CLU Magazine - August 2020

CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY

AUGUST 2020

CLUMAGAZINE

Uncommon Knowledge

COVID-19 TESTS CAL LUTHERAN COMMUNITY

ANTIRACISM MANIFESTO: STEPS TO A FAIRER FUTURE PANDEMIC SIDELINES CHAMPION ATHLETES CHANCE ENCOUNTER RESETS LIFE COURSE INCOMING! MEET NEXT PRESIDENT LORI E. VARLOTTA

PHOTO BY KAREN QUINCY LOBERG

Out in Front

A MOUSE IN EVERY HOUSE

Colleen Robertson, recently retired superintendent of the Somis Union School District, greets student Landon Calhoun during a STEM night on the campus, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

C

olleen Robertson, EdD ’12, found herself perplexed by an analogy she heard often in early March: If Disneyland was shutting down due to the COVID-19 crisis, why were classes still in session at the Somis Union School District where she served as superintendent?

Robertson failed to see the comparison of educating pupils in the one-school district with entertaining them in the Magic Kingdom. But as the coronavirus locked down California, the 64-year-old educator ventured into a scholastic administrator’s version of Adventureland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland.

The adventure began the same day Disneyland shut its gates — March 13. Along

2 CLU MAGAZINE

with superintendents of 18 other districts, Robertson agreed to a one-week closure.

When the shutdown expanded to five weeks, she directed teachers to issue students workbooks stockpiled as refresher lessons during summer break and to check in with each student's parent at least once a week.

Ultimately, with COVID-19 cases escalating, officials would shutter classrooms through the end of the school year and transition to distance learning.

None of the Somis faculty had done any remote teaching. Eighty percent never had taken an online course.

Her educational leadership doctoral program trained her to think through challenging scenarios, Robertson said.

“The Cal Lu classes were never about putting things into your brain but about pulling things out. ‘What would you do if this happened? Why would you do it?’

I feel like it helped me become a better leader.”

The 260-student district could match a Chromebook tablet to every pupil in the third through eighth grades. But what about children with no internet in their homes? About 20 miles west of Cal Lutheran’s main campus, Somis boasts the highest median home value in pricey Ventura County. But that statistic masks a vast income disparity. Many students are the children of agricultural workers. Almost half of the community lacks home internet.

A survey of students’ digital needs indicated the district had to supply 25 hot spots and data plans to students who had no other way of connecting to the internet, not even a cell phone.

By that time hot spots were on back order and, although they once had been offered free, they now cost $140 each.

Another vendor had to be found to link the hot spots with a filter that alerts administration if students search an inappropriate phrase.

Two hours of online learning a day was not only an adjustment for the students but for parents, said Robertson. “While one mom might ask why her child is not getting six hours a day of virtual learning, another parent might say, ‘Really? They have to be online every day?’”

Once she and the faculty realized how to team high tech with high touch, the virtual learning got its groove, Robertson said. Kindergartners put on virtual Mother’s Day when they brought their mom for show and tell. Eighth graders posted their science fair online. Each session started with a check-in question, such as students’ favorite pizza toppings.

Robertson, who retired July 1, has devoted much thought to how this chapter in education ultimately will play out.

“We [educators] made mistakes along the way,” she said. “But we modeled to our kids when you do something new you will make mistakes but you keep on trying until you get it right.”

— Colleen Cason

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

CLUMAGAZINE PUBLISHER

Lynda Paige Fulford, MPA ’97 INTERIM EDITOR

Colleen Cason ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Peggy L. Johnson ART DIRECTOR

Bree M. Montanarello CONTRIBUTORS

Tony Biasotti, Jim Carlisle, Karin Grennan, Jana Weber, Michele Willer-Allred Linda Martinez PHOTOGRAPHERS

Groundskeeper Diego Cuevas is among a corps of Cal Lutheran staffers designated to keep the campus safe and tidy during COVID-19 restrictions.

20

4 PUBLISHER’S NOTE

A Time of Challenge and Celebration

5 HIGHLIGHTS

Michaela (Crawford ’79) Reaves, PhD

18 DIVERSITY/EQUITY/ INCLUSION MATTER

Cal Lutheran puts forth initiatives on race, ethnic equality.

Swenson Science Center Opens

Summer School Thrives in Virtual Space

Cal Lu Cares Exceeds Expectations Two Centuries of Service

7 IN MEMORIAM 10 Q&A: SHARLA BERRY On why Zoom can be exhausting

and exhilarating

12 MEET THE NEXT PRESIDENT

Lori E. Varlotta tapped as the university’s new leader.

Edgar Aguirre ’99 Jonathan Gonzales ’04, MS ’07 Angela (Moller ’96) Naginey, MS ’03

20 WHATEVER IT TOOK When COVID-19 shook students’

EDITORIAL BOARD

Rachel (Ronning ’99) Lindgren

AUGUST 2020 2 OUT IN FRONT

Brian Stethem ’84 Karen Quincy Loberg

lives, the Cal Lutheran community stepped up.

24 CLASS NOTES Special Section: Alumni rise to

pandemic challenges.

Jean (Kelso ’84) Sandlin, MPA ’90, EdD ’12 Bruce Stevenson ’80, PhD Paloma Vargas, PhD VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1

Copyright 2020. Published three times a year by University Relations for alumni and friends. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of Cal Lutheran nor the magazine staff.

CORRESPOND WITH US

CLU Magazine California Lutheran University 60 W. Olsen Road #1800 Thousand Oaks, CA 91360-2787 805-493-3151

31 MILESTONES 36 VOCATIONS

A Tanzanian child’s path to his life’s work led him to Cal Lutheran, then the United Nations.

clumag@callutheran.edu CalLutheran.edu/magazine CLU Magazine welcomes letters to the editor. Please include your name, phone number, city and state, and note Cal Lutheran graduation years.

If requesting removal from our

39 LINKS

distribution list, please include your name and address as they appear on

14 SEASONS INTERRUPTED

Pandemic sidelines athletes on championship quests.

the mailing label.

ON THE COVER With commencement ceremonies postponed due to COVID-19, the Hutchison sisters — Jesslyn ’18, left, and Madison ’20 — celebrate in their family’s Conejo Valley backyard. Jesslyn earned a master’s degree from USC this spring. Theirs is another example of how the Cal Lutheran community adapted to life during a pandemic. Image by Brian Stethem

To submit a class note and photos for publication, write to us or visit CalLutheran.edu/alumni. Click on the links labeled Stay Connected and Share Your News. We hope you’ll request an alumni flag and share photos of your travels with it.

CLU Magazine welcomes ideas for articles and nominations for Vocations alumni essays (see Page 36).

AUGUST 2020 3

Publisher’s Note

A Time of Challenge and Celebration

S

ince our last issue, COVID-19 and social distancing became household terms and shocking events unfolded across the nation, compelling us to confront our country’s stain of systemic racism and injustice.

These times challenge our university, nation and world, but they also present rich opportunities to build on our faiths, reach for hope and move forward as a community.

The coronavirus abruptly forced us into uncharted territories of learning and working remotely, changing lives, our economy and education in ways we never imagined. Focused on health and safety for all, Cal Lutheran is providing services and support for our community affected by the pandemic.

In May, the killing of George Floyd reignited the Black Lives Matter movement, beckoning a worldwide cry for social justice and demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism.

In June, Cal Lutheran answered that call with an action plan to build a more

equitable and antiracist community, such as a new Black Lives Matter Fellowship and Community Scholarship Initiative; a dedicated space to support student development and inclusive programming; and an interactive website to communicate progress in equity, diversity and inclusion. CLU Magazine explores these initiatives in this issue and will continue coverage in the future.

During what has been called a pandemic within a pandemic, Cal Lutheran found cause for celebration.

In July, biology, chemistry and exercise science faculty moved into the $34 million state-of-the-art Swenson Science Center. A giant leap forward on the STEM scale, the three-story facility boasts innovative labs and collaborative work spaces to train future leaders in such disciplines as health care, sports medicine, biochemistry and environmental studies.

In June, we announced the selection of the first woman to serve as our president. Chris Kimball, who diligently steered Cal Lutheran to new heights for the past 12 years, described the newly appointed eighth president, Lori E. Varlotta, as the right person to lead the university at this time due to

LETTER: HEARTENING PROSE EASES ISOLATION

CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY

APRIL 2020

CLUMAGAZINE College Accomplished WINDING ROADS TO DEGREES

4 CLU MAGAZINE

DATA COP BORDER GOSPEL RETIREMENT PLANS MIXTEC INTERPRETERS STOP THE STIGMA

T

he April 2020 CLU Magazine offers some uplifting reading for another day of self-isolation. Thank you again for all the time, affection, and wordsmithing you’ve devoted to our dear friend Siri Eliason, including the memorial in this magazine. [Siri Eliason 1932-2019 obituary, Page 9].​ Luther Luedtke President 1992-2006 California Lutheran University South Pasadena, CA

“Our incoming president Lori E. Varlotta shared this message of hope: ‘I believe institutions like Cal Lutheran are the very places that can help mend the world.’” her experience, talents and passion for inclusion. In a virtual introduction to the campus community, she shared this message of hope: “I believe institutions like Cal Lutheran are the very places that can help mend the world.” We’ve included an introduction to Dr. Varlotta in this issue.

I hope the following stories of resilience, creativity and generosity will reassure you that our students, alumni and partners are committed to carrying us into a bright future.

—Lynda Paige Fulford, MPA ’97

GOING GREEN IS BETTER THAN EVER Looking for a no-cost way to save our planet during these challenging times?

Consider reading CLU Magazine on the internet rather than on paper.

We’ve enhanced the digital version to include the much loved Class Notes, beginning with this issue. You’ll get the same content and can feel good knowing you are saving precious resources. Test drive the online offering at CalLutheran.edu/magazine.

If you decide to remove yourself from the distribution list, send an email to clumag@ callutheran.edu. Include your name and address as they appear on the mailing label.

PHOTOS BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

Highlights

The Swenson Science Center features 11 teaching and eight research labs.

Steady and Ready

T

he Swenson Science Center is an essential component of Cal Lutheran’s vision to educate future STEM leaders. Fortunately, California officials declared construction of the $34 million facility essential under COVID-19 restrictions.

While the coronavirus crisis upended operations across campus, Swenson stayed on schedule, said Ryan Van Ommeren, associate vice president of Planning and Services.

Construction crews for the 47,000-square-foot, three-story building were practicing social-distancing protocols, including masking up and undergoing health screenings, as early as the end of March.

The coronavirus crisis did produce a silver lining. Jackhammering, concrete removal and grading — accompanied by the steady beep of heavy equipment — took place during finals week, which this spring had to be held remotely. As a result, students and faculty were spared that commotion during exams, Van Ommeren said.

In addition, the construction zone could be expanded, which would have

posed access issues had people still been on campus, said Senior Project Manager Valerie Crooks.

Labs and other classrooms are ready for use when the fall semester begins, but under state COVID-19 regulations in effect at CLU Magazine press time, classes must be taught virtually.

While many in the Cal Lutheran community witnessed the construction firsthand or via the on-site webcam, few had seen the interior until Crooks led a tour on a connecting@callutheran webinar July 24.

“This building is science on display,” Crooks likes to say. “There are a lot of advanced engineering and construction techniques.”

The synthetic chemistry research and organic chemistry labs feature centralized vacuum and nitrogen systems to serve each station with a full-view fume hood and bench for air- and moisturefree work.

Even before the walls went up, the utility connections for these state-ofthe-art stations had to be laid out, said Crooks, who holds a Master of Science degree in engineering.

The chemistry labs will boast new equipment aquired with a recent $150,000 gift from CLU regent and chemist Arnold Gutierrez. The instruments purchased with this gift will help train students on the digital equipment akin to that used in commercial labs.

A major reason the work progressed so smoothly, Van Ommeren said, came down to Crooks’ unique skill set. “She is literate in scientific equipment and the construction world, able to talk to lab planners and faculty and to inspectors and the construction contractor,” he said.

The dedication ceremony is on hold due to COVID-19 rules prohibiting large gatherings.

