The Flame
Spring 2021
THE MAGAZINE OF CLAREMONT GRADAUATE UNIVERSITY
Sign of the Times Racial injustice isn’t going away. In their work, William Camargo (MFA, ’20) and Daniel Solórzano (PhD, Education, ’86) look at the reasons why.
Who’s in the Top 2% of Most-Cited Scientists?
Repurposing an Iconic Claremont Colleges Landmark
Lone Star Politics: A Student’s View of Texas Republican Women
Remembering Roland Reiss, 1929-2020
Spring 2021
The Magazine of Claremont Graduate University cgu.edu
Claremont Graduate University PRESIDENT
Len Jessup EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND PROVOST
Patricia Easton VICE PRESIDENT OF FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION / TREASURER
Leslie Negritto VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC INNOVATION, STUDENT SUCCESS & STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
Diane Chase VICE PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT & EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Kristen Andersen-Daley VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
Cynthia Baker
Planned Giving
DIRECTOR, ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT & ANNUAL GIVING
Rachel Jimenez | alumni@cgu.edu
Magazine EDITOR
Nick Owchar MANAGING EDITOR
You’re a Part of Our Family, Make Us a Part of Yours Charity begins at home, the saying goes, and Claremont Graduate University embraces a “Family First” philosophy in planned giving. Through our program, choose a method of giving that first protects your family’s needs, but also offers greater tax savings and helps CGU. Here are a few ways: A gift in your will. Naming Claremont Graduate University in your will or living trust can be appealing because you may change your mind at any time. By leaving a percentage to CGU, gifts to your loved ones remain proportional no matter how your estate fluctuates over time. Retirement plan assets. Find out about the unique tax savings you get by donating part or all of your required minimum distribution for the year to CGU. Charitable gift annuity. This form of legacy giving allows you to shape the future of CGU while you receive fixed, dependable payments for life. For more information call or email us at 909-607-9225 or give@cgu.edu.
myplannedgift.cgu.edu
Gerard Babb ART DIRECTOR / DESIGNER
Gina Pirtle PHOTOGRAPHERS
William Vasta, Laurel Hungerford CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Jeremy Byrum, Lynell George, Tom Johnson COPY EDITORS
Megan Elledge, Eugene Song ADVERTISING
Mary Romo | mary.romo@cgu.edu The Flame is published by Claremont Graduate University’s Office of Marketing & Communications. flame@cgu.edu Send address changes or personal updates to: Office of Alumni Engagement Claremont Graduate University 150 E. 10th Street, Claremont, CA 91711 alumni@cgu.edu Claremont Graduate University, founded in 1925, focuses exclusively on graduate-level study. It is a member of The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven independent educational institutions. © 2021 Claremont Graduate University
FPO
In This Issue
14
Cover Stories In their works, alumni William Camargo and Daniel Solórzano look at racism’s past and present and how lasting solutions require understanding.
12
Repurposing an Iconic Landmark CGU’s purchase of the Huntley Bookstore building paves the way for a new center devoted to health and well-being research— and a careful, delicate renovation of its historic features.
26
The Situation in Texas Doctoral student Eveline Gnabasik studies the key challenges facing Republican women politicians in the Lone Star State.
2 President’s Message 3 In the News 28 Bookshelf
A memoir of folk music and family, a new look at James Joyce’s masterpiece, a robust defense of America’s founding principles, and more.
32 The Big Picture 34 Alumni Engagement
Announcing CGU’s new alumni book club; plus the recipients of the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Awards.
36 Class Notes
24
Healthcare’s Future The global pandemic has highlighted the problems with healthcare systems: Alumnus Terry McGann offers a possible solution.
20 DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
14
42
Roland, The One and Only A look back at the life and art of Roland Reiss, who passed away last December and is credited with creating CGU’s renowned MFA program.
46 In Memoriam Remembering the achievements of Billie Jean Wiebe, Rey Monzon, William Mellon Jr., and other departed members of the CGU family. 48 End Paper A visit to the Harper Hall courtyard and its architectural delights. Cover art: William Camargo, We Gunna Have To Move Out Soon Fam THE FLAME Spring 2021
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First Word | President’s Message
A Photo 15 Years in the Making The best partnerships need time to grow and thrive.
O SUPPORTING HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES: The December 2020 presentation of a $14-million check from San Manuel Band of Mission Indians to CGU features (from left) San Manuel Chair Ken Ramirez, San Manuel Business Committee Member Johnny Hernandez, and CGU President Len Jessup.
n a windy morning last December, I stood on the Huntley Bookstore’s front steps with members of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians to make CGU history. Through a partnership and a $14-million gift from the Tribe, our university has purchased the building that served as the Claremont Colleges’ central bookstore for 50 years. That iconic building completes our campus footprint and will become the home of an exciting transdisciplinary health research center (for more on that and the building’s architectural background, see page 12) that will help our region’s underserved populations. As we’ve seen in the COVID-19 crisis, public health presents complex challenges that no single discipline can solve on its own. You need to bring scholars together to address it in a transdisciplinary way, which we plan to do in our Yuhaaviatam Center for Health Studies. Turning this vision into a reality wouldn’t have been possible without our partnership with San Manuel. The best associations need time to grow and thrive. Ours with San Manuel dates back to the early 2000s with the creation of the university’s Tribal Administration program. I’m thankful to the Tribe for taking this bold new step with us to serve communities that are struggling with the kinds of proactive health research they need. Our San Manuel partnership is just one of the many exciting highlights and developments during a very challenging 2020. As this new issue of The Flame attests, our CGU community continued to achieve and make a positive difference in people’s lives despite the impact of the pandemic on our daily lives. Over the past year and a half, CGU and other higher education institutions have faced many hurdles, but I remain incredibly optimistic about where our university is headed. With our centennial just four years away, we have many exciting initiatives planned. I look forward to working with all of you on CGU’s future.
Len Jessup President Claremont Graduate University 2 | Claremont Graduate University
Comments
BUYING THE HUNTLEY For news about the Huntley Bookstore purchase, see Page 12 It is satisfying to see progress being made and heartwarming to know that CGU is in good hands. The Claremont community appreciates the exceptional leadership that Len Jessup has brought to the school and to Claremont. The best is yet to come! Arman Ariane Owner, Xerxes for Gents From Facebook This will help out our community immensely! Congratulations, Claremont Graduate University! And thank you, San Manuel Band of Mission Indians! Kunaal Kapoor (MPH ’18; MBA,’ 19) From LinkedIn Years ago, while studying for my first MBA in Spearfish, South Dakota, I was a member of a federal research group. The research and investigation concerned “Native Americans’ health issues compared to White people” in Pine Ridge and other reservations in South Dakota and surrounding states. I visited Pine Ridge Reservation and others several times. The research was published in a health journal. Years passed by, and I had health issues, had several surgeries. I recovered a couple of years ago. I know the importance of health well. I empathize. I see that we still have a long way to go. Conduct more research to improve Native Americans’ health. Since white people conquered the Americas, native people’s health and culture degraded. Compared to white people and other ethnic groups, native people’s life spans are still shorter. Especially type I and II diabetes, suicides, injuries, and respiratory diseases are still common. I hope research at CGU can effectively analyze native people’s health problems and improve their quality of life. Alp Toygar (MS, Information Systems & Technology, ’17; MA, Politics and Policy,’ 20) From LinkedIn
A TROJAN HORSE I was touched by Jonah [Elijah] Jackson’s (MFA’ 20) mural memorializing George Floyd. Unfortunately, Black Lives Matter, mentioned twice in a profile of Jackson in the fall 2020 issue of The Flame, is a Marxist Trojan Horse using well-meaning concern about racial injustice to make the USA a communist country. BLM’s official websites make this clear. Most explicit is the BLM Manifesto, which, among other things, “demands” the following: 1) replacing the U.S. Constitution with one modeled after Russia’s or Cuba’s; 2) nationalization of all economic activity, including healthcare and weapons production (no free enterprise or private weapon possession); 3) forced transfer of wealth through punitive taxation of the wealthy (which includes the middle class); 4) replacement of police by “unarmed mediation and intervention teams;” and 5) property confiscation of most churches and other religious institutions for complicity in slavery and other racial injustice. Until Sept. 21, 2020, the main BLM website called for “disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” [Search for “Black Lives Matter Wayback Machine.”] Howard R. Killion (MA, History,’ 65) PhD, History, Duke U; Retired Mentor, International Students, Inc. THE TIES THAT BIND Learning opportunities across modalities will no doubt remain a strength of CGU, just as CGU (Drucker, ’11) & the Claremont Colleges (PO,’ 98) have met other challenges for me in the past. In terms of value, the most room to grow for us, the CGU community, is in how valuable we can make the alumni network for each other, living into the synergistic potential of the community. I want to be in touch with more of my classmates and CGU alumni, so I will be getting in touch again with current alumni relations folks! Anybody, feel free to reach out! K. Grady (Kiya) Kersh (MBA’ 11) From LinkedIn
REMEMBERING ROLAND REISS Roland Reiss, who passed away in December, looms large in the lives of MFA students such as me. I speak for many when I say I consider him as an “art father” who nurtured me at a crucial and formative time in my creative development. I am a media artist, not a painter, yet his impact on me as a thinking and practicing artist persists. He stands as an example of what an art professor should be—one who pushes and prods, drawing on concepts in philosophy and anthropology alongside a formal discussion of technique and composition. I count myself lucky that my MFA coincided with Reiss’s retirement and retrospective. We celebrated along with him as we graduated. We celebrated him. For his retrospective opening, I projected an animation of his paintings onto a white sheet cake. His colorful abstractions made an ideal cake design. The icing read, “Everyone wants a piece.” He got a kick out of that! He and his wife Dawn Arrowsmith frequently welcomed me back to their studios, sharing process and ideas. I continue to be dazzled by his paintings of flowers, which he deemed “Unrepentant & Unapologetic Flowers” in 2019. They return me to a lecture on color theory at CGU two decades ago, when he brought to vivid life the history of seeing and thinking about color. Mostly, he has taught me how to be an artist for an entire life, to take creative risks, and to integrate one’s humanity with one’s art. When last we spoke, Dawn shared that, though his mobility was challenged, Roland was drawing constantly and that those drawings are wonderful. Roland Reiss is a wonder, and I miss him dearly. Lucy HG Solomon (MFA’ 01) From Instagram SEND US YOUR COMMENTS: The Flame invites your feedback. Send your correspondence to marcom@cgu.edu for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for space and to conform with CGU publication guidelines. THE FLAME Spring 2021
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In the News
By the Numbers NASA/JPL-Caltech
146.89 $14 trillion million
Number of minutes allotted to impress the judges in this year’s Big Pitch competition. See Page 7
Miles from Earth to Mars, where the Perseverance rover landed in February as part of a NASA mission that Sergio Valdez (MBA, ’03) helped lead. See Page 10
Gift from San Manuel Band of Mission Indians to purchase the Huntley Bookstore building; one of the largest gifts in CGU’s history. See Page 12
Number of CGU faculty members included in a new Stanford list of the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists. What are their names? Find out on Page 5
Square footage of the Huntley Bookstore building, which will be transformed into the Yuhaaviatam Center for Health Studies. See Page 12
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COVID-19 UPDATE
COMMENCEMENT 2021
HOW WILL THE FALL SEMESTER LOOK? AS OF
CGU STAGED A VIRTUAL COMMENCEMENT
the publication of this issue, the answer is: We’re still not sure. This shouldn’t be surprising as the intensity of the pandemic continues, and public health authorities continue to work on vaccine distribution in Claremont and across the U.S. In a January message to the university community, CGU President Len Jessup said that “the safety of all members of our broader community will be the primary determination for the timeline of our eventual return.” Along with other institutions, CGU is currently taking measures to prepare for returning to campus in the fall even though county and state guidelines haven’t changed. The university’s personnel are looking at various strategies that involve a full return to in-person instruction, partial return, a continuation of the hybrid online flex model, and more. l
ceremony on May 15 for the graduating Class of 2021. The online celebration also featured remarks by student speaker Nicole Dawson, who completed her MBA this spring; and Roberta Jenkins (pictured), a longtime CGU supporter and former School of Educational Studies advisory board member who was this year’s recipient of an honorary doctorate. More than 400 students received master’s and doctoral degrees this season and became the newest members of CGU’s 23,000-strong alumni community. Welcome to the club! Visit cgu.edu/ commencement for more information about this year’s ceremony and special video content. l
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THE TWO PERCENTERS HOW OFTEN DOES A SCHOLAR’S SCIENTIFIC WORK GET CITED
NANO NANO COINING A NEW TERM ISN’T EASY TO DO: AT CGU, ONE OF THE
most successful practitioners is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose use of the word “flow” to describe a psychological state of concentration has become a common household expression today. Now his colleague, Associate Professor of Psychology M. Gloria González-Morales (pictured), with her students Megan Benzing, Alyssa Birnbaum, and Chloe Darlington, have come up with another term to describe many people’s experiences during the pandemic—“nano transitions.” You’ve probably experienced a nano transition if, working from home, you’ve been pulled away from your computer to get the mail, fold the laundry, let the dog out, or make lunch for your children. González-Morales and her team use this term to describe the barrier separating work from the rest of one’s life, which has become increasingly porous for many since quarantine started in March 2020. The business news site Quartz At Work talked to González-Morales about these transitions and how they can positively influence working at home. In order to qualify as a “nano transition,” she says, the interruption must be autonomous, intentional, and regulated, or AIR (a nifty acronym!). Nano transitions can give our brains some much-needed relief. These small shifts of attention are actually essential to staying productive and avoiding burnout. Podcast: Listen to González-Morales discuss “nano transitions” on CGU’s Sharing Air podcast (season two, episode two). Go to cgu.edu/news/podcasts. l
Nano transitions: the barrier separating work from the rest of life
by other scholars? Whose work gets cited most? That’s what a group of researchers at Stanford University wanted to find out. They created a database of the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists in various scientific disciplines. The results were published in the journal PLOS Biology, and ten CGU scholars made the cut. The lion’s share comes from the Division of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences: Andrew Conway, William Crano, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Michael Hogg, Stuart Oskamp, and Kathy Pezdek. CGU’s other scholars on the list are Hrushikesh Mhaskar from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences; Alan Stacy from the School of Community & Global Health; Paul Zak from the Division of Politics & Economics; and the late Magid Igbaria, who had been a member of the precursor to the Center for Information Systems & Technology, the School of Information Science. The list is based on several factors, including standardized citations, H-Index, co-authorship, and a composite indicator. According to two-percenter Crano, prospective students should take note of reports like this one, which underscore CGU’s reputation as the home of active scholars. Scientific citations provide a solid, quantitative sense of a university’s standing in the academic science world. “CGU has a very productive group of scholars, and it’s good to see this confirmed by the Stanford report,” he said. “This is an aspect of the CGU academic experience that’s important for our students to understand. They are working, and often co-authoring, with very prolific researchers whose work is being used by many other scholars in the field.” l
“ This is an aspect of the CGU academic experience that’s important for our students to understand. They are working, and often co-authoring, with very prolific researchers whose work is being used by many other scholars in the field.”
