California State University, Dominguez Hills alumnus Todd Smaretsky (Class of '10, B.A., digital media arts, television option) wasn't going to enter the 2010 CSU Media Arts Festival film, video and interactive media competition. But now he's glad he listened to the encouraging words of his professor, Dr. George Vinovich, coordinator of the Digital Media Arts Program. Smaretsky took home first place in the television category at the festival's awards ceremony held at CSU Fullerton on Saturday, Nov. 6, for his public service announcement (PSA), “Letting Go of Anger.” He received a monetary prize of $500 and a Rosebud Award. The DMA program also received $250. “I'm honored and ... Read More
Alumni
Shonni Johnson-Albritton: Alumna Wins 2010 NAACP Theatre Award
Shonni Johnson-Albritton (Class of '06, B.A., theatre arts) was recognized as “Best Supporting Actress” at the NAACP Theatre Awards, which was held in August at the Director's Guild of America in Hollywood. The theatre arts alumna received the award for her role in the 2009 university production of August Wilson's “Jitney.” Her most recent work is in the short, “Pearl,” directed by Zac Petrillo. A veteran of the university stage with roles in CSU Dominguez Hills' productions of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” “Lend Me a Tenor,” “A Doll's House,” and “The Vagina Monologues,” Johnson-Albritton began her studies in the MFA program in theatre arts at ... Read More
CSU Dominguez Hills Honors Filipino-American Leaders
A reception honoring Chief Justice nominee Tani Cantil- Sakauye and former acting Lt. Gov. Mona Pasquil, the first Filipinas to serve in two of the highest offices in California government, took place on Oct. 23 in the South Wing of the University Library at California State University, Dominguez Hills. The event, which was sponsored by the office of Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-55th Dist.) was held in honor of October's designation as Filipino History Month. Mitch Maki, acting associate vice president, Academic Programs, welcomed guests and underscored the significance of Cantil-Sakauye and Pasquil's stories among the university's population of first-generation college ... Read More
History – and Ageless Storytelling – Repeat Themselves with Reinterpretation of “Macbeth”
For alumna Naomi Buckley (Class of '00, B.A., theatre arts), necessity has proven to be the mother of invention. The director of this month's production of “Macbeth” at California State University, Dominguez Hills says that the decision to set the play amid the contemporary drug cartels of Juarez, Mexico, was an economically driven one. “We have no money to set this in Scotland in 1040,” she notes. “Present time is always cheaper than setting it in a time period, so we tried to think of something in... the present day that was close to the sort of violence and dark themes that 'Macbeth' has.” Buckley drew inspiration for herself and her stage crew from stories on the Internet about the ... Read More
Brandilynn Villarreal: Alumna Finds Path to Doctorate By Mentoring McNair Scholars
When Brandilynn Villarreal (Class of '09, M.A., clinical psychology) took a job as a grad assistant for the McNair Scholars Program at California State University, Dominguez Hills, she had thought the responsibility of helping underrepresented, first-generation college students prepare for advanced degrees was interesting. So much so, that as a doctoral candidate in social and personality psychology at the University of California, Irvine she decided to analyze how that same student population copes with graduate school. “I had to come here and see that I was really interested in doing that,” says Villarreal, who had earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at UCLA with a focus on ... Read More