DID YOU KNOW? Alumni Hall, which opened in 1962 as one of the original Centrum buildings, will have a new lease on life, thanks in part to a $750,000 federal grant. The new Transfer Center, scheduled to open in early 2021, will provide transfer students with a dedicated place to access services and to study.

AUGUST 2020 5

Highlights

Pandemic Pivots

University answers crisis with compassionate credit, 100% online offerings. fall tuition offered to students who take five or more credits in the summer likely helped fuel this increase.

Kevin Baxter, ’08, MS ’20, associate director of enrollment marketing at Cal Lutheran, attributes the jump to staysafe-at-home orders thwarting students’ summer plans for travel, study abroad, internships and jobs.

The high enrollment has the added benefit of keeping more students connected to the campus community after the university had to send most residential students home in March in response to the pandemic.

ADVANCING COMPASSION In a policy believed to be the first in the nation, Cal Lutheran is giving students who took Advanced Placement classes and registered for exams in spring 2020 the maximum credit, regardless of scores or test completion, to account for COVID-19-related challenges.

The university made the exception for this year’s exams because of hardships caused by the pandemic. The College Board revamped AP exams to be given online, but students reported problems submitting their tests due to technical issues or lack of access to the internet and computers. Health concerns, job losses and cutbacks, and other stressors related to COVID-19 also proved to be obstacles.

“We recognize this is not a normal school year, these were not normal AP courses, and these were not normal AP tests,” said Cal Lutheran sociology professor Adina Nack, who advocated for the policy along with Registrar Maria Kohnke. “University officials decided to be as compassionate and equitable as possible.”

6 CLU MAGAZINE

About one-third of the students admitted to Cal Lutheran will be affected by the compassionate credit policy.

SUMMER SCHOOL ENROLLMENT HEATS UP The switch to an all-virtual format for Cal Lutheran’s traditional undergraduate summer classes resulted in record enrollment at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic upended students’ plans.

The university saw a 33% increase in the number of students taking classes, from 431 last year to 574 by the end of June. Other universities also experienced enrollment boosts after going allvirtual this summer, with Arizona State University reporting a 17% increase.

This year all classes went virtual, with a total of 165 offerings. Cal Lutheran offered its first virtual traditional undergraduate summer course in 2013. Last year, nine of the 125 summer classes were online.

Students registered for a bigger class load than usual, with the average increasing from 4.5 units last year to 6.4 this year. A new $1,000 credit toward

WHAT’S HOT WITH SUMMER STUDENTS? Answer: A course titled Advertising During Crisis along with no-credit classes to teach students to crunch data; another to analyze what is being said on Twitter, Reddit and Instagram; and a one-day nonfiction creative writing workshop.

In Memoriam

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

News briefs

BANKER RECEIVES TEACHING AWARD Jamie Banker, an associate professor in the Master of Science in Counseling Psychology program, received the 2020 President’s Award for Teaching Excellence during the virtual Honors Recognition event in April.

Banker, a licensed marriage and family therapist, is known not only as an excellent teacher and clinical supervisor for trainees but also a dedicated mentor to students as they conduct research, submit publications and prepare to enter doctoral programs, said President Chris Kimball.

“She has been a transformational teacher and leader for more than a decade,” he said. “She has worn many hats, often simultaneously, and her impact has gone well beyond her program.”

After the Borderline shooting in Thousand Oaks in 2018, Banker provided emotional support and resources to students, faculty, staff and community members.

As a doctoral student and family therapist at Virginia Tech in 2007 when a gunman killed 32 people on campus, Banker assisted survivors in their psychological recovery.

Now she is helping people cope with the pandemic as a volunteer

psychotherapist with the California Mental Health Corps.

She used her virtual acceptance speech for the teaching award as an opportunity to comfort students: “I want to tell you that it is OK to feel, and fully feel, all that you are experiencing right now. … We have lost some sense of security, some sense of safety and, absolutely, our sense of predictability.”

Banker joined the faculty in 2010 and served as program director for seven years.

The President’s Award was created in 1995 to recognize professors who are held in high esteem by their peers, students and the rest of the university community.

EVENT ADDS NEW CHAPTER TO CLU STORY During Cal Lutheran Cares Day in May, the university raised a record more than $1.92 million in donations and banked more than 100 stories showing the resiliency and compassion of the CLU community.

The 24-hour online fundraiser aimed at helping students struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic gave site visitors a platform to share how they are caring for others or how Cal Lutheran faculty, staff, students and alumni have aided them.

“We really wanted to say, ‘Cal Lu cares,’” said Carrie (Kelley ’09, MPPA ’11) Barnett director of Advancement Marketing and Digital Philanthropy.

“These stories back that up.”

Although inviting written contributions never had been tried during a CLU fundraiser, the Advancement team believed even if the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic prevented someone from donating dollars, their words were of no less value.

In the end, the May 6 fundraiser was the most successful one-day event in the university’s history in terms of donations.

Its worth also can be measured as a source of inspiration, Barnett said.

Alumni played a leading role in the effort’s success, contributing $118,410. They also uploaded 86 of the stories collected.

“These individual stories turned the focus of this crisis into an over arching story of resiliency that can inspire everyone who reads them,” she said.

To access the archived stories, go to callutheran. edu/cares-day/stories.html.

WINNING ONE WITH THE GIPPER Cal Lutheran’s Master of Public Policy and Administration recently became the only graduate program in the nation to bear the name of the 40th U.S. president on a fellowship.

The School of Management entered an agreement with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute allowing the school to rebrand an existing full scholarship as the Reagan-Gallegly Fellowship.

The first ReaganGallegly Fellowship was awarded to Esmeralda Navarro ’20, an operations manager with the Ventura County Department of Child Support Services.

Carol Gilbert 1932 - 2020

Carol Gilbert, the matriarch of the most generous family of donors in Cal Lutheran history, died on May 6, 2020.

She was 87.

Carol and her husband, Jack, were dedicated supporters of the university for more than 30 years, beginning with his service on the Board of Regents. The Gilbert name graces numerous landmark campus buildings, programs and scholarships, with many other facilities existing because of Gilbert family financial and technical support. These include Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center, Gilbert Arena, Jack’s Corner at Starbucks, Carol’s Corner in the Student Union Building and Gilbert Plaza at the Swenson Science Center.

A native Southern Californian, Carol received her degree in dental hygiene from the University of Southern California. She and Jack were married in 1966 after they met at the Los Angeles dental office where she worked. She loved telling of their courtship and Jack’s refusal to take no for an answer to his marriage proposal. Jack founded TOLD Corp., which their son and current regent Rod Gilbert now leads.

After Jack — an accomplished entrepreneur and renowned philanthropist — died in 2012, Carol continued her generous support of the university. She often attended concerts, convocations, the Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival, Regals volleyball games and other events, always with a warm smile and an enthusiasm for all things Cal Lutheran. In 2013, she moved from her longtime home in Oxnard to University Village Thousand Oaks to be close to the campus.

Carol’s generosity and commitment to higher education have changed countless lives for the better. Her family asks memorial gifts be made to the Gilbert Theological Leadership Endowment at CLU. Established by the Gilberts, this fund enhances theological study for undergraduates at Cal Lutheran and graduate students at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.

AUGUST 2020 7

Highlights

TWO CENTURIES OF SERVICE

Seven faculty members with a combined total of more than 200 years of service are retiring with emeritus status.

PHOTOS BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

ALUMNI BOARD OF DIRECTORS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Candice (Cerro ’09) Aragon President and Regent Representative Andrew Brown ’09 Vice President, Alumni Involvement & Recognition Irene (Tyrrell ’00) Moyer Vice President, University Relations Sergio Galvez ’03, MPPA ’09 Vice President, Development Jean Helm, MBA ’00 Secretary Erin (Rivers ’97) Rulon, MBA ’06 Immediate Past President/ At-Large Representative

Joan Wines

T

he Board of Regents awarded the honor to geology professor Bill Bilodeau, strategic management professor Harry Domicone, associate professor of psychology Michael Gerson, art professor Larkin Higgins, associate professor of educational leadership Janice L. Tucker, finance professor Paul Williams and English professor Joan Wines.

Bilodeau joined the faculty in 1990 and chaired the Geology Department for more than 20 years. He embraced a field-based approach to teaching and led travel seminars to Central America, Ecuador, Egypt, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

After joining the faculty in 1993, Domicone taught in the traditional undergraduate, Bachelor’s Degree for Professionals and MBA programs. With a lifelong interest in global higher education, he played a leading role in the internationalization of the School of Management.

Gerson came to Cal Lutheran in 1998 and taught in the graduate programs in clinical and counseling psychology while maintaining a private practice. He is an expert in the study of domestic violence and forensic psychology.

8 CLU MAGAZINE

Larkin Higgins

Higgins joined the faculty 35 years ago and has taught a wide spectrum of art courses including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, interdisciplinary arts and Earth, Art & Spirituality. Believing art majors benefit from computer skills, she set up the Art Department’s first computer graphics lab.

Tucker has a broad background in educational leadership with expertise in international policy, school reform and women in leadership. A champion of international education, she led doctoral seminars to Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and other countries during her 16 years at the university.

Williams joined the faculty 28 years ago after spending 20 years in business management. He has delivered a variety of undergraduate and graduate finance courses that are both rigorous and practical.

Arriving in 1976, Wines was the first of this year’s retirees to teach at Cal Lutheran.

She served as adviser for the Morning Glory literary publication for 24 years and helped launch the Multimedia Program, Center for Teaching and Learning, Writing Center and Math Science Upward Bound program.

VOTING MEMBERS Joanne (Satrum ’67) Cornelius, MA ’74 Julie (Heller ’89) Herder Karsten Lundring ’65 Reggie Ray ’92, MBA ’04 Sal Sandoval ’78 Brandi Schnathorst, MBA ’10 AT-LARGE MEMBERS Pedro Guillen ’16, MA ’20 Cristy Richey McNay ’03, MA ’13, EdD ’17 Mark Schoenbeck ’96 REPRESENTATIVES Joshua Carter-McHale, MBA ’21 GASC Josyua Gatison ’22 ASCLU-G Angela (Namba ’02) Rowley, MS ’05 Faculty OFFICE OF ALUMNI & FAMILY RELATIONS Rachel Ronning ’99 Lindgren Senior Director Stephanie Hessemer Associate Director Steven Guetzoian Assistant Director Jana Weber Administrative Assistant

MEET OUR DEVELOPMENT TEAM With more than 80 years of collective experience, we’re here to help you explore how you can support our next generation of global leaders at Cal Lutheran.

Our team is organized by geography to support you wherever you live.

Reach out to get started on planning your legacy today!

JODY SKENDERIAN

EDGAR AGUIRRE

Executive Director, Development Programs

Major Gifts Officer

United States & International

Eastern Ventura County, Arizona, Nevada

jskender@CalLutheran.edu (805) 493-3837

edgaraguirre@CalLutheran.edu (805) 493-3273

MARIA PAREDES

LANA CLARK

Director of Development

Major Gifts Officer

Washington, Los Angeles County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County

West Ventura County, Orange County and Greater San Diego lclark@CalLutheran.edu (805) 493-3163

mariaparedes@CalLutheran.edu (805) 493-3640

BRIAN STEIN-WEBBER

VICTORIA NORDYKE

Director of Seminary Relations, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS)

Development Assistant vnordyke@CalLutheran.edu (805) 493-3851

United States & International bsteinwebber@plts.edu (925) 285-7256

It all starts with you.

|

clugift.org

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

Q&A It turns out that videoconferencing is exhausting. Are people learning this with the pandemic, Dr. Berry, or did we already know? Sure, if you just look up Zoom fatigue, it’s a real thing. We’re doing different things to our eyes, to our backs, to our bodies. When you’re teaching a physical class, you’re walking and moving around. When you’re sitting at a screen, that’s a different experience overall.

Each time you log on to a class or a Zoom meeting, you probably have other tabs open.

People might be messaging you. It’s really hard to stay focused in 2-D versus 3-D. It’s just a different type of engagement.

And mind you, we’re at a time when not only are our professional interactions being transferred into this way of communicating, but so are our personal ones. Many folks might start off the day with a phone call to family members in another state, a Zoom call to the students, and text messages.