THE FLAME Spring 2021
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In the News
John Murillo’s Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry is a deeply considered, impeccably selective, resonant, radiant book.
Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers is Jake Skeets’s poignant response to the violent death of his uncle Benson.
6 | Claremont Graduate University
2021 KINGSLEY & KATE TUFTS POETRY AWARDS WINNERS SINCE 1992, THE KINGSLEY TUFTS Poetry Award has been a world-renowned annual award in poetry that honors a mid-career poet with a $100,000 prize. A year after its establishment, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award was started to also honor an emerging voice in poetry with a $10,000 award. The book selected as this year’s Kingsley Tufts winner is John Murillo’s Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, a powerful collection that examines the brutal legacy of racial injustice. The book chosen as this year’s Kate Tufts winner is Jake Skeets’s Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, a searing exploration of sexual identity as well as the history of a famous photo of the author’s late uncle. Both poets were notified of their selection during a special “call the winner” celebration held on Zoom in April. To learn more about this year’s winners, visit arts.cgu.edu/ tufts-poetry-awards. l
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RANKING NEWS Top 50 in History: CGU has been named among Intelligent.com’s annual Top 50 Master’s Degree Programs in History. Nearly 200 colleges and universities were assessed by Intelligent.com, a Seattle-based firm using a wide range of factors for its methodology, including an algorithm that draws data from other existing rankings and publicly available information. CGU’s program is well ahead of comparable programs at Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, and other peer institutions; Intelligent.com also singled out our department as “Best for Museum Curators.” FE’s Rise Continues: Over the last five years, the Financial Engineering Program has made steady progress in the ranks of QuantNet’s “The Best Financial Engineering Programs,” which presents the nation’s top 30 schools and is the field’s gold standard for rankings. That rise continued this year as CGU’s program moved up to 22 from 27 two years ago. With this year’s ranking, our FE program has moved to its highest position since 2014. U.S. News & World Report: The Drucker School’s Flex MBA program moved up a whopping 39 slots in this year’s U.S. News & World Report national rankings to tie with Pepperdine’s part-time MBA program at 73. In Southern California, the program’s success also places it among the top eight in the region. l
THREE MINUTES THAT MATTER MOST OF US HAVE
heard about the “elevator pitch”—a quick, effective way of summarizing your business proposal in the time it takes an elevator to move between floors. So, what if you were given three minutes instead? That’s the idea behind CGU’s The Big Pitch, a competition held earlier this year and associated with the popular worldwide student competition known as the 3MT (three-minute thesis).
Six student finalists competed for cash prizes of $1,000 (first place), $500 (second place), and $250 (third place) (with $150 going to the remaining finalists for their participation). First place went to School of Educational Studies doctoral student Vinh Tran (pictured), whose prize-winning presentation was “Shortest Way Home: Developing an Interstate Policy Exchange Framework for K-12 Math and Science Education.” For organizer Marcus Weakley, who serves as director of the university’s Center for Writing and Rhetoric, participating students received something more valuable than cash prizes: A good lesson in the power and importance of keeping ideas clear, focused, and—above all—succinct. l
MAKING ART ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL HOW DO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES EXPERIENCE
a painting or a sculpture or an installation? Shouldn’t artists (and museums) think more about the experiences of this important group of supporters? Such questions formed the basis of a project done by Katrina Sullivan (MA, Arts Management, ’19) in the course “Research & Evaluation for the Arts,” which was taught by Bronwyn Mauldin. The last thing Sullivan expected was that Mauldin—who serves as director of research and evaluation with the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture— would say her project deserved to be expanded into a full-fledged county report. Sullivan continued her research and writing—under Mauldin’s guidance and help as co-author—and together they completed “Accessibility and the Arts: Reconsidering the Role of the Artist,” a new report co-published by the university’s Center for the Business & Management of the Arts and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. The report, which appeared in late 2020 (coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act), lays out challenges facing disabled art lovers and ways to improve their access.
Sullivan never expected a classroom assignment to turn into a county-endorsed report with the potential of improving people’s lives. “Working on this for the county was very rewarding,” she says. “It made me realize that, as a student, my opinions and thoughts were valued. As a student, I could make a real contribution that matters.” Visit lacountyarts.org to read the report. l THE FLAME Spring 2021
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In the News
PHOTOGRAPH Alicia Cheatham
TURNING A SERIOUS TREND AROUND DEFY VENTURES AND THE DRUCKER SCHOOL OF
ART@CGU
Portrait of a Hypochondriac Smoking (Oil on canvas) by MFA student Marissa Reyes; featured in Never After (It’s Always Now), a virtual exhibit by current students in CGU’s MFA program. Visit the exhibit: cgumfa.wixsite.com/neverafter l
‘A PASSIONATE BELIEVER IN THE DRUCKER PHILOSOPHY’ DAVID SPROTT, A PROLIFIC SCHOLAR OF MARKETING AND FORMER DEAN
of the University of Wyoming’s College of Business, has joined the Drucker School of Management as its new dean. CGU Provost Patricia Easton announced Sprott’s selection in a message to the university community earlier this year. “David brings a depth and breadth of experience to CGU,” Easton said. Sprott “has significant international experience and is passionate about the critical role of international experience and opportunities not only for students but also for faculty and staff.” Sprott, who led the drive for online programs and enhanced philanthropic engagement, and implemented various diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at Wyoming’s business school, will assume the titles of Henry Y. Hwang Dean and Professor of Marketing at the Drucker School. Easton describes him as “a passionate believer in the Drucker philosophy and a staunch proponent of enhancing that legacy for our next generation of students.” l 8 | Claremont Graduate University
Management have created a new partnership to provide current and formerly incarcerated individuals with a certificate in entrepreneurship to help them successfully transition back into their communities. For several years, Defy Ventures has offered a curriculum in business skills to train incarcerated people nationwide and show them how to start a business and improve their employment outlook. Now, by collaborating with the Drucker School, the nonprofit organization will leverage Drucker’s deep experience in management—as well as opportunities for faculty and students—to enhance its entrepreneurship curriculum and programming in California’s prison system. “What Defy does is transformational, for its program participants and volunteers alike,” said Jonathan T. D. Neil, director of CGU’s Center for Business and Management of the Arts, which spearheaded the partnership. “We are excited for our students to learn not only from Defy’s programs but also about Defy as an organization.” l
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Leadership Updates CGU ADDS FOUR NEW MEMBERS TO ITS BOARD WITH THE NEW YEAR, CGU’S BOARD OF TRUSTEES WELCOMED
four new members who bring deep legal, legislative, and financial experience to the role of stewarding the university: Terry McGann (PhD, Political Philosophy & Government, ’75), a healthcare policy expert whose business, entrepreneurial, and academic experience spans 45 years and includes legislative and executive advocacy; Vanessa Okwuraiwe, a principal of the financial services company Edward Jones, who arrives with a focus on developing
Terry McGann
Vanessa Okwuraiwe
and sustaining an inclusive and supportive corporate environment; Nancy B. Rapoport, the Garman Turner Gordon Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and an Affiliate Professor of Business Law & Ethics in the Lee Business School at UNLV; and Steven R. Ross, a partner with the international law firm Akin Gump. Ross has represented and counseled numerous clients at the highest levels of government, business, and the nonprofit world. l
Nancy B. Rapoport
Steven R. Ross
TRUSTEES IN THE NEWS OSCAR NOMINEE: Mohannad S.
Malas is co-executive producer of The Present, a 25-minute drama by Farah Nabulsi that was nominated for a 2021 Academy Award in the Best Live Action Short Film category. Set in the West Bank, the film follows the journey of Yusef and his young daughter as they navigate checkpoints to buy a gift for his wife on their wedding anniversary. It has been nominated for and won multiple awards this year, including two awards at the Palm Springs International ShortFest and Best Short Film at the 2021 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. Malas joined CGU’s Board of Trustees in 2009. l
TOP RANKING: Laila Pence, a
member of CGU’s Board of Trustees since 2016, has been ranked #1 in Forbes’ “Best-InState Wealth Advisors” category for 2021. In 2020, Pence was also ranked at #6 among “America’s Top Women Advisors.” She and husband Ray are co-founders of the Orange County-based firm Pence Wealth Management. l
THE FLAME Spring 2021
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NASA/JPL-Caltech
In the News
HAS LIFE EVER EXISTED ON MARS?
