CSUDH News

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

Research

Emerita Professor Wins Prestigious NEH Grant

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Engraved image of Catherine Maris Sedgwick
19th-century American author Catharine Maria Sedgwick.

CSUDH Emerita Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Patricia Kalayjian has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for her work creating a digital archive of the letters of 19th-century American author Catharine Maria Sedgwick.

Kalayjian is the project director of the endeavor, and is working with fellow Sedgwick scholars Deborah Gussman, professor of American Literature at Stockton University in New Jersey, and Lucinda Damon-Bach, professor of English at Salem State University in Massachusetts.

With the help of a small team of assistants, they are working to transcribe, verify, annotate, and cross-reference each of the thousands of letters that the seminal female author wrote during her lifetime. The text is then formatted using Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) tag sets and rules, making it digitally publishable and searchable by users.

“There have always been women writers,” says Kalayjian, “but generally speaking, they’ve been ignored in the literary history of the United States. Writers like Sedgwick were part of the literary conversation of the day. At the time she was writing, she was considered the peer of writers like William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper, and a lot of people then and now prefer her work to any of them!”

Sedgwick wrote six novels and over 100 pieces of short fiction during her career in the early 1800s, but has been somewhat forgotten over the past 200 years. Early scholars of American fiction were almost uniformly white males, so they tended to highlight the work of people like them rather than the so-called “domestic fiction” of female authors of the time. Kalayjian hopes that establishing a digital archive of her letters will enable future scholars to more easily study her work.

Kalayjian estimates that there are about 3,000 letters written by Sedgwick that have been preserved. This is largely because Sedgwick was a member of a wealthy, influential New England family—her father was Speaker of the House during John Adams’ presidency, and her siblings were successful lawyers and writers themselves. “They were famous and they kept everything,” says Kalayjian.

The letters Sedgwick wrote provide valuable insights into life in the early 1800s. “In her letters, you get the literary angle, but you also get the everyday life of a woman at the time,” says Kalayjian. “On one hand, Sedgwick was taking care of the family home in Stockbridge, making mince pies. But then she was also going to Washington, D.C. and being escorted around by Millard Fillmore. She had a really interesting life!”

Kalayjian taught courses in CSUDH’s Interdisciplinary Studies program from 1991 until her retirement in 2020. Since then, her scholarly pursuits have largely revolved around the Sedgwick project. Kalayjian’s group is partnering with the Primary Source Cooperative at the Massachusetts Historical Society in creating the digital archive.

This project is one of only four CSU-based projects to receive an NEH grant during their annual funding round, and it received the highest amount of all four—and more than most other awardees in California. “This is a very prestigious award for CSUDH,” says Tim Caron, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. “This grant is extremely competitive, and the work that Dr. Kalayjian and her colleagues are doing will have a big impact on reshaping narratives about 19th-century American literature.”

This is the second NEH grant that Kalayjian’s group has won for this project. They were awarded a $300,000 grant in 2020 that enabled them to start working on transcribing the letters.

Signal Tribune: As the City Prepares for Organic Waste Collection, North Long Beach Residents Show Initiative in Trial

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Green trash dumpsters.

Source: Signal Tribune

A handful of residents in a North Long Beach neighborhood tried their hand at organic waste collection this summer, giving a glimpse into the assurances and obstacles of an upcoming state-mandated program. 

The week-long project was led by Cal State University Dominguez Hills student Amber Alvarado, who is studying to be an ecologist and environmental scientist. 

Alvarado visited nearly 20 homes in July and handed residents fliers on what food and yard items to collect and the benefits of collecting organic waste. 

Senate Bill 1383 took effect in January 2022, requiring cities to implement a mandatory organic waste collection program. California set a goal to reduce organic waste disposal in landfills by 75% by 2025 and to reduce food waste by 20% in the same timeframe. 

Organic waste includes food scraps, yard trimmings, paper and cardboard, which currently makes up about half of California landfills, according to the bill. 