We’ve already been hyperconnected, and now, if my friends want to hang out, that’s on Zoom, too. There’s no break. Everything is through the screen.

Nobody wants that. We’ve never been at this point in all of human history. Think about it. Until March, we’ve never been at a time where we communicated exclusively through screens. In fact, in early talks about the internet, that was the horror: People would be so connected to their devices they wouldn’t connect with other people. Now, our primary form of interaction is through the screen, and it’s disorienting.

Sharla Berry teaches in a hybrid program and does research on creating inclusive online learning communities.

SCREEN TIME Sharla Berry, an assistant professor of educational leadership and expert in the dynamics of online classes, talks about teaching through and beyond an emergency.

10 CLU MAGAZINE

What are you hearing from other educators, and does your research help you to make sense of it? This has been a big shock for everyone, as folks are being forced to make major adjustments to how they teach.

But there is a difference between emergency remote instruction and online teaching. My research is really about contexts where folks had planned to use technology to teach. Now we are using technology to teach through an unprecedented context.

It’s worth noting that the technology is the easy part. We can do webinars and we can use Zoom, but teaching through a crisis is the harder part. My research is about creating communities in online classrooms. Community is at the heart of a successful experience, and that’s what most educators want to know how to create and maintain. Educators are

CLU ADMINISTRATION asking questions like, "How do I connect with my students? How do I support them? How can technology be a facilitator of that?"

You write about a need to replace certain social interactions. There’s no water cooler in an online class. There’s no “We’re all getting coffee before class” or having casual conversations about the basketball game. So, as an instructor, you have to put some of that in your class. In a synchronous class, that might mean ceding some of your class time to letting folks share what’s going on. In the asynchronous class, it might mean using discussion boards to allow students to check in and share personal updates. It’s about creating intentional opportunities for personal interaction.

Doing this might take more time in the beginning. You’re reestablishing norms. You’re building a different type of rapport. You’re also tending to folks during a crisis. So spending time checking in and helping your class bond as a group becomes even more important.

How else do you build community at a distance? One of the best practices around building online communities is to reach out early and often through personalized messages.

I teach in our doctoral program. We’re smaller, so I can email each student and say Hey, how are you doing? I can check in with them on a more personal level. If instructors can’t do that, they can use the discussion boards that we have in Blackboard and post something like: How is everyone doing? Please share a personal or professional update about your week. The instructor can follow that up by commenting on posts and encouraging students to comment on their peers’ posts.

Allowing students to share and then responding to what they share lets them know that they are cared about, and that the class is not just about submitting an assignment, but about having a shared supportive experience.

Please explain what “social presence” is.

Researchers Garrison, Anderson and Archer use this term to talk about the ability to establish yourself as real in a virtual environment. When we’re thinking about it in a classroom, it’s this ability for an instructor and the student not to feel like either person is a talking head. When social presence is cultivated, you feel like you are in a virtual space with a person with real interests, a real background, real feelings and to whom you can make authentic connections.

Have software tools evolved so that social presence is easier to produce than it once was? Absolutely. Some of the students I worked with in my early research had received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the ’80s and ’90s. They had seen distance learning through a lot of iterations including VHS or literal correspondence courses, where you listened to an audio cassette or videocassette and dropped your assignments in the mail. What we have access to is far more than that. Just the ability to see someone in real time is a great connector. With the technology that we have now, there are many more opportunities to connect.

During this crisis, what advice are you giving other educators? Be flexible. Anticipate that the crisis may require a streamlining, a reduction of curriculum or how you deliver your content. It doesn’t mean a total reduction in quality, but we are going to have to be realistic about how our courses may be altered. When we’re realistic, it opens up space for students to also be realistic and honest.

Our students and instructors have done a wonderful job in trying to rise to the occasion. On top of work and school, we all have families and personal commitments. None of us knows what each week will look like. So faculty and students have to try to keep lines of communication open. They have to be open to constant negotiation and renegotiation regarding what a class might look like, when assignments might be due, and other things.

This may last a long time. What should we expect from remote instruction months after the emergency started?

It is my hope that faculty, staff, student communities come together to co-create the kind of experiences that would serve all of our students. It’s going to take flexibility and open-mindedness.

The stronger we become with online teaching and learning, the better positioned we will be for the future. As our students enter the workforce, they may well be on international teams. They will have to use technology to make connections. Or, they may be on a domestic team but be a remote worker. So, the ability to teach and learn in virtual environments will continue to hold value after the current crisis has passed.

Chris Kimball, PhD President Leanne Neilson, PsyD Provost and Vice President, Academic Affairs Regina D. Biddings-Muro, EdD Vice President, University Advancement Karen Davis, MBA ’95 Vice President, Administration and Finance Melissa Maxwell-Doherty ’77, MDiv ’81 Vice President, Mission and Identity Melinda Roper, EdD Vice President, Student Affairs and Dean of Students Matthew Ward, PhD Vice President, Enrollment Management and Marketing Gerhard Apfelthaler, PhD Dean, School of Management Lisa Buono, MS ’04, EdD ’11 Dean, School for Professional and Continuing Studies Michael Hillis, PhD Dean, Graduate School of Education Richard Holigrocki, PhD Dean, Graduate School of Psychology Jessica Lavariega Monforti, PhD Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Rev. Raymond Pickett, PhD Rector, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary The Rev. Alicia Vargas, MDiv ’95, PhD Dean, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary BOARD OF REGENTS Susan Lundeen-Smuck ’88, Chair Deborah Sweeney, Vice Chair Bill Camarillo, Secretary Candice (Cerro ’09) Aragon Linda Baumhefner The Rev. Jim Bessey ’66 Andrew Binsley Ann Boynton ’83 Joshua Carter-McHale ’21 Sue Chadwick Tracy M. Downs ’88, MD Randall Foster Josyua Gatison ’22 Rod Gilbert, H’16 Arnold Gutierrez, PhD The Rev. Mark Holmerud Jon Irwin Chris Kimball, PhD Judy Larsen, PhD Rick Lemmo Malcolm McNeil The Rev. David Nagler, MDiv ’93 The Rev. Frank Nausin ’70, MDiv ’74 Carrie Nebens Kären Olson ’83 Jim Overton Debra Papageorge ’12 Mike Soules Colleen Windham-Hughes, PhD, MDiv Russell Young ’71 The mission of California Lutheran University is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.

AUGUST 2020 11

Educational Philosopher and

CONCRETE PRACTITIONER Varlotta to lead Cal Lutheran as eighth president.

Lori E. Varlotta, with 35 years of highereducation experience, will become Cal Lutheran president Sept. 30.

12 CLU MAGAZINE

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY LORI E. VARLOTTA

BY COLLEEN CASON

L

ori E. Varlotta has made friends with firsts. She was first in her workingclass family to graduate from college.

Sept. 30, she will begin her tenure as the first female president in Cal Lutheran’s 61-year history.

With more than three decades in higher education, the 56-year-old Varlotta currently serves as president of Hiram College in Ohio — where, again, she was the first woman to hold that office.

“Her many gifts, talents and deep personal commitment to equity, inclusion and diversity make her the right person for Cal Lutheran at this time,” said outgoing President Chris Kimball when he introduced her to the campus community in mid-June via Connecting@CalLutheran webinar.

Described by colleagues as an educational philosopher and a concrete practitioner, her wide-ranging resume includes more than a decade at CSU Sacramento where, as senior vice president for Planning, Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, she also oversaw Student Retention and Success and NCAA Division I Athletics.

FROM ‘THE CITY OF BRIDGES’

LORI E. VARLOTTA A SNAPSHOT

That landed her a post at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. And within months, she said, she found her calling.

HOMETOWN Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

MEASURING WHAT MATTERS

EDUCATION BA University of Notre Dame MS Syracuse University PhD Miami University UNDERGRAD MAJOR Philosophy FIRST JOB OUT OF COLLEGE Resident director, Robert Morris University CAREER Thirty-five years of experience, including Hiram College; CSU Sacramento; University of Wisconsin, Whitewater RECENT PUBLICATION “Lipstick Leadership in Higher Education,” The Chronicle of Higher Education SPOUSE Eric Premack HOBBIES Long-distance runs, mountain hikes

Varlotta expresses pride in collaboration with staffs across the nation to design cocurricular programs, especially those designed to foster diversity, leadership, social justice and community-based research.

She engaged Hiram’s faculty and staff in a yearlong effort to create assessment and accountability tools with the goal of growing enrollment at the 1,200-student institution and increasing its financial sustainability.

A Jan. 16, 2020, article on thechangeleader.com details this process, during which Varlotta put transparency and inclusion “front and center.”

“I believe it is important to measure and to set a course clearly and collectively charted,” she said.

Three years ago, Varlotta and her staff launched a 1:1 mobile technology program — the first at a four-year college in Ohio.

Funded by the largest gift in the college’s history, Tech and Trek equips full-time students with an accessorized iPad Pro and a pair of hiking boots so they can integrate their classroom learning with what they discover in their field research and exploring their community.

Affirming the importance of a sense of FAVORITE DISHES place, she describes herself as a “proud She loves to cook classic Italian and pan-Asian fare daughter of hard-working, blue-collar parents from Pittsburgh, Pa.” “When I went to Notre Dame and then on to Syracuse, it became clear I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. I never knew there were two sides,” said Varlotta, The philosopher in her emerged as she used a roadway interwho attended the University of Notre Dame on an academic section as the analogy for this unparalleled time in our history. scholarship.

“I am standing with all of you at this very moment at a time Endearing lessons gleaned from her parents, her “wise but I consider to be one of the most scary intersections I have ever uneducated” immigrant grandparents and her neighborhood approached in my career,” she told the Cal Lutheran community. convinced her she grew up on the right side of the tracks for her.

The surface, she said, is paved by the devastating COVID-19 Varlotta stepped onto the South Bend campus as a pre-med crisis with its impacts hitting individuals, families, countries student. To what she calls “her parents’ chagrin,” she changed and economies. her major to philosophy, a discipline she says has served her Underneath, she continued, is a deep and damaged foundawell. tion built on institutional racism.

She knows the barriers first-generation college students face “This flawed foundation weakens our entire country,” she because she confronted them. After graduating from Notre said. “I know, however, it disproportionately dispirits, dehuDame, she returned home looking for a job. Because she was manizes, haunts and hurts our friends and colleagues of color unaware of such services as a campus career center, networkand so many others from traditionally underserved groups who ing events and internships, she asked her parents how to find have come to live with us, to learn with us and to work with us.” work. They pointed her to the Sunday newspaper classifieds Varlotta offered this message of hope as she begins her new and told her to circle once the jobs that interested her and twice post: “I believe institutions like Cal Lutheran are the very places those that interested her and for which she was qualified. that can help mend the world.”

AT A CROSSROAD

IN THE NEXT CLU MAGAZINE Read an in-depth interview with Lori E. Varlotta following her arrival at Cal Lutheran.

AUGUST 2020 13

14 CLU MAGAZINE

‘Quaran TEAMS’ Pandemic stops short championship seasons.

BY JIM CARLISLE / / PHOTOS BY CAL LUTHERAN SPORTS

O

Third baseman and thensenior Ryne Yamashiro tripled in his last game before the COVID-19 pandemic ended the Kingsmen’s season.

ne minute Cal Lutheran athletes were winning games, setting school records and topping the nation. The next, their seasons were canceled, their classes moved online and they were scattered to their homes across the country.

In March, before the coronavirus pandemic turned hope to heartbreak, several “Cal Lu” teams were racking up breakout seasons and individual athletes were training for national championships.

Even though there had been talk of a shutdown as COVID-19 cases exploded across the United States, when the blow finally fell it came like a gut punch.

“Oh, man, I still have trouble thinking about it,” said track and field coach Matt Lea in mid-May. “We had a team meeting as soon as it happened, and it was pretty emotional. That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my coaching career. I mean, it wasn’t just that we couldn’t compete, we had to shut things down. We’re not even going to be together. When are we going to see each other again?”

Sophomore Evan Cox was ranked No. 1 in the nation in the 400-meter hurdles for the Kingsmen. The men’s 1,600 relay team held the top spot in the country. The Regals’ Kendall Guidetti ’20 was the U.S.’s best in the long jump.