SERGIO VALDEZ (MBA ’03) AND A TEAM OF more than 100 engineers want to find out. They’re in charge of the scientific equipment on the Mars rover Perseverance, which landed on the red planet earlier this year. Along with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cal State LA, Valdez studied management at the Drucker School— which is coming in handy as he oversees a large team tasked with a complex role. Media outlets also have noted that Valdez is a graduate of Garfield High School, where he was mentored by Jaime Escalante, the inspiring teacher who was the subject of the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver. l
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CASE GOLD MEDALS GO TO CGU VIDEOS CGU HAS BEEN AWARDED TOP HONORS IN TWO CATEGORIES
in this year’s awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, District VII. A highly competitive region that includes CGU’s peer institutions in the Southwest and along the West Coast, this year’s District VII judges awarded CGU with a gold and a grand gold medal for videos produced by Anthony Penta, the university’s director of video production. The grand gold medal signifies the highest achievement awarded in district competition. The grand gold medal went to A New Vision of Healthcare, which looks at CGU’s health research initiative spearheaded by President Len Jessup to bring researchers together in a new space on campus: the reimagined Huntley Bookstore. A gold medal went to Excavation at Akko, which looks at an exciting transdisciplinary project that involves CGU faculty and students in an archeological dig in Israel. Penta created the video in collaboration with religion doctoral student Genie Deez, who traveled with the CGU team to Akko, Israel, in the summer of 2019 and captured excavation footage later combined with on-campus interviews conducted by Penta. Watch these award-winning videos (and more) on CGU’s YouTube Channel! l
MUSIC FOR AN INAUGURATION THE FESTIVITIES SURROUNDING THIS YEAR’S INAUGURATION OF JOE
Biden as 46th president of the United States featured music performed by the United States Marine Band, including the work of composer and CGU music professor Peter Boyer. Hopeful, sober, triumphant, celebratory: Boyer’s “Fanfare for Tomorrow” captures a multitude of moods—and sets the right tone for the ceremony. Performed outside the nation’s Capitol, just weeks after an attempted insurrection took place there, the composition offers an expression of healing and optimism that Boyer said the country needs now. “Music can be a great vessel for optimism,” said Boyer, who holds the university’s Helen M. Smith Chair in Music, “and in these days of such profound challenges for our country and the world, contributing music which conveys optimism and hope would seem to be a worthy role for a composer.” l THE FLAME Spring 2021
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A MIDCENTURY MODERN ICON REPURPOSING A CLAREMONT COLLEGES LANDMARK THE HUNTLEY BOOKSTORE BUILDING WILL BECOME AN INNOVATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER THAT RETAINS ITS MIDCENTURY LINES AND LOOK. BY NICK OWCHAR PHOTOGRAPH WILLIAM VASTA
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Credits: Los Angeles Conservancy, MCM Daily, and Jason Schmidt/Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
ou don’t have to drive out to Palm Springs for its annual Modernism Week to see examples of the design known as midcentury modern. Numerous firms and modernist masters have left their midcentury mark right here in the city of Claremont— among them Richard Neutra, Theodore Criley, Fred McDowell, and the firm that designed the Huntley Bookstore, Jones & Emmons. The bookstore, which has been purchased by CGU from The Claremont Colleges thanks to a partnership and $14-million gift from San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, will become the home of the Yuhaaviatam Center for Health Studies. The center will be an innovative, multi-disciplinary health research center serving the region’s underserved populations. The 23,000-square-foot building also will receive some careful rehabbing to enhance its trademark architectural features. “The building is a beautiful example of a style of architecture that established itself in Southern California in the 1950s,” said CGU President Len Jessup, “and as we move ahead with plans for the Yuhaaviatam Center, we’re looking forward to embarking on a very careful, delicate renovation of that classic building that will refresh it and make those midcentury features come back to life.” So, what identifies a home or building as an example of midcentury modern? Clean lines and simple geometric shapes are essential; so is minimal ornamentation, emphasizing functionality over form, a design that brings nature indoors (often with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows that blur the lines between exteriors and interiors), and exposed post-and-beam construction. Think Rat Pack or the AMC series “Mad Men,” and you’re on the right track. In the case of the Huntley building, you can spot these characteristics in the beam
A DISTINGUISHED SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ARCHITECTURAL FAMILY: Along with the Huntley Bookstore, Jones & Emmons designed a vast number of architecturally distinctive Southland buildings, including Otis College of Art and Design, the former Hollywood home of actor Gary Cooper, and St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.
work under the eaves, the glass north wall that looks out on what will become a courtyard and garden, and the simple, open floor spaces that are the purest expression of midcentury functionality. Though A. Quincy Jones and Frederick K. Emmons were known for designing tract housing (working with developer Joseph Eichler) and beautiful single-family residences like the former home of actor Gary Cooper, the Huntley Bookstore wasn’t a commercial one-off for the duo. They designed churches, commercial buildings, restaurants, university campuses, and civic spaces in the Los Angeles area, including the Otis College of Art and Design in Westchester, St. Michael and
All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, and the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA, among many others. Besides collaborating with Emmons and other architects, Jones was also a midcentury force of nature all on his own, designing many unforgettable venues like Sunnylands, the stunning desert estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg. What a recent Hammer Museum exhibit said about Jones’s other work—that his “homes and buildings are celebrated for expansive interior spaces, thoughtful and efficient building layouts, and a reverence for the outdoors”—certainly applies to what he and Emmons achieved in the creation of the Huntley building. l THE FLAME Spring 2021
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With his photos, MFA alumnus William Camargo fosters difficult but necessary conversations about his community’s past. by TOM JOHNSON photographs by
WILLIAM CAMARGO
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William Camargo, Damn I Can’t Go On This Side of the Park?
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“One thing about my work and the work I do outside of art is that it focuses on teaching reat photographers share certain things in common, like an all-encompassing eye for detail, one that ensures that all of the elements within the photo—lighting, composition, subject matter—will work together in harmony to convey the artist’s intended vision. But for photographer William Camargo, photography goes further than merely combining those elements into an artistic whole. Underscoring much of Camargo’s work is the light he shines on overlooked and underserved communities in Southern California’s Orange County. This place has become the subject of much of his photography. He feels that it will lead people into having more meaningful conversations about historical inequities and bigotry that continue in the present day. “One thing about my work and the work I do outside of art is that it focuses on teaching and advocacy,” he said, “and how we can make exhibition spaces more accessible, for example, to families that live in Anaheim and the demographic—which is largely Latinx—that lives here; to the community that those spaces were intended to serve.” Camargo (MFA, ’20) currently serves as commissioner of heritage and culture for his native Anaheim. He is also the founder and curator of Latinx Diaspora Archives, an archive Instagram page that elevates communities of color through family photos. Camargo’s recent installation of photographs, Origins & Displacements: Making Sense of Place, Histories & Possibilities, Vol. I & II, ran from October through December and recently finished at Santa Ana’s Grand Central Art Center (GCAC) and Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim. The installation, which he characterized as a long-term research project, includes performance, portraits, landscapes, and archived material from Anaheim that reflect the city’s uneasy relationship with its racist history via police violence, gentrification, and capitalism.
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and advocacy, and how we can make exhibition spaces more accessible, for example, to families that live in Anaheim and the demographic—which is largely Latinx—that lives here; to the community that those spaces were intended to serve.” William Camargo
Originally, Camargo said, the installation was going to be his thesis show at CGU. But exhibiting became dicey once the pandemic hit. Undeterred, Camargo talked to his professors, and they told him that if he couldn’t show at CGU, he should offer it elsewhere. Camargo and his professors believed the work could help guide more people toward having the kind of “necessary conversation” about racism and history that the world—especially in light of 2020’s turbulent racial conflicts—needs now. With that in mind, the GCAC enabled a storefront installation of Camargo’s photographs that could be viewed from Santa Ana’s 2nd Street Promenade. In addition to teaching and advocating, at the time of this interview, Camargo was working on his first book, Negotiated Frontiers, a limited-edition print publication paired with a virtual exhibition of his work under the same title hosted by The Latinx Project at New York University. Camargo’s work will also be part of an exhibition featuring nearly 70 artists that opens next year at the Phoenix Art Museum.
William Camargo, Ya’ll Forgot Who Worked Here?
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“Digging into those archives, I realized AN UNEXPECTED VOCATION Camargo said he discovered his calling as a photographer while he was a student at Anaheim High School; he said he had a bad case of “senioritis” and thought a photography class would be a license for him to “slack.” “It ended up being my career,” he said, a bit bemused at the happenstance. “We had a darkroom, and my teacher would notice what students were doing and if they had an eye or not. We only had four or five SLR cameras, and he wanted those cameras to go to folks who were really passionate about it, so I was one of the lucky ones. I got an SLR, and it was a little push to keep on doing the work. It was cool that he gave me a tool that I could work with and start using better, and documenting what I was documenting at the time.” That work was creating still lifes inspired by legendary photographers like Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and a bit later, Gordon Parks and Manuel Álvarez Bravo (a self-taught Mexican photographer and one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Latin American photography). “He was a huge influence,” Camargo said about Álvarez Bravo. “After seeing his photographs of Mexico, where my parents were from, I went home, looked at our photos, and saw some similarities.” At that early stage, Camargo also used his family as the focus in many of his shots—something that he continues to do now. “Sometimes I would have only a couple of days to shoot a roll, and I’d realize I needed some people in the shots,” he said, “so I’d borrow my dad or my brother or my mom for portraits. I still come back to that. I always include my family in my work. AN UNTOLD HISTORY THAT NEEDED TELLING Camargo’s Latinx Diaspora Archives (in collaboration with the Anaheim Heritage Center) informed much of his senior thesis at CGU. Initially, Camargo wished to find out the history of Mexican American, Native, and Black populations that lived in Anaheim. “Digging into those archives, I realized that there was a lot of history untold that I didn’t learn in public school,” he said. “It was a disservice that we weren’t told this history. And that it was so rich.”
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that there was a lot of history untold that I didn’t learn in public school. It was a disservice that we weren’t told this history. And that it was so rich.” William Camargo PHOTOGRAPH Lester Guijaro
For Camargo, being reared in Anaheim in the late 1990s in Section 8 public housing meant sometimes being the target of racist comments. “There was resistance here and there whenever I had to translate for my parents a lot of English into Spanish,” he says. “Anytime I had to go to Home Depot to help them with something, I’d get little comments like: ‘Learn English!’ They were pretty common.” It’s less so today. A lot of the workers at that Home Depot, he noted, are Spanish speakers now. “Now the city is predominantly Latinx,” he continued, “but, looking back through my archives and my family videos, I never realized that we were living—at times—a different story than the rest of the city.” That changed for Camargo when he said he watched some old home videos again. Then the realization hit him hard. “I saw the apartments in which I grew up, and they had dirt roads around them,” he said, “It’s funny. When I first watched them, I actually thought they were videos of someplace else, like Mexico. But they weren’t. Then it hit me: one of the videos was of my 4th birthday in the apartment complex in which I grew up.” CHOOSING CGU In considering which university to attend for graduate work, Camargo said that CGU was a true standout to him. “The one-on-one personal meetings with professors were great,” he said. “At the beginning, I was nerve-wracked about talking about my work,
For more about William Camargo’s virtual exhibit “Negotiated Frontiers” hosted by NYU’s The Latinx Project, visit latinxproject.nyu.edu/ Watch: Visit CGU’s YouTube channel to hear Camargo describe the purpose of his art. You’ll find him in the “Art at Claremont Graduate University” playlist.
William Camargo, Damn Ya’ll Been Violent For A Long Ass Time
especially with new people. The faculty instilled in me the confidence to invite people into my space, like curators I didn’t know but should reach out to and contact. I’ve gotten a lot of opportunities from the faculty because they recommended me. I didn’t just take art classes either. I took classes in gender studies and Latinx studies, and those classes informed my work so much more.” Camargo credited David Pagel, professor of art theory and history, and Roland Reiss, Endowed Chair in Art, as significant influences. “I would have my meetings with them, and they would recommend classes that they thought I could benefit from. Transdisciplinarity is the real basis of my work,” he said. “I just don’t patch into art theory, but I consider Africana Studies, Chicanx Studies, gender studies. It was super-amazing that I was able to do that at CGU. If I had gone somewhere else, I don’t think I would’ve been introduced to those ideas or have been able to explore them so fully.” When talking about Anaheim (a subject never far from his heart), Camargo said he’s proud to be a native son.
“But I’m even more proud when I learn something from that untold history, like the fact that the orange groves here were worked by Mexican-Americans,” he said. “I want to take the history that I’ve found and use it to inform and start conversations about these things.” For Camargo, his art and message are inextricably linked. He also brings to his work something else: patience. He knows that the importance of having difficult and necessary conversations about race and racism isn’t something that’s going to be fully embraced anytime soon. He’s willing to keep that conversation going with his art for as long as it takes. l
Johnson is a regular Flame contributor whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including People magazine and TVLand.com
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Systemic Racism’s Subtler Side What are microaggressions? Why are they so harmful? Daniel Solórzano's new book offers answers as well as solutions.
hen the first minutes of chaos erupted at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, UCLA Professor Daniel Solórzano (PhD, Education, ’86) paused to take in the proceedings on screen. He wasn’t just listening to news correspondents’ attempts to describe the fast-cut images. He was quickly absorbing and filtering the action on multiple levels — the sweatshirt messages, the protest-sign slogans, the crowd’s composition, the ebb-andflow of commotion. That morning also happened to be the first day of spring classes at UCLA, where Solórzano teaches social science and comparative education, and the first meeting of his spring seminar, “Minority Education in Cross-Cultural Perspectives: A Seminar in Critical Race Theory.” Instead of dipping into the usual icebreakers, he decided to use the class as a check-in and the day’s unsettling imagery as a teaching moment. The day was not just profoundly troubling; it was telling, observed Solórzano. “Lots of stress out there.” What Solórzano’s students brought to the discussion were gnawing questions about what they weren’t seeing, what wasn’t happening, and how it differed from their own lived experiences: Where was a show of force from law enforcement? Where was the heavily armed line pushing back against the angry, mostly white mob? “The main thing that came up,” he said, “was that they knew what would have happened to Black and other people of color if they had been charging through those windows and doors.” His students were already identifying the two-tiered message about the shape-shifting ways that race—and racism—works. 20 | Claremont Graduate University
PHOTOGRAPH Ravn Alaska
BY LYNELL GEORGE
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All lives matter. You are so articulate!
