Just when many 21-year-old undergraduates are about to begin their last academic term, John Bagnerise was starting a much different sort of term–an 18-year-to-life sentence at Folsom State Prison. He spent the next 22 years incarcerated in some the toughest prisons in California for a crime for which he was present, but did not commit. “I had to convince a parole board that I was suitable to be a part of society and could readjust to a world that had become foreign to me,” said the determined 49-year-old. And convince he did, but not before 12 years–when he became eligible for parole–and another decade of pleading his case to parole boards would pass. Now six years out of prison, ... Read More
College of Business Administration and Public Policy
Alumna Janice Schill: Education Provides Pathway to Service as U.S. Diplomat
Throughout her husband's nearly 30-year career as a United States diplomat in the State Department's Foreign Service, Janice Schill gladly lived for years at a time in places where he was assigned, such as South Africa, China, Jordan, and Fiji. “I've traveled the world [with my husband Jim]... I've learned a lot, accumulated a lot of information, knowledge, experience,” Schill remarked. To immerse herself in the rich cultures into which she was embedded and to contribute to their communities, she volunteered at local hospitals and schools. Unknowingly, she was laying a strong foundation for her own entry into the Foreign Service. Once her husband retired from the foreign service, ... Read More
Five Alumni Forge Friendship at CSUDH, Blossom into Business Partners
If it is charming when two friends who are so close finish each other's sentences, then it's even more so with five friends–and maybe the perfect recipe for a successful business partnership. Alumni Adrian Arceo, Chris Avalos, Corey Cohen, Bryan Papp, and Jeff Saign were transfer students who met and bonded during their first year at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Today, they co-own Philly Steak & Subs, a predominantly take-out- and delivery-based casual restaurant in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood of Long Beach. “We actually met in classes. I think it was what, summer school?” Cohen said, ending in unison with Saign, who went on to say that four of the men later ... Read More
Heidi DeLeon: Looking Forward to a Bright Future
Life has changed dramatically for Heidi DeLeon since she grew up on a Michigan farm in Pinconning, a small town where at 10 p.m. the major traffic signal switches to a blinking red light and the police station closes. In a flash of violence in 1995, a series of events were set into motion that would send DeLeon's life spiraling out of control and eventually lead to her doing a five-year stint in Chowchilla's Valley State Prison for Women in central California years before she would become a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and a Class of 2013 graduate of California State University, Dominguez Hills with a degree in Africana studies. DeLeon was only 14 when her father fatally stabbed her ... Read More
Sam Enriquez: Above the Fold at the Wall Street Journal
Sam Enriquez (Class of '85, B.S., economics) is featured as a CSU Dominguez Hills alumnus in the CSU Working for California campaign. His list of accomplishments are highlighted on the CSU website and as part of banner displays in the State Capitol Building. --- Just a month after his promotion to national news editor of the Wall Street Journal in 2008, Sam Enriquez found himself reaching back more than two decades to his courses in economics from California State University, Dominguez Hills. That fall, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a global financial services firm and then the fourth-largest investment bank in the U.S., declared bankruptcy, ushering in a historic autumn of frozen credit ... Read More