Since the bill went into effect, CalRecycle reported that 70% of California communities have implemented residential organic waste collections. 

Long Beach, like many other cities, has hit roadblocks in rolling out its residential organic waste program. The City’s Waste Diversion and Recycling Officer Erin Rowland told the Signal Tribune that one of the main roadblocks is a supply shortage of the trucks that will pick up organic waste.

Another obstacle is “a lack of infrastructure in the area to support the processing of organic materials,” according to the City’s website.  

The goal of Alvarado’s project was to explore resident’s willingness to learn about and participate in the organic waste collection program once it’s rolled out to residential areas. The City said there is no concrete timeline for the residential program as of now. 

Alvarado said 19 households agreed to participate in the project, but only six of these homes fully completed the program. Still, she said she was “pleasantly surprised” with her results. 

Community Survey Results

After giving the neighborhood a week to test their organic waste collection skills, Alvarado checked back in with residents to collect their bags of food and yard debris. She asked them questions created with the help of Long Beach City recycling specialists to gauge their experiences.

The 13 residents who had planned on participating but didn’t collect organic waste cited issues of time fulfillments such as scheduled vacations or they simply forgot to separate their waste. 

“This is what happens, it’s real-world situations and it’s still good that this happened,” Alvarado said.

Despite the mishaps, Alvarado was still able to collect 27 pounds of food scraps and yard debris. After removing non-compostable items such as plastic bags and bones with meat on them, she donated the remaining 25 pounds of organic waste to The Growing Experience urban farm in Long Beach.

Questionnaire results included: 

  • Most residents did not struggle separating their food waste into a separate container
  • Most residents did struggle to get other members of their family to separate their organic waste
  • Most residents said their collected food waste did not cause unwanted odor
  • Half of the participants said before the program they did not know how to separate organic waste
  • Most residents said that after the program, they feel confident separating and collecting organic waste

Alvarado said that the most surprising result was that only 10% of collected organic waste had to be removed. 

“I think it made me feel more hopeful that people are going to be able to do this … It’ll take some time to implement but I think it will be possible,” Alvarado said, adding that she suspects the educational fliers she handed out made a big difference in inspiring confidence. 

What Long Beach is doing now

Though Long Beach is not ready to implement the organic waste collection program in residential areas, it started a similar pilot program with 168 commercial businesses in 2021. 

Waste Diversion and Recycling Specialist Britney Coker-Moen told the Signal Tribune that as of the beginning of August, 168 tons of organic waste had been collected. In July, the City collected 25.1 tons of organic waste. 

Coker-Moen said the City is hoping to expand its pilot program to more businesses by the end of this year. 

Residents can enroll in free composting shops through Long Beach’s Environmental Services Bureau, where they can learn how to transform organic waste into nutrient soil. The next workshop will be on Aug. 26 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Michelle Obama Library (5870 Atlantic Ave.) and will be taught in Spanish. 

Long Beach will teach composting skills through a virtual workshop on Sept. 7 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. 

Residents can purchase a composting bin at a discounted rate through the City, but will currently be placed on a waiting list.

Conference Aims to Reframe Ethnic Studies Education

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Group image of visiting Ethnic Studies Education scholars
Attendees of the Ethnic Studies Education Conference at CSUDH in March.

In March, CSUDH hosted more than a dozen scholars from across the country for a three-day conference on Ethnic Studies Education. The event was made possible by a grant from the Education Research Conferences Program of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

The conference, held from March 8-10, coincides with a contentious national debate over how educators should be allowed to address racial inequity in the classroom and what pedagogical tools they should be permitted to employ.

Professor Tracy Buenavista.
Professor Tracy Buenavista of CSU Northridge.

Much of the work of Ethnic Studies Education–as well as dealing with the pushback from political leaders, faculty colleagues, and students–is something that educators in the discipline often experience in isolation, says Tracy Buenavista, professor of Asian American Studies at CSU Northridge.