“All of a sudden one day it goes from like 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. to noon and then — we’re done. This season’s over, we’ve canceled all spring sports, all spring events,” said Lea with 16 years of coaching experience.

Among the hardest hit were the inhabitants of Samuelson Aquatics Center: the men’s swim team, which was about to send three members to the NCAA Division III national championships; and the women’s water polo team, ranked No. 1 in the nation’s preseason poll.

Then-senior Ben Brewer ’20 and junior Andreas Nybo each were to swim in three events at the nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina, and junior Luke Rodarte in two.

“They were expecting to do fantastic at the meet. They were racing to win,” coach Barry Schreifels said. “We looked at other times and other racers and other schools and other swimmers and we were planning to win.

AUGUST 2020 15

“On that Monday the NCAA announced they were canceling the [Division I] basketball Final Four. And I thought, my goodness, if they’ve canceled that, they’re going to cancel everything. And only maybe an hour or two later, they announced they were canceling all championships, they were suspending all NCAA activities.”

Brewer said having to pull to a dead stop just four days short of leaving for Greensboro was not the way he expected to end his career.

“I’ve swum since I was, like 5 or 6, and this was going to be the grand finale,” he said.

Even though the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to spring sports athletes, the swimmers are out of luck because theirs is a winter sport. Brewer plans to join the Coast Guard.

The Regals scarcely had begun their water polo season when the plug was pulled. They won six of their final seven games

Then-senior Victoria Rose Meek and her teammates had their sights set on the nation’s inaugural Division III women’s water polo tournament when the season was canceled. She wears cap No. 5 to honor her brother, Justin, who sported that same number when he played water polo at Cal Lutheran. Justin died in the 2018 mass shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill.

16 CLU MAGAZINE

and were setting their sights on the nation’s first Division III tournament.

It was an especially deep loss for then-senior center Victoria Rose Meek ’20 — whose brother Justin ’18, also a CLU water polo player, was among those killed in the Borderline shootings in 2018.

“I actually took on his cap number,” she said. “I followed him into high school and into college, so he was No. 5 and then I became No. 5 in high school and college. So I did really feel a sense of connectedness to him. It was really devastating to have another loss, in a way. A different loss, but still a loss so close after. It was hurtful and disappointing, but I’m just glad we got to end on a good note. That’s something I’ll be able to hold onto.”

When the season ended, Meek moved to Tucson, Arizona, and planned to apply for Navy Officer Candidate School.

Water polo coach Craig Rond said watching Olympians and pro players lose their chance to compete offered solace to Cal Lutheran athletes. “… Because everybody had to shut it down, it helped people cope. They just figured there’s hundreds of thousands of people in the same shoes.”

Then-senior Kendall Guidetti was ranked No. 1 in the nation when her quest for a fourth straight SCIAC long jump title was derailed by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.

Cal Lutheran’s baseball team was just beginning to roll. Having won the NCAA Division III national championship in 2017, the Kingsmen had taken over as No. 1 in the nation.

Baseball coach Marty Slimak, MPA ’96 said finishing what there was of the season on top did little to ease the disappointment.

“I’ve never had an experience like this,” Slimak said. “I mean if you get to a regional and lose, at least you can look back on a season because you’ve played a season. But this, there’s nothing positive about this. There really isn’t.”

The initial reaction of third baseman Ryne Yamashiro ’20 was anger, he said during virtual commencement week in mid-May. “It’s not just my senior season, but everything as a senior, just graduating with your classmates, everything like that. When I first heard about everything that was going on, I was pretty mad.”

On March 15, he booked a flight home to Hawaii and left the next day. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone. That was definitely the hardest part.”

As news reports showed the severity of the crisis Yamashiro has grown more philosophical. “Now I sit back and I realize how bad this has gotten, especially in California and Los Angeles specifically, I feel like it was the best thing to do.”

Water polo coach Craig Rond believes the global impact of the pandemic might have helped his players’ perspective.

“I think what happened was the media was just showing all the different sports and people and athletes in an Olympic year that aren’t going to the Olympics, and the NBA and Major League Baseball,” Rond said. “I think because everybody had to shut it down, it helped people cope. They just figured there’s hundreds of thousands of people in the same shoes.”

Jim Carlisle wrote about sports for the Ventura County Star for more than three decades. He has been the public address announcer for Cal Lutheran football since 2001.

AUGUST 2020 17

DIVERSITY EQUITY/ INCLUSION Cal Lutheran enhances antiracism initiatives.

BY TONY BIASOTTI / / PHOTOS BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

I

n spring 2020 America reached a flashpoint in the drive to address institutional racism.

On June 22, less than a month after George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police, California Lutheran University issued a strongly worded statement of commitment to antiracism with a list of initiatives geared toward diversity, equity and inclusion. These included a review of the curriculum, a Black Lives Matter scholarship, a bias response team and plans to hire a chief equity and inclusion officer.

Cal Lutheran has been on this road for years. Many programs mentioned in that statement were underway before the Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, and others were in the works, including the transformation of Cal Lutheran’s Ethnic and Race Studies minor into a major.

But the university’s antiracism statement made clear that road has been neither smooth nor straight and posed barriers to some it did not to others.

EARLY STRIDES

The university’s first big steps toward equity and inclusion came in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the university won a series of grants from The James Irvine Foundation, totaling more than $1.5 million, to increase diversity among students, faculty and staff.

But in 2015, when Cal Lutheran’s accreditation was reaffirmed by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the WASC report identified racial diversity — especially of faculty — as a main area for improvement.

Nearly every major faculty hire since then has been made with an eye toward increasing diversity. Cal Lutheran’s faculty is now 29% nonwhite, up from 17% four years ago, according to Leanne Neilson, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.

18 CLU MAGAZINE

This year, new hires include Taiwo Ande as associate provost for Educational Effectiveness and Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet as director of the new Ethnic and Race Studies major and associate dean for Equity, Inclusion and Engagement. Both started July 1.

‘HARD CONVERSATIONS’

In late February, members of the Cal Lutheran community packed Gilbert Arena for a forum on race and racism. Some bore raw, emotional wounds.

“These are hard conversations to have,” said Jessica Lavariega Monforti, hired as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

“As a country, we’ve never really had an honest conversation about race relations, so to have that as a campus over the course of a couple of years is not realistic without significant discomfort. I think discomfort is a necessary part of our healing process as a campus.”

In 2016, Cal Lutheran was designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education, paving the way for more grant funding. At the time, 27% of CLU’s undergraduates were Latino; the figure is now 36%. Currently the undergraduate student body is 53% nonwhite, according to the Admission office.

But that type of diversity is only the first step in creating a truly inclusive campus community, said Lavariega Monforti.

“Diversity is the presence of different types of people in a given setting, but if we’re talking about inclusion, that’s not just presence in the room,” Lavariega Monforti said. “That’s the ability to be seen and to participate as a first-class citizen in the community. You can’t have equity and inclusion without diversity, but diversity in and of itself is not enough.”

Ande’s mission includes a review of the general-education curriculum required for undergraduates, something that hasn’t been undertaken in years.

Taiwo Ande started in July as the new associate provost for Educational Effectiveness.

Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet was hired this summer to serve as director of the new Ethnic and Race Studies major.

“Our antiracism work in every area of the university will be judged by its ability to bring about the changes that our campus community deserves.”

– California Lutheran University June 22 statement “After a deep dive into the current curriculum, it was apparent to the leadership that the curriculum of most of our programs has not paid enough attention to incorporating issues of race and racism,” Ande said. “That is one of the big responsibilities that I’m going to be working on, to see how we’re going to incorporate racial issues into the curriculum so that every student who goes to the campus on Day One has the opportunity to learn about different races that they might not be used to.”

UNDERSTANDING THIS MOMENT

The Race and Ethnic Studies program will be interdisciplinary, drawing from a variety of different departments and incorporating new and existing classes.

“You can’t understand what’s going on at this particular moment without understanding ethnic studies,” Jones Jolivet said. “I think people are hungering for this, for an education that is truly transformative, and that fundamentally is about ‘what does true and just and full participation look like for all students at Cal Lutheran?’”

Though it is current faculty, staff and students who will be involved most directly in this equity work, there is much alumni can do, administrators say. They can serve as mentors and role models; they can hire current students and recent graduates as employees or interns and give them examples of inclusive workplaces; and they can educate themselves to become participants

in a larger antiracist community.

“I’m a person of faith, and if you’re also a person of faith, then praying is great,” said Melissa Maxwell-Doherty ’77, MDiv ’81, Cal Lutheran’s vice president for Mission and Identity. “But also, do some studying on your own. Talk to colleagues and friends about issues of diversity and access in your community. Pray and act, and engage.”

Tony Biasotti is a freelance journalist who lives in Ventura.

His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Ventura County Star and Pacific Coast Business Times.

CAL LUTHERAN’S ANTIRACISM STATEMENT callutheran.edu/about/anti-racism.html READ UP ON RACISM Pearson Library posted a recommended list of books examining racism.

Faculty and staff in the School for Professional and Continuing Studies started a book club to inform themselves on the history of racism in this country and within higher education. Their first selection is Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an AntiRacist.

See more at libguides.callutheran.edu/antiracism AUGUST 2020 19

DIGITAL-LEARNING ILLUSTRATION BY BREE M. MONTANERELLO FROM PHOTO BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

WHATEVER IT TOOK When COVID-19 struck, the Cal Lutheran community met the moment.

BY COLLEEN CASON

I

n Cal Lutheran classrooms, students learn change is inevitable and to prepare themselves for lives of experimentation, adaptation and course correction, but few could have predicted the scale or speed of the changes brought on by the COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions in mid-March.

Over Zoom, with the campus emptied of all but the workers necessary to keep the physical plant running, President Chris Kimball said, “We are not stopping. We are moving ahead. The learning … is changed but it continues.”

The pandemic altered the way professors taught and students learned. It disrupted long-held dreams of studying abroad and of besting worthy athletic competitors. For the Class of 2020, 20 CLU MAGAZINE

it postponed a triumphant walk to claim a hard-won diploma.

The crisis laid bare the systemic racial and ethnic inequities in every facet of American life, leaving us unable to turn our backs on a reckoning unconscionably deferred.

To alumni who carry the intangibles of their time on campus into the new territories they travel, it sometimes meant drawing on critical thinking skills to treat patients of a sinister virus the world had never seen.

This issue of CLU Magazine tells the stories of those who stepped up, found the courage to lead change and help others rise to the moment. We look at the lessons they learned, which will inspire hope long after the coronavirus is tamed.

ZOOMING INTO ONLINE TEACHING

It was a case study in being the change you want to see as Cal Lutheran’s five-person Digital Learning staff guided faculty from in-person to virtual instruction when the pandemic shut down the campus.

With an IT background, Digital Learning Director Mirwais Azizi had trained to plan for emergencies and, from what he was hearing, coronavirus packed potential for disruption.

“We saw this massive train coming our way,” said Azizi, who was named to his post in 2016 and also teaches organizational change at the university.

On March 7, Azizi arrived at work brimming with energy, his staff recalled. He told them to prepare workshops to train faculty on technology tools like Zoom and Blackboard. He estimated they had four weeks before the shift would be inevitable. As it turned out, it was nine days.

In that period, they trained 150 full-time and adjunct faculty members with daily sessions — morning, noon and night. Before the pandemic, the Digital Learning team’s classes would attract five participants. That number jumped to 15 in the ramp-up to shut down and, even then, the department’s staff would get urgent “Can you fit me in?” emails.

The team condensed what normally would be a month of sessions into one 45-minute class, said Kaitlin Hodgdon, lecture capture specialist.

The skill levels of these teachers-turned-students ranged from seasoned online instructor to technology tenderfoot, and the class subject matter spanned mathematics to music production and sculpting to science lab.

“We had to ask ourselves, ‘How can we work with a teacher teaching dance online? Or a speech class?’” Azizi said. [A few of their unique strategies are featured in the article on Page 23.]

The staff knew they would have to provide continuing support so the faculty did not feel abandoned.

“You come into work and your email has blown up, you have a ton of voicemails and three people standing at your door. And you know this was not going to slow down,” said Denise Kaye, an instructional designer. “Our emergency staff meetings would be interrupted by emergencies,” she said with a chuckle.