I doN’t WheRe are see color. you really from?
Is that your real hair?
What lurks between the lines of messaging—be it imagery, language, or physical gesture—has been Solórzano’s expertise for four decades. Early in his career, he researched how scholars of color were marginalized or encountered flagrant racism along their chosen academic pursuits. “I had been doing work on social mobility,” he said, “looking at how Chicano/Chicana scholars moved toward the doctorate.” At the time, he explained, this subject “was only being studied in the African American community. No one had done this for Latinos/Chicanos and Chicanas.” Sifting through his data, Solórzano examined how these scholars battled subordination daily, and often in ways that felt elusive. If they pushed back, they might be labeled sensitive or thin-skinned; but what it told him was that there were spaces that were mediated and protected, often through subtle yet aggressively toxic means. Solórzano’s latest book, Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism, co-written with Lindsay Pérez Huber, defines and examines the range of
“ Microaggressions can be a comment or gesture that suggests an assumption about one’s citizenry or immigration status, one’s education level, one’s range of cognitive abilities.” 22 | Claremont Graduate University
You’re not like the rest of them.
subtle but penetrating racist assaults that have come to be termed “microaggressions.” It’s a word that has, in recent years, crossed from the academy and into the theater of popular culture—peppered into newspaper op-eds and elegant magazine think pieces or styled into meme-ready critiques to be shared and re-shared in social media. In a time of racial agitation and reckoning, it has articulated a deep wound. HOW THE MICRO DIFFERS FROM THE MACRO The term’s growing ubiquity is a reminder, Solórzano said, that the most pernicious forms of racism aren’t always acts of physical violence or blunt symbology, but rather the subtle, persistent everyday messages that signal bias (or violence) toward marginalized groups. These microaggressions—whether intentional or not—can have a long-term deleterious impact on the psychological and physiological health of people of color. These tossed-off indignities, which have a specific role in the framework of systemic racism, can be, as Solórzano outlines in the book:
SES alumnus Daniel Solórzano serves as director of the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA
Daily verbal and nonverbal assaults aimed at people of color ■ Layered assaults that are based on a person of color’s race, gender, class, sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname ■ Cumulative assaults that take a physiological, psychological, and academic toll In daily life, microaggressions can be a comment or gesture that suggests an assumption about one’s citizenry or immigration status, one’s education level, one’s range of cognitive abilities. In Solórzano’s data set, a Latina biologist shared: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told ‘you’re not like the rest of them,’ ‘you’re different,’ or more specifically ‘you’re different from other Mexicans.’” It’s that quick judgment or dismissal that reminds the recipient that there is not just an invisible line but also a side to which he or she is supposed to belong. Solórzano, who earned his master’s degree in educational policy at CGU in 1983 before completing his doctorate here a few years later, happened upon this adjacent research path serendipitously. Thumbing through journals one afternoon at the library, he stumbled upon an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Critical Race Theory Questions Role of Legal Doctrine in Racial Inequality” by Peter Monaghan, that discussed Critical Race Theory (CRT) in law. “This was something new, but familiar,” Solórzano recalled. “My specialization was in race and ethnic studies. I should have known that there was this emerging area, but I didn’t. The newness was really significant.” That 1,000-word article opened up an entirely new scholarship path for him. “I went to my department chair and said, ‘I need to study this,’” he said. Considering CRT’s framework—examining relationships between race, power, and law/policymaking—he wondered what it might look like if one replaced law with the field of education and examined both the brazen and subtle ways inequality and structural racism work. ■
Off-the-cuff: “Microaggressions,” explains SES alumnus Daniel Solórzano, “can take the form of simple questions or statements that people of color hear on a daily basis.”
Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism is part of the Multicultural Education Series published by Teachers College Press.
“ The most pernicious forms of racism aren’t always acts of physical violence or blunt symbology, but rather the subtle, persistent everyday messages that signal bias (or violence) toward marginalized groups.” CALLING IT BY ITS NAME The term microaggression—coined in 1970 by Chester M. Pierce, an African American professor of law at Harvard University— became a powerful tool to identify and describe insults and dismissals that Pierce himself regularly witnessed or endured— from colleagues and students—in his campus life. Unearthing his work, said Solórzano, was critical: “Reading and re-reading Chester Pierce, I was seeing it through different eyes. He keeps giving me ways to understand everyday microaggressions [and] he introduces us to responses to everyday racism.” What are these responses? What is the best way to begin? For Solórzano, the first step involves confronting and calling attention to microaggressions. “Naming them is really important,” he said. “And what Pierce always reiterated was that we must acknowledge that they exist. And when they do happen, you do something about it. You don’t hold on to it.” Though we may not be able to escape structural racism, naming a microaggression—calling it out—means, he continued, that “it doesn’t sit inside you. It frees you.” A later chapter in Solórzano and Huber’s book discusses microaffirmations, which are similarly small gestures, comments, or actions that people of color can use to validate and affirm each other. “They’re simple and powerful,” he said. “It could just be saying hello to someone, even if they don’t know them. Or using a Spanish expression with them that they will understand. Microaffirmations are the things people of color can do to acknowledge each other’s humanity, to recognize each other’s presence in space.” Solórzano’s most powerful experiences have come from young people who engage with his work and unlock epiphanies. At a 2001 talk in Michigan, Solórzano described one of his most validating moments: “A young African American high school student came to the microphone. She stood there crying. When she finally spoke, she said, ‘Thank you. You’ve given me a name for my pain.’” l Lynell George is an L.A.-based journalist, essayist, and author. Her latest book is A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler (Angel City Press). THE FLAME Spring 2021
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Culture & Commentary | 2021 & Beyond: Healthcare & Politics
Adopting a Public Utility Model for Universal Care We treat gas, electricity, and water this way—why not healthcare? by Terry M. McGann PhD, Political Philosophy & Government, ’75; member, CGU Board of Trustees
T
he coronavirus pandemic has created an international political and healthcare crisis. With little warning, a new set of public health imperatives emerged: Wear a mask. Remain six feet from others. Wash your hands regularly. Shelter in place. Governments around the world ordered businesses to close, exacerbating the dire situation and roiling economies. Now that vaccines are starting to help us emerge from the pandemic, the U.S. needs to focus on its dysfunctional healthcare system urgently. Independent of the pandemic, healthcare costs in the United States are destined to grow to an unsustainable level, creating a new financial crisis. The issue, however, is not just about money, even though it is a significant consideration. More important, it is about our values as a nation. The United States ranks last in the world for healthcare access compared with the other 36 nations in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, even though it spends more than twice as much per capita. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. ranks at the bottom of 40 major countries in overall health status and the bottom of life expectancy after age 60.
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This past November, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality, and a ruling is expected by June. Even if the ACA continues, we will have more than 30 million people without insurance but still be the most expensive healthcare nation in the world. Clearly, what we are doing does not work, and nibbling at the edges of the problem will not suffice. We need to treat healthcare as a fundamental right, and the solution is right in front of us. You would be hard-pressed to find a politician to argue against the idea that existing public utility services such as gas, electricity, and water are fundamental rights. Universal healthcare is no less of a right. Adopting a public utility model for managing healthcare is the correct path to universal healthcare that honors our values and is financially feasible. As with utilities, healthcare is almost exclusively a local experience. People living in San Diego do not think about healthcare outcomes in Chicago or Miami Beach. A state as large as California could create pilot programs with a single “community-rated” premium for everyone living in a specific geographic location. Less populated states could leverage their entire populations for various community ratings. We also cannot ignore the sovereign nations within the states. Segregating healthcare for Native Americans has been a historic failure. Their health needs should be no less mainstream than those of any other defined group. Just as utilities do not discriminate among customers, the “experience rating” used by insurance companies to discriminate among patients would be prohibited. Comprehensive insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions and universal stop-loss insurance benefit protection would be incorporated into all public utility insurance products. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has already implemented state models for the regional delivery of healthcare services. Free-market advocates argue that government has too much power and is incapable of managing healthcare systems. They are wrong. Medicare and Medicaid, while not perfect, are well-received by millions of people. Conversely, advocates of single-payer (Medicare-for-all) systems do not trust the private sector to be committed to universal health insurance. They fear that private insurance company profits will compromise their commitment to support a universal health insurance plan. Their concerns should not preclude
The coronavirus pandemic has shown us that there’s an urgent need to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.
a solution that takes both privately-run providers and patients into account and is politically doable. Historically, the key players in healthcare policy in the United States are the federal and state governments; private employers, consumer groups, and unions; insurance companies; hospitals and ambulatory care centers; physicians and nurses; and pharmaceutical companies. These legacy players would likely resist any change that interferes with or threatens their core ability to protect their financial interests. Note the one group absent from this list: patients. Patients are not legacy players. They have limited choices regarding what insurance policies they select and have little ability or incentive to manage costs, quality, or access. The most dominant of the legacy players is the private insurance carrier, with physicians, hospitals, and nurses largely relegated to the role of “subcontractors.” As we are all aware, the first thing asked when we see a healthcare provider is: “May I have your insurance card, please?” The four largest insurance companies now control about 80% of the healthcare market. The idea of competition is central to our free enterprise
Like electricity, gas, and water, healthcare is an almost exclusively local experience.
system, but it does not guarantee lower costs or higher quality. As long as these insurance giants adjust for risk by simply increasing premiums each year, our national cost for healthcare will, at some point, exceed our ability to pay. And that day is approaching. The key to controlling costs, creating universal care, and ensuring quality is to change the structure of pricing and delivery of care. By empowering local and regional communities—by treating healthcare as a public utility—we can create a new and vitally important legacy player: the patient. Healthcare insurance in the United States is struggling for a political remedy. Our beliefs and goals ultimately define our character. Once a goal is clearly defined, understood, and embraced, we can find effective strategies. Yes, there will undoubtedly be unexpected challenges in switching healthcare to a public utility model, but they can be addressed. Do we have the courage to make such a change? As the late columnist Charles Krauthammer opined, “Everything lives or dies by politics.” l Terry McGann specialized in healthcare policy as one of the deans of the Sacramento lobbying community. He served as chief of staff for State Senator George Moscone and advised state and federal elected officials about healthcare legislation and regulations. For more on his career, see page 9.
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Culture & Commentary | 2021 & Beyond: Healthcare & Politics
“ Surprisingly, Republican women are lagging behind their Democratic peers in the state.” 26 | Claremont Graduate University
Lessons from Texas
The author’s research looks at how Republican women legislators are faring in the Lone Star state.
