Nursing student Serena Palaroan
Nursing student chosen as CSU Trustee Scholar
Third year Nursing student, Serena Palaroan, is one of 23 students selected as a 2023-2024 CSU Trustees’ Scholar. The CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, which is the highest student distinction within the university, grants students scholarships based on academic achievements, financial need, and excellence in community service. One student from each CSU campus is chosen. Each scholarship awards a different amount; Palaroan’s will be $7,000 as a Trustee Emerita Debra S. Farar Scholar. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-palaroan
Faculty will use national fellowship to research needs of aging population
Ventura County’s senior population (age 65+) is expected to increase 14% this year to 224,812, outpacing the overall growth of the county population, which is projected to increase just 2% to 884,148 in 2023. CSUCI Assistant Professor of Health Science Ron Berkowsky is researching ways to address the increased need for caregiving this will require, as well as the unique needs of the county’s older Americans, including the aging LGBTQ+ population. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-berkowsky
Archives from former Ventura County Supervisor Carmen Ramirez donated
Part of the legacy of former Ventura County Supervisor Carmen Ramirez can be found in the thank you notes from the school classrooms she visited. The children’s letters are included among the 15 boxes of documents, planners, diaries, proclamations, and even favorite cartoons collected by Ramirez during 45 years of service to the region before her life was cut short in a pedestrian accident on Aug. 12, 2022. Ramirez’s husband, friends and family organized the archives and donated them to CSUCI this past summer. Ramirez’s husband, Roy Prince, believes CSUCI is the ideal place for the archives as she worked from the very beginning to advocate for establishing a CSU campus in Ventura County. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-ramirez
Grant to fund pre-K teacher preparation program
CSUCI has received $250,000 to develop an affordable program through which students can complete a bachelor’s degree and preparation requirements for California’s new early-childhood teaching credential in four years. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing awarded the grant as part of an effort to support fast-tracked teacher-preparation programs in fields where there are workforce shortages. CSUCI’s program will help fill the critical need for transitional kindergarten, or prekindergarten, teachers, particularly those with bilingual education credentials. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-prek-grant
CSUCI’s Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and
Chemistry/Biochemistry programs are all in involved in the research project.
NASA awards grant for student-led research project
Faculty and students from four CSUCI academic programs are working together on a research project that has been awarded $80,000 by NASA. Faculty and 10 students from CSUCI’s Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and Chemistry/Biochemistry programs, are involved in the research project, which is aimed at developing a way to predict how quickly various metal structures corrode in different environments. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-nasa-grant
Administrator learns about agricultural careers as US Fellow
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the world of agriculture in general needs workers, and not always in the realms of crops or livestock. Workers are needed in scores of other areas outside of the farm, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture itself.
“You don’t have to be a scientist or a farmer,” said CSUCI Assistant Vice President for Student Academic Success & Equity Initiatives, Michelle Hasendonckx. “The USDA needs people with experience in human resources, communication specialists, accountants, project managers — people from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds make up this huge department. And these are career opportunities nationwide.”
Hasendonckx learned about the current needs of the agriculture industry when she was selected as one of 30 staff and faculty members from Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) around the nation to be a part of the 2023 class of E. Kika De La Garza fellows. To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-mh.
CSUCI named a Tree Campus USA and earns Gold rating for sustainable practices
Commitment to the roughly 1,600 trees on the CSUCI campus has earned the University a Tree Campus USA designation for the 11th year in a row. In addition, CSUCI’s rigorous sustainability practices have earned the University Gold status under STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System), a program run by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). To read more visit: go.csuci.edu/channel-tc-usa
Artwork created by ’15 Art alumna Jessica Chiang and a graphic designer in CSUCI's Communication & Public Relations office, was reproduced on a banner to welcome the campus community, future students and visitors. The banner is 55’ wide and 7’ high and was installed at San Luis Ave near Sage Hall where buses drop off and pick up students and visitors to the campus.