While recalling her experiences of growing up in rural environments across the United States, Cathy Jacobs says that her career as an educator was inspired by a childhood spent outdoors. “I've been a naturalist since I could remember,” she says. “I was always catching snakes and wading in ponds, catching tadpoles. When I was a kid, I used to watch the salmon spawn in the riffles of the Sacramento River. You used to see all these dorsal fins in the river at night, and I remember watching this enormous sturgeon - it must have been about six or seven feet long - come up to the surface and go back under.” Jacobs, who has won the Excellence in Service Award at California State ... Read More
College of Arts and Humanities
Janine Gasco: Reliving that ‘Ah-Ha’ Moment, One Student at a Time
When on vacation in Mexico as 20-year-old college drop-out, Dr. Janine Gasco came to a realization that eventually evolved into her life's work. Upon viewing ancient pyramids and ancient Mesoamerican sites, particularly the ruins of Teotihuacan near Mexico City, she realized that she had found an answer to the question of where to focus her studies. “I just remember being floored, so completely impressed and curious,” recalls the associate professor of anthropology and this year's winner of the Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Award. “I thought, 'How terrible is it that I don't know anything about what's going on in the country next door? That's what I'm going to ... Read More
Emily Magruder: Giving Students the Tools to Think
Although one of Dr. Emily Magruder's students described her teaching technique as animated and “dance-like,” the humanities lecturer–who holds a certificate in theatre and dance, as well as a bachelor's degree in English, from Princeton–doesn't let her classes waltz by with subpar work. “The perception is that I have high expectations, but that I will help students meet them,” says Magruder, who is this year's winner of the Lyle E. Gibson Dominguez Hills Distinguished Teacher Award. Magruder, whose research interests includes women and inheritance, children's literature, and law and literature, says that what she enjoys most about teaching humanities is that she is not confined to ... Read More
Hansonia Caldwell: “Living Legend” Presents Final Spiritual Concert
Hansonia Caldwell has more than the usual reasons to look forward to her retirement this spring. The professor of music at California State University, Dominguez Hills will present her final “Living Legends Festival Concert” at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Saturday, May 14 at 8 p.m. The concert, which is the signature event of the African Diaspora of Sacred Music and Musicians, was first presented in 2003 as part of Caldwell's work with the Georgia and Nolan Payton Archive of Sacred Music, an extensive collection of music, books, periodicals, documents, audio & visual materials, and oral histories housed at CSU Dominguez Hills. “We are a preservation program and we ... Read More
Unveiling of Third Commemorative Painting, Booksigning Celebrates 50th Anniversary
California State University, Dominguez Hills is proud to announce the unveiling of a third painting in a series that commemorates the university's 50th anniversary. “E Pluribus Unum” was created by South Bay artist Hatsuko Mary Higuchi and will be presented to the campus and local community at a reception at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 12, in the University Library. The evening will include a reading and book signing by Dr. Don Hata, emeritus professor of history, of the fourth edition of “Japanese Americans and World War II: Mass Removal, Imprisonment, and Redress,” which he wrote with his late wife, Dr. Nadine Ishitani Hata, in 1974. Higuchi says that she created “E Pluribus Unum” to ... Read More