T
by Eveline Gnabasik
here are 38 Republican women in the 117th Congress, up from 21 in the 116th Congress. Even though this still lags behind the success of Democratic women, the 117th Congress represents a marked improvement for Republican women in elective office. In Texas, the country’s most important Republican stronghold, the picture is not as rosy. Republican women gained only one seat in Texas’s 87th legislative session and lagged behind their Democratic counterparts by a 22-seat margin despite the Republican Party’s continued grip on the state’s legislature. When we closely examine the situation of the state’s Republican women, we see a struggle not only to get elected but also to succeed legislatively once in office. Thus, a detailed examination of the legislative effectiveness of Texas’s Republican women can provide essential insights into the current state of the GOP and its national future. Using a formula created by political scientists Crain Volden and Alan Wiseman—applied (with some tweaking) to Texas—my research focuses on Texas Republican women’s legislative effectiveness scores since 2000. The results show a steady decline (with a few exceptions) and contrast sharply with the improved performance of Democratic women. One cause may involve Republican women’s sponsorship of feminist legislation, strongly connected to a decrease in their scores. It may not make any sense why this is happening when overall statistics show that the most successful Texas legislators heavily sponsor legislation in areas such as public health and human services, which are often associated with feminist legislation. Unfortunately, it suggests that issues traditionally of concern to women in the state need
to be supported by advocates other than Republican women legislators for progress to be made. My research also examines something that may surprise some: the few successful Republican women in elected office in Texas. Republican women who succeed are those who fall in line with the ideological positions of Texas’s version of the extreme right, a group called Empower Texans. Started as a group to promote traditional economic policies of the Republican party, such as fiscal conservatism and reduced government intervention in business, it has evolved to include ultra-conservative social policies. Many Republican women who remain active in state elective office score high on Empower Texans’ scorecard, which is published every two years immediately following the legislative session’s end. Those who do not score high on the scorecard often find their paths to legislative success, and sometimes reelection, largely blocked. Representative Linda Koop (R-Dallas) lost her third reelection bid after a public fight with the group over their claims that she failed to sufficiently back pro-taxpayer reforms. Even though she squeaked out a narrow victory in November, longtime representative Sarah Davis (R-Houston) lost her gubernatorial endorsement because of a spat with Texas governor Greg Abbott over ethics reform, a concern prompted mainly by the enormous influence of Empower Texans. These examples come from the Texas House, where the trend shows up explicitly. Interestingly, as Republican women’s numbers decrease, their legislative effectiveness increases, likely due to the ideological alignment of the few who remain. The situation of Texas Republican women legislators can tell us a lot about what will be expected of Republican women at the national level as Congress moves forward. As the GOP grapples with its identity crisis, my research gives credence to the strength of former President Trump’s followers in Republican down-ballot races. His influence in the Texas legislature remains extremely strong, with increased support for his economic policies, particularly as the Biden administration launches assaults on the oil and gas industry. For Republican women, this may mean a requirement to get on board with Trump’s message or else find themselves locked out of Party leadership entirely. l
Eveline Gnabasik is an entrepreneur and doctoral student in the Division of Politics & Economics. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College, a JD from Oklahoma City University School of Law, and a master’s degree from the University of Glasgow. She is an adjunct professor in Government at the University of Houston—Victoria.
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Bookshelf | New & Recent Releases
Of Ghosts and Game Theories
A roundup of recent publications from our CGU community by Jeremy Byrum
The Culture and Development Manifesto (Oxford University Press) In his new book, University Professor Robert Klitgaard improves upon the work of cultural diversity by addressing how to reshape economic and political development. He builds on the research of scholars, including anthropologist James Ferguson. The anthropologist says that a focus on culture and development might take the form of “nonstate forces and organizations that challenge the existing dominant order to see if links can be found between our expertise and their practical needs as they determine them.” Klitgaard exam28 | Claremont Graduate University
ines these links through a network of diverse “folkways,” or representations of culture—music, art, cuisine, value and belief sets, customs, and ways of life. This book teaches valuable lessons in assembling knowledge from (and solutions for) the indigenous, disadvantaged, and voiceless and re-envisioning how development policy might look. Always A Song: Singers, Songwriters, Sinners and Saints (Chronicle Prism) Owner of Claremont’s own Folk Music Center and mother to Grammy-award winning musician Ben Harper, Ellen Harper (PhD, Education, ’96) recently
released her newest composition, Always a Song: Singers, Songwriters, Sinners and Saints—a memoir chronicling her life in music. Introduced to music early on through her mother’s guitar and banjo lessons as well as her father’s instrument-repair expertise, Harper enjoyed the soundtrack of her youth. She listened to Ravi Shankar, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Jimi Hendrix through the speakers in her living room and car. As the Folk Music Center gained popularity in the Claremont community due to its renowned instrument repair and music lessons, Harper would hone her craft as it evolved into her on-stage performances, recordings, and eventual contributions to her son’s projects. Featuring words from co-author Sam Berry and a foreword from her son Ben, Always a Song is Harper’s moving, personal story of a journey through the revival of folk music as well as a songlike reflection on the legacy of folk and its influence on a musical family. Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks (Fayetteville Mafia Press) History doctoral candidate Courtenay Stallings’s Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak
»
about Twin Peaks is a feminist ethnography that examines the character of Laura Palmer in the hit 1990s television series Twin Peaks. Co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, Twin Peaks begins with Palmer’s lifeless body washing up on a rocky beach. This homecoming queen’s mysterious death develops into a complex exploration of victim trauma—Laura’s character evolving from an initial plot device into an endearing symbol in the fan community. The work features interviews and essays from women involved in the show, including actress Sheryl Lee who portrayed Laura, and filmmaker Jennifer Lynch (David Lynch’s daughter). Laura’s Ghost is a must-have for fans of the show and Laura’s lasting legacy, providing readers with meaningful commentary on trauma, strength, and survival. Michael Bishop and the Persistence of Wonder (McFarland) The author of seven books about science fiction and fantasy, Joe Sanders (MA, English, ’64) returns to this genre in Michael Bishop and the Persistence of Wonder: A Critical Study of the Writings. Bishop has been
widely recognized for his science fiction stories since the 1970s. Touted for their prose and depth, Bishop’s novels No Enemy but Time, Unicorn Mountain, and Brittle Innings, as well as the short story “The Pile,” have received many accolades and critical acclaim. With Bishop’s release of the collection Other Arms Reach Out to Me in 2017, and the republication of earlier work, a renewed interest has been shared by scholars and fans alike. Sanders’s Persistence of Wonder is the first comprehensive study of Bishop’s entire body of work, including close readings of his poetry and essays in addition to novels and short stories.
dynamically changing identities.” To do this, the authors look at the kind of classroom discourse needed to adapt and respond to various cultures, developing students’ proficiency while making each one feel safe, empowered, valued, and acknowledged in classrooms that typically mandate the use of standard English. Giving plenty of examples on responsive teaching situations and ways to reflect on current practices, the book is an excellent resource for teachers, school leaders, and researchers who wish to learn a practical framework for improving the classroom experience for a diverse student body.
Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (W.W. Norton) With co-author Debbie Zacarian, Ivannia Soto (PhD, Education, ’05) takes a strengths-based approach to make certain that meaningful content is taught in applicable classroom settings. Their focus, they explain, is on “the big picture of what is occurring in what we teach … to best ensure that it matches the who we are teaching in terms of our students’
Handbook of Experimental Game Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing) With the release of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, a new way of thinking about economic interaction was born, transforming the way economists studied behavior for years to come. Thus, the idea of game theory, defined by American economist Roger B. Myerson as “the study of mathematical models of conflict and THE FLAME Spring 2021
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Bookshelf | New & Recent Releases
cooperation between intelligent, rational decision-makers,” was introduced. This new volume, which is co-edited by Professor of Economic Sciences C. Mónica Capra, seeks to guide researchers in a data-based and behavioral approach to the study of game theory. A comprehensive and innovative analysis of the field, the book gives insight into various experiments (both in the lab and in the field). It proposes several new methods to model strategic behavior. For Iowa State University’s Elizabeth Hoffman, “every game theorist and experimental economist should have this book and use it to analyze data, design experiments, and understand their results.” The Story of Payments: How the Industrialization of Trust Created the Modern Payments System (Nacha) George Warfel Jr. (EMBA, ’83) is the co-author of The Story of Payments: How the Industrialization of Trust Created the Modern Payments System with Richard Oliver, a former executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The authors show readers how all types of payments (between 30 | Claremont Graduate University
merchants, people, etc.) emerged from the ancient barter system and grew into our current structure. In addition to exploring the technological advancements of the U.S. payment system, such as credit cards and electronic payment options, the authors look at laws and regulations that provide accessibility to payments, in addition to their inherent risks. This volume also sets forth a model for future innovation and functions as an instruction manual for those who work in payments or for any researcher interested in the payment system’s history and commercialization. America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding (Ignatius Press) Robert Reilly (MA, Government, ’78) has written his new book as a response to the argument that the American Republic’s founding is “on trial.” What does that mean? The social and moral disintegration that some say is taking place today, according to this argument, is rooted in the country’s founding principles. Collapse is inevitable. But Reilly disagrees, offering a fierce defense as he traces the foundation of the United States back to its roots in the ancient world—for
example, the Judaic belief in divine oneness, the Greek rational order based on Reason, and the concept of constitutional rule set forth in the Middle Ages. Reilly argues that, without these ideas, these truths, the nation’s founding would have been “inconceivable.” With a foreword by fellow alum and Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn (PhD, ’86, Government), the book is a timely consideration of the nature of the American Republic in response to critics who say it has fallen far from its original founding principles. “It would be hard to imagine,” writes Robert Royal, president of the Faith & Reason Institute, about Reilly’s book, “a more robust or comprehensive account, as well as defense, of the deep roots of the American Founding than Robert Reilly provides in this relatively compact treatment.” A Thing With Feathers: A Novel (The Writing Collective) In his debut novel, Joe Jablonski (PhD, American Politics & Political Theory, ’18) writing as J. John Nordstrom tells the story of what happens when Jonah, a struggling 40-year-old lawyer, quits his profession after being fed up with all the
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corruption he sees. It’s a courageous, very principled thing to do. Still, soon Jonah’s life and finances go from bad to worse until he hits rock bottom: slaving away in a low-paying job as a reference librarian for a county law library. Enter Julia. She’s a savvy young lawyer and library science student who’s put in charge of Jonah by the library’s tyrannical bosses. Having a superior who is 13 years his junior should be humiliating enough to make Jonah quit, which is just what the bosses want. But instead, the opposite happens. Love and romance blossom between Jonah and Julia in this story, rich in literary references (especially the unexpected pairing of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson) as the couple struggles to protect their newfound love. The Psychology of Populism: The Tribal Challenge to Liberal Democracy (Routledge) Extreme right- and left-wing populism pose the greatest threat to the world’s democracies today, argues Professor William Crano and his co-editors. Bringing together contributions from leading international researchers, they explore the psycho-
logical reasons for this rise, its tribal appeal, and the inevitable ideological polarization that results. “The first two decades of the 21st century were marked by a remarkable phenomenon,” writes Crano, who is Oskamp Professor of Psychology in the Division of Behavioral & Organizational Science, and co-editor Joseph Forgas in an introductory essay, “the largely unexpected rise of radical populist political ideologies in both well-established Western democracies and less-developed nations. This book represents an integrated attempt to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying these movements.” A liaison scientist for the U.S. Office of Naval Research, NATO senior scientist, and Fulbright senior scholar, Crano and his colleagues have produced a powerful and incisive guide to changes now roiling our world. Ulysses By Numbers (Columbia University Press) The first time a patent was filed for a “Paint by Numbers” kit was back in 1923, just a year after the appearance of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses. The proximity of those two events is charged with meaning
for Professor Eric Bulson, who includes this fact in the introduction to Ulysses By Numbers, his new study of the modernist master’s great work. “Paint by Numbers” kits, he explains, use an outlined image with a numerically organized color scheme “that could be filled in by aspiring artists.” Bulson, who chairs the university’s English Department and is the Andrew W. Mellon All-Claremont Chair in the Humanities, wants us to see Ulysses in a similar light—as a text whose numerical aspects help us understand the book’s organization, its meanings, its composition, and much more. What, for example, are we to make of the Bloom household’s address at number 7 Eccles Street? Or the impact of deadlines and word counts on the chapters Joyce published in the Little Review? Or the meaning of the first print run (1,000 numbered copies) even though that number’s not entirely accurate? Asking such questions about Joyce's masterpiece (or, for that matter, many others) can result in rich insights, he argues, that enhance our understanding and “the way we engage with the texts we already love.” l THE FLAME Spring 2021
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THE BIG PICTURE
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Encouraging Words “May you continue to do things that matter”— that’s how Roberta Jenkins closed her keynote remarks as this year’s honorary degree recipient in a special video recorded for the Class of 2021 at the home of President Len Jessup. Jenkins also received a white stole in recognition of her honorary degree from Provost Patricia Easton and Trustee Beverly Ryder. Jenkins was honored for her long service (with her late husband Matthew) in support of educational opportunities for students nationwide as well as on the CGU campus. A former member of the School of Educational Studies Advisory board for 20 years, Jenkins related in her keynote what it was like growing up Black in the Jim Crow South and how those experiences shaped her and her husband’s desire to use their business success to support the educational dreams of marginalized youth. In recalling the challenges she and her family faced, she applauded the Class of 2021 for persevering despite quarantine and a global pandemic: “You have faced many obstacles. You have persisted, and you have succeeded, which is why you are here today.” l
HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENT Roberta Jenkins (center) receives her stole from Provost Patricia Easton (right) and Trustee Beverly Ryder during a ceremony held at the home of President Len Jessup.
