It wasn't the billowing smoke filling his apartment courtyard from a popcorn machine with a convention oven mounted on top that initially piqued Geoffrey Martinez's curiosity, it was the smell of freshly roasting coffee beans that drew him in. “I had never seen coffee roasting before so it definitely caught my attention,” said the California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) alumnus of the first time he met his neighbor Chris, who had built a makeshift roaster to turn a few pounds of green coffee beans he had bought online into brew-able coffee. “He's a foody and was trying out different types of coffee and knew that I also liked coffee so we started getting into it. I never got ... Read More
Alumni
Alumni Teach and Empower During 5th Annual Professor for a Day
With 37 alumni teaching hundreds of students in dozens of classrooms, California State University, Dominguez Hills' (CSUDH) 5th annual Professor for a Day on March 14 was its largest and most professionally diverse gathering of honorary professors to date. Organized by the Office of Alumni Relations, each year Professor for a Day enables CSUDH alumni to share their knowledge, experience, and advice with students in classes matched to their fields. The majority of the alumni were new to Professor for a Day, but quickly found the students to be engaging, enjoyed reconnecting with former professors, and many relished in the opportunity to teach at the university level for the first ... Read More
Trailblazing African American Alumni Share Career Insights and Advice
California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) enrolls and graduates the largest number of African American students of any California State University campus. As Black History Month puts a spotlight on the achievements and accomplishments of African Americans throughout this nation, CSUDH pauses to share the great successes and insights of its alumni. Towalame Austin ('04, B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies) has forged a path in the non-profit sector that one might call a quintessential Los Angeles success story. In 1998 she began her career as a receptionist with the Magic Johnson Foundation, often being “the first to arrive and last to leave” both then and seven years later ... Read More
A Sense of Justice
Maria Villa was “born with a strong sense of justice,” but it wasn't until she witnessed unfair actions against her parents' family business that she decided to follow her convictions. Villa was in her senior year at CSUDH at the time, working in her parents' stretched canvas manufacturing business in Torrance and contemplating graduate school to earn an MBA: “Seeing how my parents were taken advantage of at times by customers and vendors who knew how to work the system made me want to become an attorney so I could help small business owners stand up for and learn about their rights,” says Villa, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from CSUDH in 1982 and a Juris ... Read More
Alumnus Victor McKamie Helps MAP a Better Life for Those with HIV/AIDS
“For a lot of our clients, they felt they had zero, then they became infected with HIV, and felt they had less.” For the past 28 years, Victor McKamie ('98, B.A., sociology; '01, M.S., public administration), executive director and CEO of Minority AIDS Project (MAP) in Los Angeles, and his colleagues have been successfully showing their clients with that feeling of having “less” that they have so much "more;" more to accomplish, more to give, and more reason to live. The not-for-profit organization was founded in 1985 by Archbishop Carl Bean and members of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles California. It is the first community-based HIV/AIDS organization established and ... Read More