Kaye maintained an even keel by telling herself two things: 1.

Instructors with anxiety and trepidation needed patience and empathy. 2. She had to focus on one person at a time.

Just when they hoped things might settle down, the university closed offices and the faculty had to work on their home computers, presenting new challenges.

— Mirwais Azizi , Digital Learning director

With the support of university leaders, the department found ways to get webcams, lighting and microphones to the instructors.

How did they get through this technological heavy lift? The human touch, they say.

The takeaway for everyone is to be flexible in times of crisis.

Azizi finds it a hopeful sign most recent trainings focus less on technology and more on refining online teaching techniques.

To view digital learning tools developed by the Digital Learning team, go to callutheran.edu/offices/ctl/remote-resources/.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO MOVE ONE

After California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home mandate March 19, Housing Operations Director Caitlin Hodges and her 10 Residence Life colleagues had to move 1,400 students from Cal Lutheran dorms in 12 days. Social-distancing requirements complicated already daunting logistics.

For weeks prior to the shutdown, Residence Life staff ran scenarios. At first, it seemed unlikely campus would close, but the situation was in flux.

“It felt like new information was coming every day, then every hour,” Hodges said. As COVID-19 cases climbed in California — even before the governor’s order — staff decided students would need to vacate residence halls by March 31.

Hodges, who came to Cal Lutheran six years ago, said the lockdown order demanded urgency.

While most students were able to pack their belongings and find transportation in a matter of hours or a few days, others needed more time to locate storage or figure out travel. They were told they could stay until March 31.

Others had what Hodges describes as invisible barriers: no internet in their homes to take virtual classes or no quiet space for study in their households. Others confided they had monetary or very private obstacles to returning home.

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

This sign at Pearson Library signaled the looming shutdown.

“We saw this massive train coming our way.”

Continued on Page 22 AUGUST 2020 21

WHERE IN THE WORLD WERE CAL LUTHERAN STUDENTS? When COVID-19 travel bans went into effect in March, here’s where study-away students were living.

Continued from Page 21

The university provided nutritional, financial, emotional and medical support as needed, Hodges said.

In addition, some students had not yet returned from spring break when campus closed and their belongings remained in their rooms.

The logistics of physically distancing 300 students while they retrieved their possessions required precision.

By March 31, 60 students were being housed through the end of the spring semester. Forty remain through the summer session.

Hodges said she believes students and staff have been tested by a force beyond their control and have shown resilience.

“Hopefully we can build our future whether socially distanced or a ‘normal’ future that is more equitable and considerate of the hidden challenges some students face,” she said.

CAL LUTHERAN AIRLIFT 2020

In mid-March, the nearly four dozen students enrolled in Cal Lutheran’s study-away program found themselves an ocean or continent from home as a cascading crisis spread across the globe, with airlines canceling flights and nations closing borders.

Feb. 1, six weeks prior to what would be Cal Lutheran’s version of an airlift — with 9,829 COVID-19 cases globally — the university’s Office of Education Abroad staff monitored recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization and the U.S. State Department several times a day, said Brett Chin, the program’s interim director.

A month later — with cases exploding to 85,403 globally — Italian officials shut down universities and ordered foreign students to leave the country. The five CLU students in Italy were notified to book a flight home. Although financial assistance was offered, some students wanted to stay. This had been the dream of their lifetimes.

March Madness global-style began a week later.

• March 7: U.S. officials raise the travel warning for Japan to Level 3. Cal Lutheran carries insurance on students traveling internationally with approved programs. With few exceptions, that policy does not cover travel to countries with a warning status above 2. Without assurance they could complete their programs virtually from the United States, students resisted leaving.

• March 11: President Trump bans all travel to and from Europe.

• March 12: Cal Lutheran notifies students studying abroad to come home.

• March 19: In an unprecedented move, the U.S. State Department issues a Level 4 advisory for all international travel.

22 CLU MAGAZINE

The lights burn into the night at the Education Abroad office. Staff members email, call and text via the GroupMe app to check students’ progress on their homeward journeys. Airlines vary widely on the cost of changing reservations. Some students encounter airports shutting down. Some have four layovers.

Others are flying home into COVID-19 hot spots, like Seattle.

• March 24: All but two students are safely home. Those who refuse to return sign waivers, said Chin, pointing out they are adults.

Kristina McGee’s two-day odyssey from Aberdeen, Scotland, to Los Angeles followed a roller coaster of emotions. The junior marketing and communication major said President Trump’s travel ban announcement set off a panic among her fellow U.S. students at the UniversiKristina McGee ty of Aberdeen when it failed to note holders of U.S. passports would be allowed back into the country.

The next day Cal Lutheran’s study-abroad staff notified McGee she could enter the United States but advised her to return as soon as possible.

The San Diego resident was lucky, she said. Cal Lutheran’s travel agent found an affordable British Airways flight.

When she left Aberdeen on March 16, the city had a single COVID-19 case. By the time she boarded her plane out of London, most passengers wore masks and gloves.

And the America she left was changed. Customs officials at LAX sported face shields and gloves as they took her temperature and questioned if she had been in high-risk areas.

Although she had visited hot spots — Budapest and Amsterdam — authorities let her through.

All international programs eventually moved the majority of classes online and the Registrar’s Office worked with the displaced students to make sure they received Cal Lutheran credit. To Chin’s knowledge, no student contracted COVID-19.

What business gurus tell us about crisis is true, Chin said.

The future belongs to those with a tolerance for ambiguity. These students, he said, were scared and nervous but they did it. In future job interviews, they can tell these stories of resiliency set on a global stage as events transpired at breakneck speed.

“This is how you get entrepreneurs,” Chin said.

VIRTUAL LESSONS LEARNED Innovation overcame obstacles when teaching went online.

1. SILVER LININGS HAPPEN

CHALLENGE After learning went online at Cal Lutheran, Nubia Ortega, ’20, had to find a way to finish her senior year while homeschooling her 8-year-old son, Juan Rodriguez.

Not fond of distance learning, Ortega — Tina Overton Brende Memorial Scholarship recipient — admits to trepidation when Michaela (Crawford, ’79) Reaves announced her California history class would go virtual because of the pandemic. Online learning, Ortega believed, “did not stick as much as when you are engaged in conversation in a classroom.”

Beyond that, the 36-year-old student worked long hours at Vons supermarket.

BREAKTHROUGH After Ortega explained to Reaves why she fell behind on her classwork, the professor came up with an alternate assignment mother and son could work on together. She proposed they take a virtual trip to a California mission. Juan had visited the San Buenaventura Mission and related to the project.

“Juan was really engaged and never lost interest,” Ortega said. The boy was thrilled when he learned they earned an “A” on the assignment.

TAKEAWAY Ortega, who will enter the Cal Lutheran teacher credential program in the fall, received not only unexpected practice collaborating with her son but realized the potential of the internet to provide virtual field trips to children of low-income families as well as under-resourced school districts.

2. GOOD CHEMISTRY IS VIRTUALLY POSSIBLE

CHALLENGE “How am I going to teach organic chemistry in front of a computer?” assistant professor Jesus Cordova Guerrero asked himself when in-person classes and labs halted. He turned to the Digital Learning staff for tips and scouted online materials that could give students something approaching a hands-on experience, including a PowerPoint that breaks down each step of an experiment.

BREAKTHROUGH After a few weeks of posting lectures online without much student feedback, the email traffic picked up. “Students were way more open to sharing their thoughts than during a normal, inperson semester,” he said. They opened up about barriers they faced, such as lack of access to the internet and child-care demands, and their exam scores improved over the previous test given as campus shut down.

TAKEAWAY While Cordova Guerrero still believes nothing substitutes for running experiments in the lab supervised by a qualified teacher, he made discoveries about connectivity with students. He found they were more likely to ask questions about classwork and detail personal barriers to learning in emails. For students whose schedule prevents them from attending regular office hours, he can offer Zoom appointments.

He thinks the sudden shift to online learning will make them better scientists.

3. BEING SENT TO YOUR ROOM CAN BE A GOOD THING

CHALLENGE Angela (Namba, ’02) Rowley, MS ’05, lecturer in the Graduate School of Education, counsels students on how to be school counselors. As part of the curriculum, she divides her class into pairs. One student assumes the role of counselor; the other becomes the student seeking advising. Rowley then listens in on their session and provides feedback. Rowley had to figure out how to simulate the face-toface element of a real counseling session in the “Hollywood Squares” grid of a Zoom classroom — especially since some students felt uncomfortable doing that work in front of an entire class.

BREAKTHROUGH After Rowley upped her own Zoom game, she discovered how to create breakout rooms in the program and then how to move herself in and out of those spaces. Student feedback surprised her, she said. “They told me they tried an online course, and it wasn’t for them. But their next sentence was ‘I learned even more now because I know I can do counseling online through Zoom.’ That’s a piece they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.”

TAKEAWAY Along with giving her students another tool in their counseling toolbox, she discovered online teaching can break down geographic barriers. Using Zoom, she combined for the first time students she teaches on the Thousand Oaks and Oxnard campuses so they could benefit from the experience of counseling someone they didn’t know.

AUGUST 2020 23

CLASS NOTES NOTICES RECEIVED AS OF MAY 15 Not sure how to submit a note? See Page 3.

’60s

Lynda (Benton ’64) Elmendorf, Frazier Park, California, is pictured in late April on the back road between Granite Station and Glennville. “Not much there except beautiful hills, farms and ranches and not many people,” she wrote. Lynda isn’t a hiker but said there are many hiking trails in the mountains where she lives. At the time, most were closed due to COVID-19.

“These are ‘historical’ times in which we are living. Lesson to be learned (like living in the moment) and God’s gifts for which to be thankful.”

Bruce ’70 and Heidi (Iverson ’70) Thomas, Moorpark, California, are pictured in February at the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula.

’70s Richard Schroeder ’70, Las Vegas, returned to Scotland and Ireland “to continue the vagaries of links golf and single malt.” He escorted his grandkids from Minnesota to La Jolla, California, to introduce them to life at the beach.

“A great time was had by all,” wrote the retired teacher.

24 CLU MAGAZINE

Jim Baird ’71, MA ’83, and Janet (Auer ’80, TC ’83) Baird, Thousand Oaks, are pictured in January near the Ruby Princess in Sydney.

Carol-Anne (Hughes ’72) Hossler, MA ’82, Bloomington, Indiana, published a book titled Dr. King, The Rabbi, and Me: A Connecticut Journey. “It is a true story — my story (self-published) and I have had this book in mind since my days at Cal Lutheran,” Carol-Anne wrote. “Thanks to the English Department, especially my teachers — Armour Nelson, Jack Ledbetter and Lyle Murley — for helping me to hone my writing skills!” Learn more at mlkandme.com. Now retired, Carol-Anne is a former elementary school teacher and principal and an Indiana University professor who taught social studies methods and classes designed to prepare future teachers for teaching in increasingly multicultural schools.

Rod Marinelli ’74, TC ’74, in February was named the defensive line coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in the National Football League after having spent the past seven seasons with the Dallas Cowboys as defensive coordinator/defensive line coach.

Rod’s 44 years of coaching experience include 24 in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears before joining Dallas. Rod transferred to Cal Lutheran from Utah in 1972 after serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. As a senior at Cal Lutheran, he earned NAIA All-American second team honors as an offensive lineman.

Carl Nielsen ’76, MDiv ’80, Santa Maria, California, right, retired in February after almost 40 years as a pastor. He is pictured in January at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland with Frank Smith, MBA ’96, and wife Paula, Arroyo Grande, and Susan (Hofmann ’76, TC ’82) Nielsen, second from right.

’80s Mark Weber ’80 is the offensive line coach at Washington State University. He spent the past two seasons at University of Hawaii on the staff of head coach Nick Rolovich, who is now the Cougars’ head coach. Mark has 37 years of college coaching experience at 14 schools, including as offensive line coach at Oregon State, UCLA, Fresno State, Utah State, BYU, North Carolina, UNLV and Nevada.