“This conference is really an opportunity for educators to come together and affirm the important work they’re doing, and also for us to think about ways to make our work more intentionally collaborative,” Buenavista says.

It also offered the chance to create a new model for academic conferences–one that doesn’t move at a breakneck pace right from the start, says Edward Curammeng, associate professor and graduate program director in CSUDH’s College of Education.

“We’ve been spending so much time sharing each other’s stories, listening and checking in, and moving at the pace of the group,” Curammeng says. “Spaces in higher education can be very violent. We’re asking how we can be more restorative.”

David Stovall is a professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. With Curammeng and Buenavista, he served as a principal investigator for the Ethnic Studies Education conference.

“One of our colleagues recently said that if you’re engaged in Ethnic Studies, are you willing to ask the question, ‘Do students have a deeper sense of love for themselves as a result of the work that you’re doing?’” Stovall says.

Portrait of Dr. David Stovall
Professor David Stovall of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“That’s antithetical to traditional research, but it’s a really important reminder for me in terms of how to keep our sights on the most important part of the work we do.”

The stakes for Ethnic Studies Education can be high, says Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, a professor in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University who mentored Curammeng and Buenavista as graduate students.

“I took my first Ethnic Studies class as a community college student in 1989. It was a class that changed my life. In many ways, it saved my life,” Tintiangco-Cubales says. “A big part of Ethnic Studies is bringing marginalized voices to the center. But the real goal is liberation. The real goal is to eradicate racism. That’s the part that makes some people uncomfortable.”

Daniel Solórzano is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at UCLA, where he also serves as director of the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education. His research and teaching have influenced generations of Ethnic Studies students, including many conference attendees, but his journey began humbly enough at an East LA public library.

“We didn’t even have a library at my elementary school. So the nuns told me to go to the Lincoln Heights library, a small community library where I grew up,” Solórzano told the conference. The librarian introduced him to Jet magazine.

CSUDH Associate Professor Ed Currameng.
CSUDH Associate Professor Ed Curammeng.

“I wrote a book report on Black baseball players, and that opened me up to a whole area about which I had no clue. As I got older, Jet was a big part of my curriculum. It introduced me to Malcolm X and the Black Power movement,” Solózano said.

The conference was a first step toward preparing a book proposal to be submitted to AERA on Ethnic Studies Education, Curammeng says. “We’ll consider what that handbook might look like, but we’re also looking for sponsors to fund additional symposia and expand our network.”

In the meantime, the work inside the conference and among Ethnic Studies educators is helping the discipline evolve, says Buenavista.

“When people think about Ethnic Studies, they think about how we have to describe the oppression and damage that has been done to our communities,” she says.

“What I think all the scholars are doing here in terms of Ethnic Studies Education is reframing the starting point as the present goodness, the joy and thriving within communities of color, instead of just the racial equity gaps.”

John Price Wins 2023 Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award

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Portrait of John Price in computer lab.

To hear John Price tell it, his work in experimental physics most resembles the preparation of an Ikea assembly guide.

“What I’m trying to do is better understand the structure of the atomic nucleus and its constituents–protons and neutrons,” says Price, professor of physics at CSUDH. “Let’s say you go to Ikea and purchase a proton construction kit. I’m one of the guys writing the book that explains how it gets put together.”

Price has spent the better part of two decades pioneering research into how short-lived beams can be used to better map atomic nuclei. It is in acknowledgement of this groundbreaking research that Price has been named the 2023 Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award. The award recognizes work by faculty on the frontier of their discipline that is an essential component of the university’s mission and that stimulates student learning.

Much of Price’s work takes place at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va. “Any time you look at a proton with a particle accelerator, you’re limited in the properties that any given particle can access. I can shoot a proton at another proton, or an electron at a proton,” he says.

“But if I want to get a more complete picture, I have to find other particles with which I can probe the proton.”

Price has been the recipient of numerous Department of Energy grants for proton research that help fund student research trips to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia.

