Source: Clean Earth Challenge As part of the CSUDH Day of Service (California State University, Dominguez Hills, CA) and the Clean Earth Challenge, 20 student volunteers participated in a campus cleanup. The goal was to collect trash to make their campus environment cleaner and to spread awareness about how important it is to prevent trash from entering the waterways that lead to the nearby ocean. The Office of Sustainability and The Center for Service-Learning, Internships & Civic Engagement (SLICE) helped organize the event led by Zero Waste Coordinator and TRUE™ Zero Waste Advisor, Scarlett Zamora. For the cleanup, the entire campus was split into quadrants and participants ... Read More
SLICE
Jessica Ramirez Named Jumpstart Site Manager of the Year
CSUDH Jumpstart Site Manager Jessica Ramirez has been named the inaugural winner of their national Site Manager of the Year Award. The award recognizes Ramirez' work in guiding the office at CSUDH in their partnerships with local schools, providing language, literacy, and social-emotional programming for preschool children in the local community. Jumpstart is a national early education organization with branches in 15 states and Washington, DC. The CSUDH office partners with Compton Headstart, offering assistance and programming in eight classrooms in three local preschools. “We bring in language and literacy development tools, curriculum, and activities that we work with or provide to ... Read More
Holiday Toy Drives Showcase Toro Generosity
Generous members of the Toro community turned out for a pair of on-campus toy drives during the first weeks of December. The drives were sponsored by CSUDH's Center for Service Learning, Internships and Civic Engagement (SLICE) and its Jumpstart program; and the CSUDH Police Department (DHPD). As a result, hundreds of children from underserved communities received holiday gifts. The SLICE/Jumpstart “Totes for Tots” drive was in its fifth year, said SLICE coordinator Miami Gatpandan. “We work with preschools in Compton and recognized that this was a real need for many of the children there. We've partnered with a lot of departments over the years, including the Office of External ... Read More
Cheryl McKnight Honored with CSU’s Faculty Innovation and Leadership Award
In the 1990s, when gang violence in Los Angeles County was at its peak, Cheryl McKnight was a member of the Gang Prevention and Intervention Unit in Long Beach. She helped initiate a truce between the East Side Longos and Insane Crips gangs, resulting in a long-standing peace that remains to this day. She soon became director of the city's Future Generations Youth Center, where she enabled marginalized youth to take some ownership of the program. In 2007, she joined California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) and used what she learned about empowering to expand experiential learning and service opportunities for students as coordinator for the Center for Service Learning, ... Read More
CSUDH Jumpstart Celebrates 10 Years of Service
Editor's Note: Interviews for this article took place in late 2019. It's 9 a.m. on a school day, but Paola Gonzalez isn't in a lecture hall. She's leading a rapt circle of four-year-olds in a rousing rendition of “Slippery Fish” at the YWCA preschool in Compton. “Slippery fish, slippery fish, gulp gulp gulp,” she sings, wriggling her hands as the children squeal with delight. Gonzalez, a fourth-year theatre arts major at CSUDH, is well experienced in putting on a show. As a team leader for Jumpstart, she has ample opportunity to put those creative skills to good use. Each week, Gonzalez and her team of fellow Jumpstart volunteers plan and deliver an engaging curriculum for local ... Read More