Edgar Terry ’81, MBA ’83, Ventura, California, in February hosted Stephen Censky, the deputy secretary of agriculture for the USDA, and Matthew Fienup, executive director of Cal Lutheran’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, at one of his ranches in Oxnard. Fienup discussed CERF’s water market project with the deputy secretary and his chief of staff. Edgar’s daughter, Alyssa, facilitated a discussion regarding labor issues in farming and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in December and was sent to the Senate. Edgar is chair of CERF’s Board of Directors and an adjunct faculty member at Cal Lutheran.

Joann Powell ’76, Tucson, Arizona, reported that she has five new grandbabies and says hello to her fellow alumni.

Don Myles ’79, Scottsdale, Arizona, in March, was named chairman of the board of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (FDCC) after previously serving as president. Don is a partner at Jones, Skelton & Hochuli law firm. FDCC is an invitation-only legal organization with over a thousand members nationwide.

Fewer than 1% of all lawyers qualify for admission.

Susan (Wulff ’82) Hood, Fallston, Maryland, left; Kathy (Schlueter ’81) Senkbeil, Orange, California; and Mary (Podorsek ’81) Meade, San Diego, met in La Jolla, California, Jan. 30 “for a day of fun around ‘America’s Finest City’” before Susan spent a week with her family.

Charles Duval ’83, TC ’88, Santa Monica, California, is using the flag to stay safe from the coronavirus.

Mike Colleran ’83, Yokohama, Japan, was promoted in early April to chairman of INFINITI Motor Co. and corporate vice president of Nissan Motor Ltd. He steps into his new role as the organization moves to new headquarters in Yokohama and begins a major brand transformation launching five new models over the next three years. He previously served as vice chairman and global division vice president, marketing and sales operations for INFINITI and, prior to that, was group vice president of INFINITI Americas. He joined Nissan in 2011 as vice president, sales, for Nissan Canada. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps for eight years, obtaining the rank of captain.

Laureen (Spinas ’83) Hill, MD (See LINKS, Page 39.)

Joe Fuca ’87, Danville, California, joined Reputation.com as CEO in August 2018.

The Redwood City-based company helps large multilocation businesses monitor and improve their reputation and optimize customer experience — online and onsite.

A 30-year technology veteran, Joe most recently served as president of worldwide field operations at SaaS breakout FinancialForce. Before that, he was senior vice president of worldwide sales at DocuSign.

Tracy M. Downs ’88, MD, Middleton, Wisconsin, is shown in April sporting his Cal Lutheran surgical hat. Tracy is a professor of urology, associate dean of diversity and director of the Centennial Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is a member of the Cal Lutheran Board of Regents and the 2019 recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award.

AUGUST 2020 25

Class Notes

’90s

Christi (Parsons ’89) Hein, Fruita, Colorado, was promoted in March to director of instruction at Colorado Mesa University/ Western Colorado Community College in Grand Junction. Christi has been with the college for 10 years and most recently served as interim director in the position that oversees more than 60 programs.

Jim Kocher ’89, Merced, California, is interim executive director of the Madera County Arts Council. He assumed the position in December after spending seven seasons as a board member and then director of communications at Playhouse Merced community theater.

Kent Sullivan ’89, Phoenix, has been a mortgage banker with JPMorgan Chase Bank for 10 years. He “found his niche” helping families and their communities after retiring from the National Football League in 1996. Kent played for the Houston Oilers, Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers in the NFL and the San Antonio Riders in the World Football League.

26 CLU MAGAZINE

Angie Shatynski-Blackburn ’90, Santa Maria, California; Melisa (O’Hara ’91, MS ’99) Dockry, Chatsworth, California; Kim (White ’91) Pezzonella, Sparks, Nevada; Rachel (Boba ’91) Santos, Blacksburg, Virginia; Leslie (Stevens ’91) Sorweide, Salem, Oregon; and Keisa (Carlson ’91, TC ’92/’96) Williams, San Marcos, California, all basketball, flag football and softball teammates, classmates and roommates, got together last November in Blacksburg for bonding time. “Thank you Cal Lu for helping us begin our 30-year-old friendship,” wrote Angie. Pictured from left are Melisa, Keisa, Rachel and Angie.

Zooming in from left, top row: Jonz Norine ’92, Redding, California; Matt Griffin ’91, Portland, Oregon; Tim Delkeskamp ’92, Thousand Oaks; middle row: Bob Bolton ’91, Fairbanks, Alaska; Paul Wenz ’89, Riverside, California; Jarle Nakken ’90, Oslo, Norway; bottom row: Eric Berg ’92, Thousand Oaks; Patrick Byrne ’89, Baltimore.

In a fit of coronavirus quarantine doldrums, Matt decided to invite a bunch of former cross country teammates to get together for a Zoom reunion. It was such a

joyous meeting, Matt wrote. We relived old times, shared stories, and caught up on everyone’s lives. Three of us have children who are current or former CLU students.

Most of [us] haven’t spoken to one another in person (beyond social media messages) in more than 30! years. We had such a good time, we’re going to do it again in a month.

Steve Dempsey ’92, Valencia, California, and four colleagues composed a song, Rivers of Love, in response to the outbreak.

Steve’s YouTube description of the song reads: UNDER QUARANTINE OF COVID-19, CORONAVIRUS, an EPIC song of Hope and Inspiration as we all deal with this situation as One World, One Love...One People. To watch the video, go to https://tinyurl.com/ y7y9kca5. Also watch You Danced In My Heart — A Song For ALL Grandparents by Steve featuring Lindsay Leeds.

Sean Atkins ’93, Larchmont, New York, was named to the advisory board of Legendary Ventures in April. Sean is CEO of RTL Digital Video Group for Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA. He has served as president of Viacom’s MTV division, held senior leadership roles at Discovery, Warner Media, Yahoo! and The Walt Disney Company, and sat on advisory boards of Evolution Media Partners, Bain Consulting and LinkedIn. Lorena (Rees ’94) Caulfield, Newbury Park, California, was honored as the Conejo Valley Unified School District January 2020 Teacher of the Month at a surprise celebration on Jan. 22. During her 18-year tenure at Newbury Park High School, Lorena has taught health, Spanish, geography, career choices, sports medicine, and Regional Occupational Programs in sports medicine and medical terminology. In addition to her academic duties, she has served as the junior class adviser for 15 years and is responsible for the faculty club. CVUSD superintendent of schools Mark McLaughlin, EdD ’17, in collaboration with the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce, announced the award and presented Lorena with a special plaque.

was a four-year starter, team captain and all-conference selection at Cal Lutheran, where he started his coaching career as the tight end and assistant offensive line coach. He became defensive line coach in 2002 and added recruiting coordinator duties the following year.

Amy (Beuthel ’97, MA ’05) Wing, Simi Valley, California, is vice president of operations for the BumbleBee Foundation, a pediatric cancer nonprofit in Westlake Village. (See Marriages, Page 31.)

Andrew Gordon ’94, Longmont, Colorado, is pictured last December at the Christmas Market in Brussels. He was on his way home after traveling with his parents and his sister and her family to the place where his mother’s father fought and died in the Battle of the Bulge. They visited the small town of Hofen, Germany, where Andrew’s grandfather was shot on Dec. 18, 1944. “Being in that area on the anniversary of his death, 75 years ago, to the date ... was amazing, and appreciative all in one,” Andrew wrote. They also visited his grandfather’s original burial site in Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Monschau. The body later was moved to the National Cemetery in Fort Snelling, Minnesota.

Angela (Moller ’96) Naginey, MS ’03, Thousand Oaks, was named Title IX coordinator at Cal Lutheran in May. She also serves as deputy registrar of academic services. Angela joined Cal Lutheran’s Student Affairs staff in 1997 and became director of residence life in 2003. She transitioned to Academic Affairs in 2007 to work in retention and student success.

She has been on the Campus Awareness, Referral and Education (CARE) Team since its inception in 2008 and also served for 15 years on the President’s Diversity Council.

Will Plemons ’97, MS ’01, is defensive line coach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and will serve as the Mustangs’ defensive running game coordinator. Will served three stints as an assistant coach at Fresno State and coached the defensive line at Sacramento State for three seasons and Idaho State for one. He spent four seasons as a defensive line coach in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Toronto Argonauts. He

’00s

Park Lutheran Church, an international congregation that worships every Sunday in the English language.

Emily Barany ’07, Ventura, California, in 2011 started Visionality, a consulting company dedicated to helping small nonprofits succeed. What started as a one-woman operation has grown into a larger team that covers a diverse set of needs, including event planning, community outreach and graphic design, all with the goal of strengthening organizations so they no longer need Visionality’s support.

Following the 2017 Thomas Fire, Emily developed ThomasFireHelp, a website to connect people needing help with those offering help. After the Montecito mudslide, the website was renamed 805Help and continues to aid those affected by local disasters. Emily was featured in the Feb. 1 edition of Beyond the Acorn, a quarterly regional lifestyle magazine published by the Acorn Newspapers.

Dallas Ford ’02, Yorba Linda, California, right, and Branden Karjola ’02, Castle Rock, Colorado, are pictured last August just outside of Silverton, Colorado. They were on their annual camping trip to the Rockies with their families.

Scott Mehl ’03, Culver City, California, in February released a book titled Loving Messy People. Published by Shepherd Press, the book is for a specifically Christian audience according to Scott: “I wrote Loving Messy People to help Christians of every age, life stage, and maturity level discover God’s design for how to care for those around them in the midst of life’s messes.” Scott is a pastor at Cornerstone West Los Angeles, and his wife, Lisa (Burkhardt ’02), is an administrative assistant. They have four children.

Rachel Eskesen ’04, MDiv ’14, Budapest, Hungary, is the area desk director for Europe for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Global Mission. In addition to their ongoing work with the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission Central Europe program, Rachel and her husband, Zach Courter, MDiv ’17, serve as pastors at City

Jaymes White ’09, Troy, New York, and Lisa De Gregorio, MS ’04, Chicago, were presenters at the National School Counseling Leadership Conference held in February at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa in San Diego. Their presentation was titled “Supporting Graduate School Counseling Students and 1st Year School Counselors.” Jaymes is a school counselor in the Schenectady City School District.

Lisa is a former K-8 school counselor and lead elementary school counseling specialist with the Chicago Public Schools and currently is the director of operations and an expert trainer/consultant for Hatching Results LLC.

AUGUST 2020 27

Class Notes

’10s Albert Mesa ’10, Henderson, Nevada, was promoted on April 6 to crime and intelligence analyst supervisor with the Henderson Police Department. He was a crime analyst with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and Glendale (California) Police Department before joining the HPD in 2016.

Lauren Rowlands ’10, MPPA ’12, Simi Valley, California, is a PhD candidate at Temple University and is scheduled to defend her dissertation this summer.

Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of American political institutions, legislative behavior and public policy. Lauren is a 2018 Congressional Research Grant recipient from The Dirksen Congressional Center. During the spring semester, she taught Immigration Policy as an adjunct faculty member in Cal Lutheran’s Political Science Department.

NICU. “JJ is now a feisty 19-month-old,” wrote Martha in March, adding she didn’t realize the toll the NICU had taken on her until she brought her daughter home from the hospital. Martha was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety and depression as well as PTSD, as nearly 60% of NICU parents are, she said. “Research has shown that one of the best sources for trauma-healing is finding community, and only when I found other mothers to connect with was I able to start the process of healing.” That is why she and her friend, Ashley Ham, started Dear NICU Mama in July 2019 with the mission “to connect, encourage, and create community with past and present NICU moms.” Visit their website at www.dearnicumama.com.

Leah Oliver ’16, MPPA ’19, Simi Valley, California, recently joined Cal Lutheran’s MPPA Advisory Council. Leah is chief technology officer for the Ventura County Employees’ Retirement Association. She has 20 years of IT experience, including 10 years with the Ventura County Information Technology Services Department.

Jessica (Dobbs ’11, MPPA ’13) Thompson, Dallas, completed the Professional in Human Resources certification in June 2019 from HRCI. Jessica is a human resources representative with Dallas Nephrology Associates.

Matt Achen ’13, Cotati, California, left, and Ryan Decker ’13, Rohnert Park, California, graduated from the Santa Rosa Junior College Firefighter 1 Academy in December.

