721; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and Associated Students, Inc.

For more information, contact (310) 243-3640.

Michael Spagna Named Provost, VP for Academic Affairs at CSU Dominguez Hills

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Michael SpagnaFollowing a national search, Willie J. Hagan, president of California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), has appointed Michael E. Spagna as provost and vice president for academic affairs effective July 1, 2017.

Since 2008, Spagna has been dean of the Michael D. Eisner College of Education at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where he is known as a strong collaborator with extensive experience and diverse perspectives. At CSUN, he cultivated a relationship with Michael and Jane Eisner resulting in a $7 million gift to the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning, where Spagna served as executive director for seven years.

“As he articulated during his extensive interview process, Dr. Spagna is particularly attracted to the CSU Dominguez Hills mission, our commitment to student success, and the university’s broad access to the underserved and diverse communities we serve,” Hagan said.

I am confident Michael’s leadership will enable us to build upon the momentum we have already achieved, and play a significant role in accomplishing our highest goals moving forward.” – Dr. Hagan

The provost and vice president of academic affairs is a key position in the university administration, responsible for providing strategic leadership and oversight for the university’s academic vision. At CSUDH, Spagna will oversee all academic units, including the university’s six colleges and University Library, as well as all academic centers, institutes and instructional programs and activities. The provost also serves as the chief executive officer for the campus in the president’s absence.

Spagna is recognized for his commitment to improving student access, retention and success in higher education, employing evidence-based practices in his work, and his involvement in forging internal and external community partnerships. He has been a strong leader for the L.A. Compact, a collective of 18 Los Angeles institutions that focus on preparing local students for college and the workforce.

For the past six years he chaired the L.A. Compact’s Institutions of Higher Education Collaborative workgroup, which consists of 12 independent colleges and universities that share a commitment to improving educational outcomes for L.A.’s youth. The collaborative is regional consortium that includes private institutions, UCLA, the Los Angeles Community College District, and California State University (CSU) campuses.

“CSU Dominguez Hills represents everything that is fundamentally good and true when it comes to fulfilling the mission of public higher education, including a steadfast commitment to excellence and innovation; building strong university-community partnerships; and, most importantly, ensuring student success at all levels. I am honored to join such a dedicated team of faculty, staff, and administrators at CSUDH,” said Spagna.

Prior to CSUN, Spagna served as consultant to the California State Department of Education; was coordinator of the Services to Students with Learning Disabilities program at University of California, Berkeley; a learning disabilities specialist and lecturer at Chabot College in Livermore, Calif.; and was a special education teacher at Landmark West School in Culver City, and at the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA.

Spagna received his Ph.D. in 1991 through the joint-doctoral program in Special Education from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University.  His M.A. in Special Education was conferred by UCLA in 1985, and he earned his Bachelor of Science in Communicative Disorders at Northwestern University in 1984.

Haynes Foundation Grant Preserves Photographs Documenting Japanese-American Life in L.A.

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A picture of the Rose Shrimp Company, circa 1950s, by Ninomiya Studio Photograph. Courtesy of Michael Risner
Rose Shrimp Company, circa 1950s, by Ninomiya Studio Photograph. Courtesy of Michael Risner.

California State University, Dominguez Hill’s (CSUDH) Library Archives and Special Collections has received a $39,200 archival grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to continue preserving the history of Japanese Americans in Los Angeles and throughout the state.

Specifically, the grant will be used to create the Ninomiya Photography Studio Collection Access Project at CSUDH and preserve, catalog, and archive approximately 10,000 packets of photographic negatives taken by the former Ninomiya Studio, which was owned and operated by Japanese American photographer Ichiro Ninomiya in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. Dating between 1949 and 1970, the negatives document the daily life of Japanese Americans in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century, from individual and family portraits, passport photos, pictures of Los Angeles architecture and Little Tokyo, women in traditional Japanese clothing, entertainers, and much more.

Were extremely pleased the Haynes Foundation saw this project worthy of funding,” – Greg Williams, director of Archives and Special Collections at CSUDH.

“The preservation of the Ninomiya Collection will result in long-term access to researchers interested in Japanese Americans, the history of Los Angeles, and immigration.”

The Haynes Foundation archival grant will also enable the creation of a guide to the collection, and generate appropriate metadata to be used for eventual digitization, representing a new phase for the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project (CSUJAD). Funded since 2014 by the National Park Service and twice by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the CSUJAD project is directed and operated by the CSUDH Library Archives and Special Collections. The CSUJAD project is currently digitalizing more than 14,000 documents and photographs archived at 18 institutions statewide, including 15 CSU campuses.