Those other particles include lambda particles–short-lived beams that decay after a mere 1/10 billionth of a second. A detector inside the accelerator tracks the movements, or scattering, of lambda particles from the moment they’re created to the moment they decay.

Price works with a team of about 200 other researchers from universities around the world to create and analyze data gathered by the detector. Undergraduate students also play an essential role, during visits to the accelerator and in the distributed computing lab on campus where much of the data gets evaluated.

“I work with a detector that’s three stories tall. My students and I built a good chunk of it,” says Price, adding that the sheer volume of data amassed daily–the equivalent of a modern-sized public library–requires dozens of networked computers and the use of custom algorithms to process.

The ability to get hands-on experience in cutting-edge research, learning how to conduct data analysis using distributed computer clusters, and having access to world-class scholars from around the world are only a few of the advantages that CSUDH physics students enjoy.

“The undergraduates in my lab know a tremendous amount more about nuclear physics than undergraduate physics majors in general,” Price says. “Well over 90 percent of them go on to graduate school, and the best of them I would happily put up against those of any other school in the country.”

Price has taught at CSUDH for nearly 18 years and says it’s the students that have kept him at the university. “The students at this school really appreciate what we do here,” he says.

“For me, research, scholarship, and creative activity really just mean all the things that we as faculty do that help our students get motivated to take the next step in whatever they’re doing after they leave us.”

Horace Crogman Wins 2023 Lyle E. Gibson Distinguished Teacher Award

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Portrait of Horace Crogman

Innovation has become a byword for Horace Crogman. As an associate professor of physics at CSUDH, he is a vocal advocate for active learning strategies in the classroom.

What drives that innovation is a desire to find new educational pathways, not just for physics but for all academic disciplines. Crogman’s efforts to improve academic outcomes by creating deeper educational connections has earned him the 2023 Lyle E. Gibson Distinguished Teacher Award.

“This award is in part a vindication of my firm commitment to embracing new methodologies to reach students where they are and giving them the critical tools necessary for success,” Crogman says.

“I want every student to know how committed I am to their success, and I want them to look back on their time with me and feel that same commitment to help others learn in whatever way they can.”

Named in honor of Lyle E. Gibson, the late founding Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Distinguished Teaching Award acknowledges faculty who demonstrate a mastery of their subject matter, an understanding of broad areas of knowledge, a deep and active interest in student success, and the ability to engage students in new and creative ways.

“The major weakness of traditional pedagogy is that it’s disconnected from the students it tries to engage,” Crogman says. “Active learning considers the student as a whole and moves you from simply delivering content to forging a connection.”

In Fall 2022, Crogman spearheaded CSUDH’s involvement, along with nine other universities across the country, in a program that introduced virtual reality to the teaching of his introductory physics class. With assistance from CSUDH’s IT department, he created a VR lab where students learn via in-class lectures and VR-augmented learning.

“Virtual reality is an active learning situation that actually immerses students in places where I can’t go in a traditional lecture,” Crogman says, adding that students emerge from class in the VR lab motivated to excel by a more visceral engagement with the course work.

Read more about Horace Crogman in our Spring issue of CSUDH Magazine.

Crogman’s passion for teaching mirrors his own thirst for knowledge and a natural inclination to push boundaries. His intellectual curiosity as a graduate student, which was strongly encouraged by his professors at the time, ultimately led to a post-doctoral fellowship in France, where he was able to make important contributions to our understanding of molecular physics.

“This is what I want for my students. I don’t think about deficit mindsets,” Crogman says. “I give my students the freedom to explore in an environment I create to provide certain skill sets. That’s why I say that educators must master many pedagogies, because they each allow you to connect to students in different ways.”

That connection with students is vital to Crogman’s educational philosophy and to the legacy he hopes to leave behind. “I want every student to know how committed I am to their success, and I want them to look back on their time with me and feel that same commitment to help others learn in whatever way they can.”