Martha (Griffin ’12) Mink, Moorhead, Minnesota, last year helped start a website to support mothers who have spent time in neonatal intensive care units with their babies. Martha’s first child, James Pierre, was born in December 2015 at 25 weeks weighing 1 lb. 9 oz. He lived just three days. The experience caused Martha to become a passionate advocate for NICU parents. In 2018, her daughter, Jacqueline James, was delivered at 28 weeks weighing 3 lbs. and spent 47 days in the

28 CLU MAGAZINE

Jordan Card ’15, Denver, center, graduated in December from the Colorado School of Mines with a master’s degree in computer science. She is pictured with her mom, Mia, from left, brother Zack ’18, father David, and fiancé Joseph Hankin.

Josiah Gonzales ’14, MPPA ’20, Simi Valley, California, recently was selected for the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Founders’ Fellow program.

Josiah is the graduate program specialist for Cal Lutheran’s MPPA program. His fellowship application paper focused on ways to mitigate disparities and economic inequality. The program offers him networking opportunities, exposure to professionals in the area of public administration and additional professional skills.

Gubidxa Gutierrez Seymour ’18 is a student in the Master of Science in Translational Medicine program at Keck Graduate Institute and Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope, working to expand the knowledge base to include Latin America. His poster examining the ancestral and genomic context of breast cancer among Latinas won second place at the KGI Research Symposium in February. His group at the Division of Clinical Cancer Genomics is focused on Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment, which identifies an individual’s risk for cancer and then recommends treatments, risk-based screenings and/or preventive measures.

Gubidxa, who earned his undergraduate degree in exercise science, credits professor Michele LeBlanc for providing his first opportunity to perform research, which spurred his passion for it. He plans to become a physician.

Kristin Wannemo ’19, St. Charles, Illinois, is a research technician in a cancer research lab at the University of Chicago.

During her senior year at Cal Lutheran, she did genetic research with biology professor David Marcey.

’20s

Eleanor “Ellie” Barker ’20, Thousand Oaks, was accepted as a Fulbright Scholar to teach English in Kazakhstan. As a student, Ellie served as a head delegate for Model UN, History Department assistant, a resident adviser, international peer mentor and global ambassador for the Center for Global Engagement. She is an alumna of the Critical Language Scholarship Program in Tbilisi, Georgia, spent a semester abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia, and completed a monthlong homestay in Kyrgyzstan.

“Ellie embodies the spirit of the program,” said Haco Hoang, Cal Lutheran professor of political science, Ellie’s faculty mentor and a Fulbright Scholar herself. “She loves to learn and challenge herself, and she will cultivate that same intellectual and cultural curiosity in her students.” Ellie is pictured with a steppe eagle at a beach in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Javier Berjon de la Parra ’20, Thousand Oaks, was awarded a full fellowship to the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics, considered the premier optics research center in the world. His research at Cal Lutheran was in the fields of particle physics, and atomic and molecular optics under the

mentorship of assistant professor Sebastian Carron Montero. An international student from Mexico who transferred from Moorpark College, Javier was the first student in Cal Lutheran’s physics program to receive a full scholarship from the Thomas D. Rossing Fund for Physics Education.

Palmer Chaplin ’20, Stateline, Nevada, once told his role model, “You might be the Black Mamba, but I’m the White Mamba.” The trash talk occurred in 2011 while the 13-year-old was attending the Kobe Bryant Basketball Academy in Santa Barbara and eventually led to a one-onone with his idol, Palmer told a reporter from his hometown newspaper. Long before that iconic match on the court, young Palmer had been given the nickname of “White Mamba” by his family. After Bryant’s death in January, Palmer honored the basketball legend by having “Mamba” tattooed on his forearm and wearing Bryant’s shoes during his final games at Cal Lutheran. The four-year scholar athlete earned his degree in computer science and accepted a position with Amazon Web Services doing software development and cloud architecture. (A portion of this note was gleaned from “Kobe Bryant, the Mamba Mentality and a Lake Tahoe Man,” SouthTahoeNOW.com, Jan. 31, 2020.)

Cortez Espinoza ’20, Granada Hills, California, has been accepted into the University of Southern California Doctor of Physical Therapy program. Cortez’s experience with his own physical injury setbacks and rehabilitation as a high school and college athlete spurred his decision to pursue physical therapy as a career. He was a member of the Cal Lutheran football team his freshman year, a four-year member of the baseball team — including the 2017 NCAA Division III National Champion — and a four-year member of the CLU Scholar-Athlete Society. He was a Ronald E. McNair Research Fellow, an ALLIES in STEM Summer Research awardee, and presented scientific research at the 2019 McNair Scholars national conference.

Joanna Portillo ’20, Canyon Country, California, was accepted for graduate study at Johns Hopkins University. A biochemistry and molecular biology major, Joanna was a McNair scholar and a tutor for ALLIES in STEM.

Leylany Rodriguez ’20, Oxnard, California, owns La Catrinita Crafts, which features a variety of painted items inspired by her culture. She paints figurines, jean jackets, earrings, pins, canvases and “whatever I can get my hands on,” she told a reporter for VoyageLA in March. Leylany sells her artwork at events and on Etsy. Her Instagram handle is @lacatrinitacrafts.

GRADUATE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION Phalba Thomas, MA ’74, Santa Rosa Valley, California, was honored as Retired Administrator of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators Region 13. Phalba was the assistant principal of activities this past year at Newbury Park High School in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Since retiring as a fulltime administrator, she has served as a substitute administrator for the district.

Region 13 represents the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Northern Los Angeles.

Carol-Anne (Hughes ’72) Hossler, MA ’82 (See Page 24.)

Jim Baird ’71, MA ’83 (See Page 24.)

Gina Amenta-Shin, MA ’88, Westlake Village, California, teaches fifth grade at Topanga Elementary Charter School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She returned to the classroom last fall after decades of being a consultant for educators worldwide on how to use technology in the classroom. After teaching for 10 years in the Las Virgenes School District, she began consulting through the L.A. County Office of Education then spent 20 years with the U.S. Department of Education.

Christina Harrison, TC ’00/’02, Thousand Oaks, was recognized as Secondary Co-Administrator of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators Region 13. Christina is assistant principal of attendance at Thousand Oaks High School in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Region 13 represents the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Northern Los Angeles.

AUGUST 2020 29

Class Notes Will Plemons ’97, MS ’01 (See Page 27.)

Angela (Moller ’96) Naginey, MS ’03 (See Page 27.)

Aileen Wall, MA ’13, Camarillo, California, received the Association of California School Administrators Region 13 Leadership Matters award. Aileen is principal of Walnut Elementary School in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Region 13 represents the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Northern Los Angeles.

Mark McLaughlin, EdD ’17, Camarillo, California, was named Region 13 Superintendent of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators. He is superintendent of the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Region 13 represents the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Northern Los Angeles.

Kathryn Appell, TC ’19, Thousand Oaks, teaches second grade at Topanga Elementary Charter School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She joined the staff last fall.

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY Melisa (O’Hara ’91, MS ’99) Dockry (See Shatynski-Blackburn ’90, Page 26.)

Lisa De Gregorio, MS ’04 (See White ’09, Page 27.)

PACIFIC LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Athena Thomasson-Bless, CATS ’19, Cary, North Carolina, is associate pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church.

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Edgar Terry ’81, MBA ’83 (See Page 25.)

Paul Rosenberg, MBA ’83, Weston, Florida, an award-winning leadership trainer, coach, speaker and strategist, launched the “Rogue Leader” channel on YouTube earlier this year. Visit rosenbergpaul.com.

Robert Del’Ve, MBA ’93, Houston, recently joined the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design’s Leadership Council. Robert is managing director of project management at CRBE. He has been a leader in CBRE’s Global Workplace Solutions business since 2016. The college’s advisory group is comprised of leaders in architecture, design, commercial real estate and construction.

J. Link Leavens, MBA ’95, Ventura, California, was appointed chairman of the board of directors of Calavo Growers in March.

He has been a member of the board since 1967. Link is president and chief executive officer of Leavens Ranches. The company has 1,200 acres of avocado and lemon orchards in Southern California and has been a member of Calavo since 1956. Link previously served as president for both the Farm Bureau of Ventura County and the Ventura County Resource Conservation District.

Carl Nielsen ’76, MDiv ’80 (See Page 25.)

Frank Smith, MBA ’96 (See Nielsen ’76, Page 25.)

Rachel Eskesen ’04, MDiv ’14 (See Page 27.)

Lauren Rowlands ’10, MPPA ’12 (See Page 28.)

Zach Courter, MDiv ’17 (See Eskesen ’04, Page 27.)

Brent Davis, MBA ’13, Dayton, Ohio, was selected in January to serve as vice president and chief financial officer for AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division — North Region. He most recently served as chief financial officer for Kettering (Ohio) Medical Center System and before that was CFO for Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, Colorado, and St. Anthony North Health Campus in Westminster. Brent is a certified public accountant and a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Thomas Voelp, MDiv ’18, Santa Barbara, California, is associate pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Frances Le Bas, MDiv ’19, Livingston, California, is pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church.

Rachel Swenson, MDiv ’19, Des Moines, Washington, is associate pastor of Grace Lutheran Church.

30 CLU MAGAZINE

Jessica (Dobbs ’11, MPPA ’13) Thompson (See Page 28.)

Freddy Carias, MS ’17, Reseda, California, is an automatic application analyst with Vulcan Materials, a Fortune 500 company.

He has launched Carias Technology Services, an IT data analytics business, and is happy to announce that his trucking company ACY Trucking will be adding more jobs to the economy this year. “Lastly,” he wrote, “I am working on a very secret but awesome project called 10-4 Nation that will become a huge resource in the Trucking Industry!”

Mario Jones, MPPA ’19, Simi Valley, California, is an executive board member and membership director of the Southern California chapter of the National Association of Health Services Executives. He has been account manager at R.A.M. Healthcare Consulting Group in Thousand Oaks for over two years. Prior to that he worked for United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Leah Oliver ’16, MPPA ’19 (See Page 28.)

Josiah Gonzales ’14, MPPA ’20 (See Page 28.)

Haili Matsukawa, MPPA ’20, Ventura, California, is an environmental services specialist for the city of Ventura. Her responsibilities include assisting in the development and implementation of water efficiency programs, customer rebate programs, community engagement and outreach events. Haili was recognized by the California Water Environmental Association’s Tri-Counties Section as the Community Engagement and Outreach Person of the Year for her leadership in Ventura Water’s 2019 Summer Open House. In addition, the event was awarded the Community Engagement and Outreach Project of the Year.

Milestones 1

2

BIRTHS 1 Ethan Alexander on Oct. 10, 2019, to Kelly Alexander ’08.

2 Aiden Medlen on Nov. 3, 2019, to Melinda (Wright ’03, MEd ’08, EdD ’19) and Justin Medlen.

3 Kaj Andreas Odegard-Hed on Sept. 24, 2019, to Stine Odegard ’03 and David Hed.

MARRIAGES 4 Sandra Cardamone ’82 and Hugh

3

4

Saverio D’Anna III on Feb. 8, 2020, in Brunswick, Georgia.

5 Amy Beuthel ’97, MA ’05, and Robert Wing on May 17, 2019, in Samuelson Chapel. Pictured, from left, are Karsten Lundring ’65, Bryan Spafford ’65, Robert, Amy, Cindy (Spafford ’96) Schemenauer, Kirsten (Bodding ’64) Lundring, Roxanne Spafford, Erin (Rivers ’97, MBA ’06) Rulon and Rebecca Sebastian ’97.

(See Wing ’97, Page 27.).

6 Heather Wilson ’14 and Kevin

5

6

Tanner ’14 on April 20, 2019, in Los Angeles. Pictured left to right, back row: Susan (Bloemer ’81) and Shawn ’78 Howie, Steve Dwyer ’84, Amanda Howie ’06, Mary Howie ’08, Kyle Fleming ’14; middle row: Kathleen Phan ’14, Jordyn Niblack ’14, Julie Raff, Shannon SavageHowie ’03, David Stenson ’14, Joshua Dwyer ’14, Brandon Kallen ’13, Lindsey Gaudioso ’14, Barbara (Bretscher ’84) Dwyer, Amy Galipeau ’14, MEd ’19, Lauren Kennedy ’13, MBA ’15, Wilson Stewart ’14; front row: Melody Howie ’11, TC ’12, Robert Howie ’04, Kevin,Heather, Christopher Raff ’07, Lindsay Bowden ’13. (Whitney Justesen Photography)

DEATHS Charles “Chuck” Coon ’65 on May 31, 2020.