The Ninomiya Collection was found in 2010 in plastic bags by a contractor working on a building in Los Angeles that was being prepared for refurbishing.  Recognizing the historical importance of the images, a contractor offered the negatives for free on Craigslist. Michael Risner, a local cameraman, obtained the negatives, and in 2012, allowed CSUDH to display a portion of the collection in an exhibition. Risner donated the entire collection to CSUDH in 2016.

Collections from CSUJAD are currently on display through August in the Library’s Cultural Arts Gallery at CSUDH in an exhibition on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II titled “And Then They Came For Us….”

For more information, contact the Library Archives and Special Collection at (310) 243-3895.

Toyota Foundation Grants $4 Million to Prepare Students for STEM Careers

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TOYOTA CENTER rendering, slider
Rendering of the Toyota Center for Innovation in STEM Education at CSU Dominguez Hills.

Toyota USA Foundation and California State University, Dominguez Hills announced today that together they will tackle workforce readiness issues head-on, creating a new Toyota Center for Innovation in STEM Education (Toyota Center) to inspire learning for students from kindergarten through college.

Toyota USA Foundation’s $4 million grant will support the design, construction, and equipment for a new 87,000+ square foot science and innovation building on the CSU Dominguez Hills campus, which will house the Toyota Center. It will include a fabrication lab, labs for K-12 teacher demonstrations and training, SMART classrooms, collaborative workspaces, and an outdoor workspace.

CSUDH Center for Science and Innovation rendering
Rendering of the science and innovation building.

“The center will help further science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teaching, learning, research, and ‘making’ that is critical to the future of California’s youth, the region, and the nation,” said Mike Goss, president, Toyota USA Foundation. “Investing today to provide hands-on, creative experiences that create excitement for STEM careers is critical to America’s advanced manufacturing future.”

“We want this new facility to help support students of the South Bay and Los Angeles so that they can be prepared for the next generation of jobs,” Goss added.

Toyota Motor Sales committed an additional $750,000 toward construction of mobile trailers equipped with tools and technology, such as laser cutters to create 2D and 3D structures, 3D printers, and electronic components for prototyping projects. These mobile fab labs pulled by four Toyota Tundra trucks will travel throughout the South Bay and the greater Los Angeles region to serve local schools, bringing the learning to students, educators, and communities.

The new center will be a key resource for the university, directly impacting academic success and strengthening the region’s future STEM workforce,” said CSU Dominguez Hills President Willie Hagan.

“We are honored to be working with such a forward-thinking community partner as Toyota. Educators are constantly adapting to new, innovative technology and processes to prepare students for success in our global society. The Toyota Center and mobile fab labs will provide leading tools for the development of creative academic programs and innovative curricula in line with the Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards.”

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that by 2018 there will be more than 1.4 million new STEM-related jobs that could go unfulfilled. According to the California Teachers Association, “California’s demand for new math and science teachers in the next 10 years is expected to be over 33,000 and the current rate of new math and science teachers cannot come close to meeting that need.” In fact, in 2014 CSU Dominguez Hills received a $12.45 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to train highly qualified secondary math and science teachers to help improve student achievement in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The mobile fabrication labs are expected to begin arriving in May 2017. Groundbreaking for the science and innovation building is expected in the fall of 2017.

About California State University, Dominguez Hills

California State University, Dominguez Hills, centrally located in the greater Los Angeles South Bay region, is a model urban university with a wide range of academic programming, providing accessible, high quality, and transformative education to students aspiring to succeed and thrive in a complex, global society.  Since 1960, CSU Dominguez Hills has served a diverse community of learners and educators collaborating to change lives and communities for the better. A national model and laboratory for student success, the university offers a proven path to opportunity and social equity, advancing a college-focused culture in the communities it serves while providing vital resources of knowledge, talent, and leadership to the greater Los Angeles region and beyond.

Today, CSU Dominguez Hills boasts over 100,000 alumni – doctors, scientists, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs – who are leaders in education, health, technology, entertainment, public service, and business, making a difference in their fields, in people’s lives, and in their communities. For more information, visit here.

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to advancing mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands.  Over the past 60 years, we’ve produced more than 30 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than 44,000 people (more than 34,000 in the U.S.).  Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold almost 2.6 million cars and trucks (2.45 million in the U.S.) in 2016 – and about 85 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 15 years are still on the road today.  

Toyota partners with community, civic, academic, and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We share company resources and extensive know-how to support non-profits to help expand their ability to assist more people move more places. For more information, visit Toyota Newsroom.