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CSUDH News

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

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Male Success Alliance Induction Ceremony Returns to Campus

April 3, 2023 By Kandis Newman

Male Success Alliance Induction Ceremony Returns to Campus
New CSUDH Male Success Alliance members gather for their induction ceremony. (Photo by Kaleb Tapp)

After a pandemic-enforced break, the CSUDH Male Success Alliance (MSA) held its first on-campus induction ceremony in four years this March. In all, 28 new MSA members were welcomed into the academic-focused support program for men of color.

“The induction ceremony celebrates and honors these young men from different backgrounds, binding them together for a mission and cause that’s bigger than themselves,” said MSA Director Hakeem Croom. “It charges our students to be conscious, competent, and committed, while striving for excellence in all their endeavors inside and outside of the classroom.”

The MSA was founded in 2009 as a resource to improve access, retention, and graduation for undergraduate men of color at CSUDH. Its mission has expanded over time, and the MSA has grown to prepare undergraduate men of color for professional, career, and graduate school opportunities.

The MSA Induction Ceremony celebrates the matriculation of students who have earned full/active member status into the program. A part of the induction ceremony process includes a suit fitting, in which each inductee is given a free tailored MSA suit that symbolizes their membership. During the ceremony, each inductee dons their MSA blazer for the first time.

“I joined MSA to have a sense of brotherhood, community, and camaraderie,” said newly inducted member Nascir Vasquez. “The induction was the cherry on top. After all the work I put into MSA, getting that suit felt like receiving a trophy. The ceremony was definitely a highlight of my college career.”

Fellow MSA inductee Dionn Canas Loeza agreed. He joined the MSA in 2016 as a middle school “seed student” as a result of the group’s outreach efforts. “This influenced me to want to become an MSA member when I got to college myself,” said Loeza. “I want to give back to the community in the same way MSA gave to mine when I was in middle school. The induction ceremony meant accomplishment – it’s proof that all my hard work paid off.”

“The induction ceremony means celebration and excitement,” said Croom. “It also signals that the real work is now underway. My goal is to give each inductee a transformative experience at CSUDH through the services and support our program provides. The ultimate payoff is when they walk across that stage at graduation!”

The CSUDH Male Success Alliance office is located in the South Academic Complex, Room 2129. For more information, contact them at malesuccessalliance@csudh.edu or visit csudh.edu/msa.

Anne Soon Choi Named 2022 Lyle E. Gibson Distinguished Teacher

May 4, 2022 By Lilly McKibbin

Anne Soon Choi

Anne Soon Choi loves to teach. As professor and chair of Interdisciplinary studies, she is passionate about engaging students in critical thinking, enabling them to personally connect to their coursework, and facilitating hands-on learning.

“The best way to learn is by doing,” Choi says. “The most important thing is that my students walk away with skills that can be applied to their lives.”

That enthusiasm for teaching has earned Choi the 2022 Lyle E. Gibson Distinguished Teacher Award, given in honor of CSUDH’s late founding vice president for Academic Affairs. The award recognizes faculty who manifest in their teaching an understanding of broad areas of knowledge, and whose teaching is not only exemplary and demonstrates an active interest in student progress, but also seeks new and creative ways to engage them.

Choi enjoys surprising and challenging her students with unconventional assignments. Since 2009, she has taught IDS 326 Perspectives in Human Studies: American Consumerism, which entails a variety of introspective activities: students use spending diaries to track their purchases, wear the same six items of clothing for two weeks while trying to attract followers on social media, and make a “buyer’s remorse” presentation about an object they regret purchasing.

“I love that our students are game for anything,” Choi says. “They have a lot of enthusiasm for learning. It’s mutually sustaining and enjoyable.”

In addition to covering pollution, fast fashion, and food waste in her IDS 350 Interdisciplinary Topics: Environmental Health class, Choi instructs her class to carry all of their personal garbage around with them for two weeks. Students are often shocked at the amount of waste they unintentionally generate.

“By week two, no one is generating trash,” Choi says, laughing. “It changes their behavior.”

Choi also brings her zest for fresh ideas to her role as interim associate director of online pedagogy and learning for the Faculty Development Center, where she partners with CSUDH faculty looking to try new approaches in the classroom. Choi says that she cherishes working one-on-one with her peers and “wants them to enjoy teaching” as much as she does.

Part of Choi’s motivation stems from experiences she had attending a state school as a first-generation college student. She says that faculty interest and mentorship helped to put her on her career path, and she wants CSUDH students to flourish in the same way.

“I don’t believe in pushing students toward the safe thing to do. I think our students should have the autonomy to think really big,” she says. “I push against the ”˜culture of deficit’ sometimes associated with first-generation students. They should have the same opportunities every other college student has.”

In fact, it was the unique student population that initially made Choi want to become a permanent faculty member at CSUDH. Having taught at CSUDH as part of her graduate school program in 2008, Choi recalls being “blown away” by the determination exemplified by CSUDH students.

“They were juggling jobs, children, caring responsibilities, and school,” she says. “Some universities’ students can be very privileged, and that was not the case here.”

Over the past 14 years of teaching at CSUDH, Choi has seen how the transformational education students receive has ripple effects in their communities as well. She cites students’ involvement in their communities as a point of pride and daily inspiration to her teaching.

“Our students have so many ways in which they want to change the world,” she says. “How can you not be affected by that?”

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