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Alumni Engagement
It Doesn’t Matter Where You Live, Stay Connected With Us The CGU alumni community continues to inspire in the face of a very challenging world. by Rachel Jimenez, Director, Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving
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ven though the world looks different from how it did two years ago, I am inspired every day by the work that continues to be done at CGU and in our alumni community to bring people together. As a student myself, I’ve had the opportunity to experience CGU’s “online flex” hybrid model, taking online classes with people “zooming in” from all over the world. The same is true when we host our alumni board meetings and events. With all the challenges and crises that COVID-19 has brought, the pandemic also has brought many of us together. “A pessimist,” Winston Churchill said, “sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” I’ve witnessed the optimism that embodies our community, and I am proud to share with you more opportunities to stay connected no matter where you live. l
INTRODUCING OUR ALUMNI BOOK CLUB BOOK CLUBS HAVE GROWN DURING the pandemic; they’re a perfect way to connect with others in a meaningful way. Our CGU Book Club gives everyone a chance to read and discuss new and recent books and grow together as a community. Our club reads one book every two months with selections based on recommendations from the alumni community and our CGU book selection advisory committee. In recognition of Black History Month, the book club’s first selection was Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Associate Professor and History Chair Josh Goode moderated a virtual discussion on Zoom. To join us, sign up on bookclubz.com, order a copy of the current book, read it, and meet us in the public forum. If you have questions, contact me at rachel.jimenez@cgu.edu. l
LIFELONG LEARNING … FOR FREE! CGU TAKES ITS COMMITMENT TO FLOURISHING AND LIFELONG learning to another level. All alumni are eligible to register for courses (up to four units) at no cost. This allows you to hone a skill, develop a new one, or simply expand your thinking. You have the option of earning a grade or auditing the class instead. For more information or to register for the 2021 fall semester, visit my.cgu.edu/admissions/ lifelong-learning. l
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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD CREATED BY POPULAR DEMAND BY ALUMNI FOR ALUMNI, THE CGU Alumni Association gives its 23,000-plus members a powerful voice on campus. Regardless of your school, department, or program, CGUAA is meant to bring all alumni together for your benefit. Interested in getting involved with the board? Email me at rachel. jimenez@cgu.edu. l
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2021 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients Alumni representing CGU’s schools and divisions have been chosen to receive this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award, which honors alumni community members for their extraordinary contributions in their academic or professional fields. In addition, a special award for service is given to an alumnus or alumna who has achieved recognition for philanthropic or volunteer service to the university and society.
Service Robyn Iraheta (MA, Education, ’12) Program Specialist and Demonstration Teacher, San Bernardino City Unified School District
Drucker School of Management Angela Manalo Lalas, CPA (MBA, ’13) Chief Financial Officer, Loma Linda University Health
Institute of Mathematical Sciences Daniel Pick (MS, Mathematics, ’95) Managing Member, Pick Rentals LLC
School of Social Science, Policy & Evaluation Michael M. Uhlmann (PhD, Government, ’78) Professor of Government, Claremont Graduate University
School of Arts & Humanities Aragna Ker (MFA, ’04) Curatorial & Adaptive Design Manager, United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles
School of Community & Global Health Walter D. Johnson, MD (EMBA ’10, MPH ’12) Professor of Surgery, Neurosurgery and Public Health/Founding Director, Center for Global Surgery, Loma Linda University
Center for Information Systems & Technology Juanita Dawson (MS, Information Systems & Technology, ’05) Director of Cybersecurity and Compliance, Raytheon Technologies
Center for Business & Management of the Arts Inés Familiar Miller (MA, Arts Management, ’16) Associate Program Officer, Arts & Culture, The Kresge Foundation
School of Educational Studies Daniel Solórzano (MA,’84, PhD,’86, Education) Professor of Education, UCLA Director of UC/ACCORD
Learn more about this year’s recipients at cgu.edu/news
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Class Notes | Alumni Achievements
News and Notes From Our CGU Community
’83|’85
Mukesh Aghi (MA, PhD, Government), who chairs the U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum, recently talked to Indica News about the potential for the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India to work together in the article “Farm Bills Good for India Farmers.” Aghi also serves as a member of CGU’s Board of Trustees.
’85
Dennis Dalton (MBA) has joined Guardian CRE, a real estate investment company based in Newport Beach, California, as the company’s chief operating officer. Dalton has more than 30 years of experience as director/chief of operations for Fortune 500 corporations and has extensive expertise in financial reporting to investors and boards of directors. He has played vital roles in improving the profitability of companies whose operations he has led.
’86
Andrea McAleenan (PhD, Education) teaches in the management department at Fresno State’s Craig School of Business. Her research interests are international management, business ethics, women in leadership, resource development for global poverty, cross-cultural communication, and global workplace issues.
’92
John West (PhD, Government) published the commentary, “The Return of Casey Luskin” at Evolution News & Science Today. In an article published by Mind Matter News, West also recently discussed the potentially significant impact of a little-known anti-discrimination law on big tech companies that engage in political censorship. West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written and/or edited 12 books and serves as vice president of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and managing director of the institute’s Center for Science & Culture.
’93
Mendel Hill (MA, Executive Management) is the author of a new book, Two Americas, from Dorrance Publishing. Hill’s other publications include the book The Last Minority: Who Will It Be?
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’94
’00
’95
’01
Eugene Zhukov (MA, Economics) has been appointed director-general of the Asian Development Bank’s Central and West Asia Regional Department. In this role, Zhukov will lead the bank’s engagement with ten countries in the region: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and oversee the bank’s regional portfolio of $24 billion. Saori Casey (MBA), vice president of corporate financial planning at Apple, shares her story in an episode of the CGU podcast series, How’d You Get That Job?
’95|’06
Frances Marquez (MA, PhD, Politics and Policy) won election in December to the Cypress City Council. She currently works as an associate professor of government at Gallaudet University and has previously campaigned for numerous Democratic politicians, including Xavier Becerra and Alan Lowenthal.
’96-’13
Andrew Casey (MBA), WalkMe Chief Financial Officer, and Casandra Rusti (MSFE; MS, Mathematics), a researcher in responsible AI, joined Professor Jay Prag to share their insights on “The Future of Work.” The virtual event kicked off the spring 2021 semester at the annual Spring Welcome Back event.
’97|’13
Stacy Kula (MA, PhD, Education) currently serves as assistant professor of qualitative research in the Department of Educational Leadership at Azusa Pacific University.
’99|’16
Ted Gover’s (MA, PhD, Politics & Policy) most recent commentary pieces include a look at the impact of a Joe Biden election victory over Donald Trump in The Statesman and the article “Parts of Asia Will Miss Donald Trump’s Tough China Policy” for Channel News Asia. Gover serves as director of CGU’s Tribal Administration Certificate Program.
Volkan Bozay (MBA) has been appointed chief executive officer of the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association. Bozay has held various public and private sector jobs during his career, including a role at the R&D unit of the Undersecretariat of Treasury and Foreign Trade, head of the Finance Department of the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKI), and as a board member of the Emlak Konut Real Estate Investment Company. Olugbenga Ajilore (PhD, Economics) has been named by the USDA as a senior advisor in the Under Secretary for Rural Development Office. Previously, Ajilore served as a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, former president of the National Economic Association, and an associate professor at the University of Toledo.
’01
Tonia Causey-Bush (PhD, Education) was appointed chief academic officer for the Banning School Board. Previously she was the Director of Teaching and Learning with the Fontana Unified School District.
’01
Irene Matz (PhD, Education) has received the “Faculty Leadership in Collegial Governance” award for her passionate work and leadership at Cal State Fullerton. She was recently elected as a state academic senator for the CSU (2019-2022) and has held leadership roles across CSUF and the community.
’03|’06
Bengisu Tulu (MS, PhD, Information Science) has been promoted to professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Foisie Business School. Since joining the faculty in 2006, Tulu has helped lead the business school’s focus on analytics and developed teaching on machine learning. Tulu is a leader in designing digital health interventions and implementing health information technology solutions.
’04
June Hilton (PhD, Education), a current SES senior lecturer, has been named one of ACSA Region 15’s
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A Survival Manual for the Great Melting Pot No father—especially an immigrant from China— says to his daughter, ‘Please, marry an artist,’” teased Cathy Bao Bean (MA, Philosophy, ’69) during a Chinese New Year presentation to a Princeton-area YWCA on her memoir, The Chopsticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual. The Chopsticks-Fork Principle encourages people to realize and understand (and laugh about) how we are all at least bi-cultural in a way that shatters stereotypes yet explains the generalizations. As Bao Bean explains, she’s an immigrant from China, “yellow on the outside and white on the inside.” In her presentations, she explores issues that somehow touch us all: “Can the Tooth Fairy survive the Melting Pot?” “Can you fail or succeed simultaneously in two cultures?” In this humorous and poignant memoir, the author recounts how she figured out how to be herself and raise a son whose artist father did things like paint the lawn. As Bao Bean attempts to satisfy disparate cultural norms, she provides us with a unique window into the experience of a bicultural family. The Chopsticks-Fork Principle is also a manual that explains how anyone who steps outside the home can benefit from a greater awareness of the diversity within and around us. Bao Bean is a daughter, mother, wife, author, immigrant, and public scholar. An alumna and former board member of CGU’s advisory board to the School of the Arts & Humanities, she is a teacher/learner who has presented her ideas to audiences in some 450 universities, libraries, prisons, and professional associates in the U.S. and China. l
In The Chopsticks-Fork Principle, Cathy Bao Bean encourages people to realize and understand (and laugh about) how we are all at least bi-cultural in a way that shatters stereotypes yet explains the generalizations.
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Class Notes | Alumni Achievements
2020-2021 Administrators of the Year and is now serving as interim assistant superintendent of educational services in the Claremont Unified School District.
’05
David Aung (MS, Financial Engineering) has been appointed to the board of directors for Cannae Holdings. Aung currently serves as an investment officer for the City of San Jose Office of Retirement Services. A seasoned risk & analytics professional, Aung previously held roles as a principal in the risk & analytics group at KKR Credit and as a vice president at the Trust Company of the West.
’05
Michael Chukes’s (MFA) most recent collection of work (using mixed media, painting, and sculpture) was inspired by recent cases of law enforcement-involved violence and civil protests in recognition of Black History Month and was profiled in Black Star News.
’05
Robert Holcomb (PhD, Education), the dean of language arts and academic foundations at Santa Rosa Junior College, will be directing a $2.8 million federal grant to bolster campus life for Latino students. The grant will help create targeted programs that increase education access and improve college readiness.
’05
Ayanna Howard (MBA) was named dean of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University last fall. An accomplished roboticist, entrepreneur, and educator, Howard was also recently included on Diverse’s annual list of “Top Women in Higher Education.” Howard’s professional career spans higher education, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the private sector. She is the founder and president of the board of directors of Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech spin-off company that develops mobile therapy and educational products for children with special needs.
’05
Ivannia Soto (PhD, Education) was appointed director of graduate programs at Whittier College and published the book, Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students.
’05
Marco Villegas (PhD, Education) was promoted to associate superintendent of Pasadena Unified School
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District. He is responsible for administering all programs and services for children with disabilities and improving the Special Education department’s organizational efficacy.
’10
Joel Pérez (PhD, Education) has launched Apoyo Coaching, offering individual and team consulting using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). He facilitates workshops in crucial conversations, anti-racism, and more.
’11|’19
John Erickson (MA, Women’s Studies in Religion, Applied Woman’s Studies; PhD, Religion) was elected to the West Hollywood City Council in December. He serves as director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.
’11|’14
Abdullah Murad (MS, PhD, Information Systems & Technology), and his partners in Ynmo, the developer of the first Arabic-English software platform for teachers of students with disabilities, have raised $500,000 in a seed investment from Wa’ed, the entrepreneurship arm of Aramco. Ynmo’s goal is to expand support for children with disabilities in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Murad is an assistant professor in the College of Computer and Information Systems at Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
’11
Erin Payne (MFA) was featured on the entertainment website Gossip Cop in a profile looking at her professional career and relationship with husband Jake Johnson, an actor best known as Nick Miller on the Fox series “New Girl.” In 2012, Payne won the Reader’s Choice Prize from New American Paintings for her series, Pile Paintings.
’12
Kyla Hansen (MFA) collaborated with fellow artist Krystal Ramirez on the exhibition This Is the Place, This Must Be the Place, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. Recently, Hansen’s work was exhibited internationally at the Material Art Fair in Mexico City and the exhibition Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic LA, a survey of emerging Los Angeles-based artists. She has also exhibited at Piasa Auction House in Paris.
’12
Liliana (Lily) Jarvis (PhD, Education), a principal in the Monrovia school district, has been appointed as a commissioner of the Instructional Quality for the California State Department of Education task force.
’15
Angel B. Pérez (PhD, Higher Education) is the new chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He is looking to reimagine efforts to aid low-income and first-generation students in the college admissions process through COVID-19 and beyond.
’15
Talisa Sullivan (PhD, Education) serves as founder and CEO of Transformational Leadership Consulting (TLC) Services and as the creator of the Quantum Ten (Q10) Equity Framework. Sullivan’s mission is to positively impact education by disrupting systemic barriers that impede success. Sullivan is currently planning the second annual Q10 Equity in Education International conference, which will take place in December.
’15
Matthew Witenstein (PhD, Education) is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration at University of Dayton-Ohio. His research interests include immigrants in higher education and international educational experiences.
’17
Gloria Montiel (PhD, Education) was featured in a recent Orange County Register article about high schooler Cielo Echegoyen, whose admission to Harvard College went viral. The article tells how Montiel has paved the way for Santa Ana students like Echegoyen to attend the prestigious college and how she is continuing to build a strong legacy of mentorship in her community. Montiel is also one of the driving faculty forces behind the Allies of Dreamers program offered by the School of Educational Studies.
’18|’19
Junelyn Peeples (MA, PhD, Education) has been named vice provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Analytics at San José State University. Peeples was previously at Scripps College, where she has served as director of assessment and institutional research and accreditation liaison officer since 2012.
Teaching History Today: A Lesson from Orwell’s 1984 he Highland County Press recently published remarks by Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn (Government, MA,’76; PhD, ’86,) titled “Orwell’s 1984 and Today.” Arnn chaired the Trump White House’s 1776 Commission, whose charge was to identify what has gone wrong in teaching American history and devise a plan for recovering the truth. The panel’s intent was to counter the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project,” a series of articles promoting the teaching that slavery, not freedom, is the defining fact of American history. The 1776 Commission aimed to restore “truth and honesty to the teaching of American history.” Arnn writes that it is “an initiative we must work tirelessly to carry on, regardless of whether we have a president in the White House who is on our side in the fight.” Arnn finds parallels to the commission’s work in a course he taught at Hillsdale last fall on totalitarian novels. Among others, his class read George Orwell’s 1984, whose main character works for the state and is charged with rewriting history. Arnn’s article describes how “tasks are delivered to him in cylinders through a pneumatic tube. The task might involve something big,” such as updating what country the state is at war with and changing all references to the previous war with a different enemy. Or, Arnn recalls, “the task might be something small: if an individual falls out of favor with the state, photographs of him
being honored need to be altered or erased altogether from the records.” Arnn reminds us of the novel’s disturbing premise that the protagonist’s job “is to fix every book, periodical, newspaper, etc., that reveals or refers to what used to be the truth, in order that it conform to the new truth.” In his remarks, Arnn points to Orwell’s concept of doublethink, with its three slogans: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” “And as we have seen,” Arnn writes, “the regime in 1984 exists precisely to repeal the past. If the past can be changed, anything can be changed—man can surpass even the power of God. But still, to what end?” In our time, Arnn suggests, doublethink can be seen in a governor “who could not simultaneously hold that the COVID pandemic renders church services too dangerous to allow, and also that massive protest marches are fine.” Or it could “preclude a man from declaring himself a woman, or a woman declaring herself a man, as if one’s sex is simply a matter of what one wills it to be—and it would preclude others from viewing such claims as anything other than preposterous.” “Nature is ultimately unchangeable, of course, and humans are not God,” Arnn asserts. “Totalitarianism will never win in the end—but it can win long enough to destroy a civilization. That is what is ultimately at stake in the fight we are in. We can see today the totalitarian impulse among powerful forces in our politics and culture. We can see it in the rise and imposition of doublethink, and we can see it in the increasing attempt to rewrite our history.” l
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Class Notes | Alumni Achievements
’18
L. Erika Saito (PhD, Education) is now an assistant professor and course lead for Masters in Social & Emotional Learning at National University.
’19
Christi Barrett (PhD, Education) is superintendent of Hemet Unified School District, recently named one of six Hewlett Foundation education grantees. Barrett was also featured on the podcast Schools on the Front Lines with Clinical Professor of Education and Professor Emeritus Carl Cohn.
’19
Athena Chiera (EMBA), VP of Business Development, and parents Richard and Jannie Chiera, were recently featured in Diversity Professional Magazine for their work at Athena Engineering.
’19
Heather Dyer (EMBA) is featured in an Inland Daily Bulletin news report looking at a significant water
capture project for the Santa Ana River and its positive impact on indigenous fish and bird species. Dyer, who serves as San Bernardino Valley water district CEO and district manager, was interviewed by the newspaper for its ground-breaking Upper Santa Ana River Habitat Conversation Plan.
’19
Junhee Myung (PhD, Education) is an assistant professor at Seoul Theological University & KG Passone Institution in Seoul, Korea.
’19
Soua Xiong (PhD, Education) has been named one of 2021’s Emerging Scholars by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. His ongoing research has focused on student success, engagement of male students of color, and support services for underserved students and community colleges. Xiong is assistant professor of Student Affairs and College Counseling at California State University, Fresno.
Retire With Peace of Mind Alumni, let CGU help you with your plans. How does the SECURE Act affect your investments? CGU offers several strategies for our alumni to create optimal tax relief, lifetime income, and a lasting legacy for future students at CGU. For more information about estate planning with CGU, go to myplannedgift.cgu.edu Questions? Contact: Tony Todarello, CGU Associate VP of Development anthony.todarello@cgu.edu | 909-607-9230
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’20
Joshua Beemer (PhD, Computational Science, joint with SDSU) wrote an article for Chino Valley People website. The report features Chino Hills Police Department Deputy Justin Reed, credited “along with several Good Samaritans for saving a woman from a burning car on the 60 Freeway in Riverside.”
’20
Jonah Elijah (Jackson) (MFA) was featured in a recent piece looking at the work of fellow artist and mentor Michael Massenburg in the Southland blog publication L. A. Taco. The article discusses how Elijah acted as Massenburg’s apprentice to create a mural titled Above the Water, See the Light. The 38-foot-long acrylic painting at the Van Ness Recreation Center in South Central Los Angeles took close to six weeks to complete. l
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
Long before a company named after a South American river came to dominate the bookselling business, the Huntley Bookstore was faithfully serving the academic needs of undergrads, grads, and their professors. This photo takes us back to the 1970s and the building’s familiar mid-century modern architectural façade, which is as recognizable to generations of Claremont students as the Empire State building is to New Yorkers (and that’s no exaggeration). l
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Fleur du Mal II, Roland Reiss, 2008, acrylic on canvas
In Memoriam
Reiss’s flower paintings subtly teach us about the mind and human prejudices.
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PHOTOGRAPH Diane Rosenstein Gallery
News | Giving
Roland Reiss, 1929-2020
‘That’s All Roland’
Reiss not only pushed the envelope with his art, but he also built a program at CGU that is the envy of its peers.
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hen he was asked in a 2018 HyperAllergic interview to talk about his artistic career, Roland Reiss described his ongoing efforts to push the envelope and discover new things. “I have seen art as an adventure in which one discovers new territories,” the acclaimed artist and CGU emeritus professor said. “One finds one’s authentic voice in each new challenge.” But being an adventurer, he added, could be a little problematic, too. “I think I made a habit of doing what you were not supposed to do,” he said. “It did make it a lot harder, but I had no choice.” The CGU community and art world mourn the passing of Reiss, a groundbreaking artist whose continual self-reinvention and envelope-pushing created a vibrant, unique body of work. Widely known for his paintings and creation of intricate miniatures, Reiss died in December of natural causes at his L.A. home and studio at Brewery Artist Lofts. He was 91.
His passing was announced on social media by Reiss’s Los Angeles gallery, Diane Rosenstein Gallery. The announcement was received by a tremendous outpouring of comments on social media from many of Reiss’s colleagues, friends, and former students. Reiss led CGU’s art program for thirty years before retiring in 2002. In an interview with The Flame, Art Department Chair David Pagel praised Reiss for designing an MFA program unlike any other in the nation. “Everything that sets CGU’s program apart from other MFAs, that’s all Roland,” Pagel said. “He built our program from the ground up, and he gave it such a terrific structure that it really hasn’t changed in the years since his retirement.” EARLY YEARS AND FIRST ARTISTIC FRIENDSHIPS Born in Chicago in 1929, Reiss moved with his family to Pomona during World War II. He was drawn to the study and practice of art as a young man, and as a teenager, he was introduced to the work of Millard Sheets, who addressed his class at Pomona High School. THE FLAME Spring 2021
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In Memoriam
Reiss attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago before returning to Southern California to study at Mt. San Antonio College. He was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. During that time, he continued to work and develop as an artist. Stationed at Camp Roberts in Central California with combat orders for Korea, Reiss served as the art director for 40 artists working at the base. He painted a mural there that received commendations and won an art prize in a competition that also included fellow artist and soldier Robert Irwin. Reiss believed these successes and his growing recognition as an artist soon led to the cancellation of his orders to go to Korea. David Pagel Supported by the GI Bill, Reiss enrolled at UCLA and met many artists, including Charles Garabedian, Ed Moses, Craig Kauffman, Ray Brown, and James McGarrell. He received a master’s in art in 1956; during his time at UCLA, Reiss assisted the artist Rico Lebrun and studied with William Brice, Jan Stussy, Stanton McDonald Wright, and Anita Deland.
many of the art world’s significant personalities and Reiss’s own innate humility. “Roland was friends with so many, but it didn’t change how he treated people. It truly didn’t matter to him who you were, whether you were another artist, a student, or someone he’d just met,” she said. “He was fully attentive and interested in you and what you had to say. There were many times we sat down in his studio and could have talked for hours, to the moon and back. Roland was a fundamentally generous person.” In the summer of 1966, Reiss left Colorado to serve as a visiting artist at UCLA, along with Diebenkorn. He decided to move back to California permanently in 1971 and headed CGU’s art program for the next thirty years, retiring in 2002. Reiss didn’t slow down after retirement. In the years following, he directed Painting’s Edge, a summer artist’s residency for Idyllwild Arts from 2000-2007. In 2009 he received the College Art Association Award for the Distinguished Teaching of Art. At CGU, Reiss created a community-centered approach to the grad program, which would earn national recognition under his leadership. What was innovative about Reiss’ design, Pagel said, was that he structured the MFA to emphasize student self-governance, especially in one-on-one meetings with faculty. He also developed the idea of each student having an individual studio and an MFA show. Student self-discovery was essential to how Reiss approached the program and his own teaching. “I’d get reports back from students about their experiences with Roland, and they were always over the top,” Pagel said.
“ Reiss felt an epiphany was ‘way more powerful than a directive’ for his students.”
TEACHING AND THE POWER OF EPIPHANIES Reiss entered the academic world as a senior painting teacher at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was there that he began inviting other artists—a practice that was popular with students and that he’d continue at CGU— to teach and work with the students, including Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Brown, Nancy Graves, and Hilton Kramer, all of whom became Reiss’s friends. Gallerist Diane Rosenstein, who has represented his work since 2014, said she was always stunned by his friendships with
Adventures in the Painted Desert: A Murder Mystery, Roland Reiss, 1975-1976, Mixed Media
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“He had such an extraordinary presence, such an enormous understanding of art-making,” said Bernstein, who went on to do several more shows with Reiss over the years. “He designed many of his shows on his own, and it was wonderful for my gallery to show his work to younger generations of artists and help them understand his place in art history.” Abstract Expressionism influenced Reiss’s early work. In contrast, in the 1960s and 1970s, his work reflected the conceptual art movement and the popularity of plastic materials as he explored the human drama with miniature tableaux encased in plexiglass. “Roland was doing miniatures at a time when representational art was out, when craftsmanship was out. It wasn’t hip or cool to do that stuff at the time, but Roland was a really fearless artist,” Pagel said. “He just did what he needed to do when he needed to do it. And when you look at those miniatures today, they’re really extraordinary. They’ve really held up over the years.” After retiring from CGU, Reiss devoted most of his time to creating a series of floral paintings as a meditation on the impact of Bent Field, Roland Reiss, 1968, fiberglass and resin color on consciousness. He described this body of work as an effort to “put everything I have learned about painting into a painting.” These paintings, Pagel said, are extremely deceptive. “They’d say how they felt he understood their work better than “They’re really sneaky stuff,” he explained. “You might see they did, and that actually helped them to understand their work one of them from across a gallery and think, do I really need better, too. That was one of the things about the way Roland to look at another pretty picture of flowers? But when you’re worked with students. He was never forceful; it was all about up close, you notice things—the colors he’s using are unusual getting a student to see things independently. An epiphany, for and unlike anything you’d ever see in nature. He’s camouflaged him, was way more powerful than a directive.” all kinds of things in the paintings, too—buildings, airplanes, CGU honored Reiss’s impact as an artist and educator in people—and all of it has to do with artifice and 2010 by creating the Roland Reiss Endowed authenticity. Roland was preoccupied with Chair, which Pagel currently holds. Previous how our perceptions change over time, how chairs were David Amico and the late Michael knowledge blossoms over time slowly. That’s Brewster. This year, the estate of the late Peggy our experience of these paintings.” Phelps, a former trustee and an ardent supportThat experience, he added, can cause us to er of CGU’s Art Department, provided an adlet go of our prejudices, our preconceived ideas ditional $350,000 to enhance the original gift. about something—an openness that the world FLOWERS, MINIATURES, AND OPENNESS needs now more than ever. During a career that spanned some 60 years, “So much of our culture today is about Reiss exhibited widely and was included in the division, about ‘us vs. them,’ ” he explained. Gallerist Diane Rosenstein 1975 Whitney Biennial, documenta 7 (1982), “Roland’s paintings help us realize that this and received fourteen solo museum exhibiattitude is wrong. His work doesn’t do that in tions, including The Dancing Lessons: 12 Sculptures (1977) at a threatening way, though; it just helps us see that our world is richer, more complex, and nuanced than we thought. For me, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. that’s what’s really radical about Roland’s work. It’s one of the His miniatures, sculptures, and paintings are included in the many reasons we’ll still be celebrating him years from now.” permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Reiss is survived by his wife, Dawn Arrowsmith, an artist who Art (LACMA); MOCA; The Hammer Museum; The Whitney shared Reiss’s life for some 38 years. He was predeceased by his Museum of American Art, NY; Orange County Museum of Art father, Martin, his mother, Louise, his daughter Noel, and his (OCMA); Palm Springs Art Museum; Laguna Art Museum; and son Clinton. He is survived by sons Adam, Nathan, and Stefan, Riverside Art Museum, among others. daughter Talya, stepsons Dan and Jim Nielsen, his sister Marilyn In 2014, a retrospective at the Begovich Gallery at Cal State Austin, and eight grandchildren. Fullerton highlighted Reiss’s career; that was also the year that The Reiss family plans to celebrate the artist’s life when large Reiss met Bernstein. Together they planned an exhibition to gatherings are permitted again. l complement the Begovich showcase.
“ He was fully attentive and interested in you and what you had to say. There were many times we sat down in his studio and could have talked for hours, to the moon and back.”
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In Memoriam
BETTY JEAN BARNES | MA, Education, ’66; PhD, Education, ’73 A great-grandmother, educator, writer, and dedicated environmentalist, Betty Jean Barnes passed away last fall. She was 99. Known to friends and family as “BJ,” Barnes was an education emerita professor at Cal State Fullerton. Born in 1921 in San Dimas, she was a product of Claremont public schools and attended Pomona College in 1942. She went on to receive a master’s and a doctorate in education from CGU. Barnes taught in local schools before becoming a professor at Cal State Fullerton, where she taught early childhood education. Following retirement, Barnes remained active in creative and intellectual pursuits throughout her life, working on children’s books as well as becoming involved in environmental causes and activism. Barnes is survived by her children Jeff Barnes, Betsy Bishop, Loren Herold, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. JOHN GINGRICH | PhD, Religion, ’73 John Gingrich, a former dean and professor of religion and philosophy at the University of La Verne, passed away in December. He was 79. Gingrich received a bachelor’s degree from Manchester College as well as a master’s of divinity from Bethany Theological Seminary and a doctorate at CGU. A self-described lifelong learner, he spent 37 years at the University of La Verne. He started his career there as a campus minister in 1968 before serving as department chair, division chair, and professor of religion and philosophy. Gingrich’s academic career culminated with his appointment to the deanship of the university’s college of arts and sciences, a position that he held for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2005. Gingrich also held positions with the Brethren Colleges Abroad program (Philipps Universität, Marburg, Germany), the national advisory board for the School of Theology at Claremont, and the board of trustees at Bethany Theological Seminary. He is survived by his wife Jacki, 46 | Claremont Graduate University
sons John and Joel, grandsons Gus and Hans, and family. JAMES ALLAN GOULDING | PhD, RELIGION, ’71 James Goulding, a longtime professor, administrator, and chaplain dedicated to encouraging dialogues among the world’s faith traditions, passed away last fall. Raised in Medina, Ohio, Goulding received several degrees, including a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from DePauw University, a bachelor’s of divinity and a master’s degree from Yale Divinity School, and a doctorate from CGU. Early in his career, Goulding set aside becoming a doctor as he grew involved in the United Methodist Student Movement and became a United Methodist pastor. After serving as a minister and pastor for several years, Goulding entered the world of higher education and spent much of his career at MacMurray College in Illinois as a chaplain and professor before becoming dean of the college and vice-president for academic affairs. In his retirement, Goulding developed and taught the classes The Challenge of Islam and Christian Muslim Interfaith Dialogue at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, to respond to misunderstandings about Islam. Goulding is survived by his wife of 51 years, Siv; his daughters Gunilla and Ulla; son-in-law Robb McClintock; granddaughters Linnea, Annika, and Malina McClintock; and his brother Norman. AMOS ISAAC | PhD, Education, ’72 A retired educator and lifelong community leader in Redlands, Amos Isaac passed away in January. He was 86. Born in 1934, Isaac’s experiences with education started as a child when he attended a one-room school in Texas before his family moved to San Bernardino. He earned a master’s degree at the University of Redlands and a doctorate in education at CGU. Isaac spent two years in the Peace Corps and then taught at Lincoln Elementary School. He ran for the Redlands
Unified school board twice. He was a member of the organization Concerned Citizens, which is dedicated to improving the quality of education in Redlands Unified School District. According to Redlands Community News, Isaac was the second African American to teach in the Redlands Unified School District. In addition to a career as a teacher and administrator, Isaac also served as an educational consultant through his business Isaac Consultancy for many years. WILLIAM (KNOX) MELLON | MA, History, ’52; PhD, History, ’73 Considered a legend in historic preservation in California, William Mellon died in January at the age of 95. Born in Houston, Texas, in 1925, Mellon was five years old when his family moved to San Marino. In 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the 32nd Division in the Pacific. Known as “Knox” to his family, friends, and associates, Mellon received a bachelor’s degree in history from Pomona College and a master’s and doctorate from CGU. Mellon taught history at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, and was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown in 1975 to become California’s first state historic preservation officer and director of the State Office of Historic Preservation. He would be appointed a second time during Gray Davis’s tenure as governor. With Brown’s appointment, Mellon started a lifetime’s involvement in the
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field of historic preservation. That career included his service for many years as executive director of the California Missions Foundation and the Mission Inn Foundation in Riverside. During his career, Mellon received numerous awards and distinctions, including the prestigious Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the California Preservation Foundation’s President’s Award for lifetime achievement. Mellon was also active in politics, running as the Democratic nominee for the 24th Congressional District in 1962 and serving as a member of the California Democratic Council, among other activities. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Carlotta; daughter Andrea Mellon Schneider and son Fred Mellon; brother David Mellon; and several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and other extended family. REY MONZON | PhD, Education, ’03 The director of analytical studies and institutional research at San Diego State University, Rey Monzon passed away in January. He was 63. Born in the Philippines and raised in San Diego, Monzon received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from San Diego State University before pursuing a doctoral degree through Claremont Graduate University and San Diego State University’s joint program. A prolific scholar and musician, Monzon was actively involved in community
service with San Diego State, the Filipino Community, the education community in San Diego, the Council of Philippine American Organizations of San Diego County, the AB Samahan Filipino American SDSU Alumni Chapter, board of directors of Kalusugan Community Services, and The Filipino American Educators of San Diego County, among many other organizations and associations. Monzon is survived by his wife Glenda, his son Michael and daughter Miranda, his mother Barbara, and siblings Ben, Marty, Lisa, Ricky, and Leanne. GEORGE REGAS | Trustee Emeritus, CGU Board of Trustees Former CGU trustee George Regas, who was rector emeritus of All Saints Church in Pasadena, passed away at home in January. He was 90. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Regas served as rector of All Saints, one of the nation’s largest Episcopal churches with 6,000 members, for nearly 30 years. Regas focused on peace and justice efforts at All Saints as he cultivated a strong community of faith from a diverse population. In 1970, just three years into Regas’s tenure as rector, All Saints started Union Station as a full-service center for the homeless in the San Gabriel Valley. He established the All Saints AIDS Service Center and collaborated with his friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the creation of a South African ministry at the church.
Despite the many demands on his schedule, Regas also served for 11 years as a member of CGU’s Board of Trustees; in 2006, the board awarded him emeritus status. Regas is survived by his wife Mary, daughter Susan, sons Tim and Tyler, his wife’s son Burke Smith, and their families. BILLIE JEAN WIEBE | PhD, Education, ’00 A tireless advocate of the communications field in higher education, Billie Jean Wiebe passed away in December. She was 68. Born in Hillsboro, Kansas, Wiebe earned a master’s degree from Northwestern University before pursuing a doctorate at CGU. After serving as a high school teacher for several years, she joined the Fresno Pacific faculty in 1992 and became a student favorite and a respected voice among the university’s faculty. Most recently, Wiebe had been an associate professor of communications and English as well as director of Fresno Pacific’s communications program, which she was responsible for revitalizing in 2005. To honor this legacy, Fresno Pacific launched the Billie Jean Wiebe Memorial Scholarship to recognize her life and work. The scholarship gives financial assistance to that university’s undergraduate students working toward a bachelor’s degree in either communications or English. Wiebe is survived by her husband Richard, brother Stan Utting, and sister Mary Booker. l THE FLAME Spring 2021
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If These Walls Could Talk PHOTOGRAPH Laurel Hungerford An ornate rose … the words ‘scholar’ or ‘free’ … inspiring quotes … medieval symbols …. You can read the walls of Harper Hall just like a book. The Huntley Bookstore building isn’t the only captivating piece of architecture on the CGU campus. Just a few hundred yards away is Harper Hall, home to CGU’s administration. Designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann—known for his work on the Los Angeles Times building in downtown L.A., the Hoover Dam, and CGU neighbor Scripps College—he applied his signature Art Deco style to Harper Hall with an added gothic twist.
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Dedicated in 1932, the building evokes another time and place—maybe it was inspired by Kaufmann’s childhood in England. The carvings in the Harper Courtyard aren’t just a nice way to dress up a wall; no, they signal something else as well—that CGU is rooted in an academic tradition and approach to knowledge that is embedded in its significant past and that crosses oceans. When it comes to Harper Hall, the old adage “if these walls could talk” isn’t just an expression. These walls really do. l — Nick Owchar
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Offering a Breath of Life Abdullah Alismail helps people breathe. As a full-time respiratory therapist who is in charge of ventilator inventory for Loma Linda University Medical Center, he holds a crucial job in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alismail, a PhD student in Education, uses his CGU training to sharpen his research skills and help provide the best care possible for his patients. His is an inspiring story of courage. And compassion. Ignite Compassion: Explore CGU. To read more about Abdullah and other CGU success stories, go to cgu.edu/ignite
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