Dennis F. Carpenter ’76 on Feb. 9, 2020.

Alethea (Gessin ’79) Hedstrom on April 19, 2020.

Karl E. Nilsson ’90 on Jan. 23, 2020.

AUGUST 2020 31

COVID-19

HIGHLIGHTING AN UNPRECEDENTED TIME AND ITS EFFECT ON OUR ALUMNI COMMUNITY

As the pandemic took hold, Cal Lutheran alumni stepped forward to

SAVE LIVES AND COMFORT THEIR COMMUNITIES

Word from Wuhan

In the news Kirsten Larson ’13, MD, St. Paul, Minnesota, is a physician at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. She is pictured, bottom right, in a photo created with her colleagues to spread the message about the importance of staying home to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. The photo was featured on NBC, Fox and CNN and the post had been shared over 18,000 times as of March 20. Just thought I’d pass this along because I recently saw one of the Ventura County social media sites post the photo! Kirsten wrote. Nice to have a Cal Lu connection! The photo also appeared on John Krasinski’s “Some Good News.”

32 CLU MAGAZINE

Liang Tao, MS ’19, Wuhan, China, is a research scientist at Wuhan University’s Renmin Hospital. He is responsible for developing machine learning models for medical diagnosis and does analytical work with patient data. He shared his story with Gerhard Apfelthaler, dean of the School of Management, in late March: One day, we were told to prepare for a mystery virus. I went home after work, feeling extremely fatigued. My temperature was high, so I took Chinese medicine and went to bed. After getting checked the next day, the hospital started me on treatment immediately, but I kept getting worse. I could barely even use my phone, and I was worried for my life. I transferred money to my wife from my savings, pretending it was a Chinese New Year gift, not saying a word about my illness. Then, the government announced Wuhan’s isolation, and it deployed 42,000 medical professionals. The whole country donated supplies and food … the whole country tried to save one city. I was fortunate, as I recovered. My hospital continues to [work] around the clock, and I assist the medical teams in finding the best interventions through data analytics. We keep getting more good news. My entire family are medical professionals, and I pray for them every day. When I sift through data of COVID-19 cases, I don’t see numbers, I see humans, I see stories. We will beat this!

Former athletes

COMPETE AGAINST THE VIRUS

(THESE STORIES WERE SUBMITTED FOR CAL LUTHERAN CARES DAY IN MAY)

Track and cross country athlete Amanda Miller ’15, Chicago, is a physician assistant at Physicians Immediate Care, where she tests and treats COVID-19 patients.

Soccer player Kirsten DiPippo ’13, Moorpark, California, is a nurse at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

Soccer player Anna Medler ’14, Newbury Park, California, is a nurse at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura.

Water polo player Illissa Mestas ’15, Simi Valley, California, is a cardiac ICU nurse at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. She wrote: Since our cardiac surgeries are mainly elective, during this time they have been canceled and our unit is now the COVID ICU. The teamwork I learned playing college sports has truly impacted the way I work now at the hospital during this crisis. I’ve moved to Tennessee and Newport Beach since graduating and recently just moved back. Thousand Oaks has just felt like home ever since moving here for Cal Lu in 2011 and I’m so happy to be back here supporting our community.

Julia Samarin ’16, Rancho Cucamonga, California, an emergency room nurse at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange posted: I am a former Regals water polo player and Psychology Grad turned ER nurse. I guess you could say for lack of better words I’m on the “front lines” of the COVID-19 pandemic at my hospital in Orange, CA. We’re getting a huge outpouring of support including food donations, monetary donations, and general thanks and praise. It makes such a big difference in doing our job knowing we have people supporting us! I would definitely not be the nurse or person I am today without my Cal Lu experience!

Sarah Pappas ’17, Reno, Nevada, right, member of the 2015 NCAA Division III national championship volleyball team, is a nurse at Renown Regional Medical Center. She shared the following in a group Zoom call (posted by senior volleyball player Mackenzie Martinez): This is a wild time to be a nurse! Every day I go into work there is a new policy/procedure we are implementing at my hospital. All the unknown is scary but we are all just taking it one day at a time! I’m grateful to be working right now, and I am glad that my job is allowing me to directly help during this time.

AUGUST 2020 33

COVID-19

HIGHLIGHTING AN UNPRECEDENTED TIME AND ITS EFFECT ON OUR ALUMNI COMMUNITY

Alumni record videos

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

TO REACH NEW STUDENTS

Brian McCoy

“...in today’s technology world, we sometimes lose the personal connection if everything is in writing, and sometimes hearing a voice or seeing a video makes it more personal...”

34 CLU MAGAZINE

A

video project to welcome prospective legacy students to Cal Lutheran resulted in an unexpected surprise for Brian ’95 and Jenni (Lutz ’96) McCoy along with a reminder of how things have a way of coming full circle.

When Admitted Students Day was canceled in mid-April due to COVID-19, the Office of Alumni & Family Relations asked the Thousand Oaks couple and other alumni to send welcome messages to 102 admitted — but undecided — freshmen whose parents and/or grandparents graduated from the university. The videos include short personal messages expressing the hope the students will join the class of 2024.

Jenni, who has taught preschoolers at Cal Lutheran for 25 years, was surprised to see the recipient list included names of children in her care at the House on the Hill. The university’s original preschool was replaced in 2011 by the Fredrickson Family Early Childhood Center where Jenni now teaches.

She was startled to realize her former students had reached college age.

Brian featured his wife in videos sent to those students “because they would know Ms. Jenni more so than they would know me,” he said.

His thinking was confirmed by Holly (Buck ’88) Graczyk whose son, Sawyer, graduated from Moorpark High School in May. She believes Sawyer chose CLU in part because he had fond memories of the House on the Hill. With Admitted Student Day canceled, her son missed some of the excitement of being a new college student. The McCoys’ video was welcoming and comforting, Holly said.

And that was why Brian believes it was important for him and Jenni to record them.

“Especially right now with COVID-19 and everything being up in the air, I have to imagine as a student you’re looking at the fall going ‘do I even get to go to college?’” Brian said, noting their daughter Brittany’s in-person graduation from Cal Lutheran in May had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

“I think in today’s technology world, we sometimes lose the personal connection if everything is in writing, and sometimes hearing a voice or seeing a video makes it more personal,” he said.

Excerpted from an article by Michele Willer-Allred, who also writes for Malibu Surfside News.

Small-business owners step up

TO SUPPORT HEALTHCARE WORKERS gold” at medical and long-term care facilities. That gave the duo the answer to a question they had been asking: how to give back to the community as part of the product launch? They started a promotion to donate one bottle of sanitizer to a local facility in need for every bottle sold. In masks and gloves, they delivered the product in person to personnel at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks. The entrepreneurs had given away the first 1,000 bottles by the end of April and decided to extend the promotion another month. Visit rxfresh.store. For a Cal Lutheran community discount, enter the code RXFreshCLU30.

Antonio Sessa ’15, Thousand Oaks, is owner and executive chef of Made in Italy Bistro in Westlake Village. On April 21, he and members of his staff delivered pizzas to healthcare workers at a local hospital. His Instagram post that day reads: GRAZIE MILLE to our local healthcare professionals at Los Robles Hospital. Bringing by some pizzas for dinner is the least we can do to show our gratitude for your hard work during this stressful time! See madeinitalybistro.com.

Shauna Gutierrez ’16, Thousand Oaks, left, and her mother and business partner, Natashia Holland, were collaborating on their first product launch — hand sanitizer — in February, while most of the U.S. public had yet to grasp the danger of COVID-19.

Shauna, who majored in business administration, heard from friends in nursing that sanitizer — in short supply — was “like

Megan Wilson ’19, Santa Maria, California, had always had a passion for baking, so after earning her degree in accounting, she started her own business — Megan’s Bakes — creating custom sugar cookies for any occasion. When COVID-19 became a major threat to America, I knew I wanted to help in any way possible, and luckily, I own a business that is able to bring joy and happiness to people, Megan wrote on Cal Lutheran Cares Day. She first started contributing to her community by making “DIY Cookie kits” to help give children something fun and creative to do. Next, Megan got in contact with her local hospital to set up a time to donate decorated sugar cookies. With all they do and are currently doing during these times, I wanted to give them a little something to say thank you and brighten their day! On April 30th, I donated 185 mini medicalthemed cookies to my hospital. I hope to continue contributing to my community through my business! Visit Megan’s Bakes on Instagram or Facebook.

AUGUST 2020 35

Vocations

Cal Lutheran alumnus Gabe Laizer fights global hunger in his work with the United Nations.

36 CLU MAGAZINE

a chance

ENCOUNTER

Hungry for knowledge, an African youngster entered a door ‘Mama Ruth’ opened and pursued his path to ending global famine.

BY GABRIEL ‘GABE’ LAIZER ’00

I

n 1992 I left my home in Arusha, Tanzania, to attend a secondary boarding school. I did not know I was about to meet a Lutheran volunteer who would change my life forever.

Her name was Ruth Klavano, but we called her “Mama Ruth.” Ruth arrived in Tanzania to teach English at our small Lutheran school. A resident of Washington state, she had never A beautiful friendship: been to Tanzania and hardGabe with Lutheran volunteer ly spoke Swahili.

‘Mama Ruth’ Klavano Since I knew a little English, Ruth and I quickly became friends. As a student leader, I took it upon myself to help her communicate with the other pupils. Because of my assistance, Ruth agreed to tutor me — even on weekends — and our friendship grew because we needed each other.

Growing up in Arusha, I’d always been curious about the world beyond my region. I studied maps, read geography books and followed events unfolding around the globe. I knew I wanted to travel and see the world.

What I did not know is God, with Mama Ruth as a vessel, had other plans for me. Ruth asked if I was interested in joining her in Vancouver, Washington, to attend high school. I jumped at this without the blink of an eye. In February of 1994, after months of paperwork, I left my parents and six siblings to join Ruth in America.

The transition from a secondary school in Tanzania to a U.S. high school was not smooth. I struggled to keep pace with schoolwork, learning English, making friends and finding food similar to what I ate at home. Throughout these difficulties, I reminded myself I was beyond blessed by this opportunity. I knew success would come only through hard work and perseverance.

Because of poor language skills, I was placed in English as a Second Language. I knew I could do better. To challenge myself, I moved to advanced English, forcing me to learn the language quickly to compete with other students. I am grateful today for a teacher who spotted my potential and saw to it I was treated equally.

Simply coming to this country was not my only dream. I wanted to be the first in my family to earn a university degree.

I wanted to show my siblings if you work hard you can achieve your dreams. I wanted to show all God’s children have the potential if given equal opportunities.

On a trip to Disneyland, Ruth and I stopped by California Lutheran University. On that beautiful afternoon, I saw students playing soccer. And, after a short meeting with the international students adviser, I decided to attend Cal Lutheran for undergraduate studies.

The university’s mission, the size of the student body and the amazing professors and administrators made it an easy choice.

At Cal Lutheran I could take advantage of the opportunities available in a small setting. I was honored to be elected student body president and am still humbled by that experience. But my biggest achievement was earning my degree, with my mother traveling over 11,000 miles to watch me receive that honor.

CLU prepared me to lead in a global society and instilled in me that learning and achievement are lifelong. In graduate school at The American University in Washington, D.C., I was introduced to Bread for the World, a faith-based nonprofit working to fight domestic and international hunger.

This was where I found my calling. At Bread for the World, I learned the causes and consequences of hunger and the power of ordinary citizens advocating for policies geared toward ending it.

I joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2009 to continue the fight on a global scale. At the U.N., our goal is to make sure everyone has regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.

Continued on Page 39 AUGUST 2020 37

YOU Make Excellence Possible YOUR annual support is a worthy investment in our students’ futures and helps prepare strong, confident leaders for a rapidly changing world.

GIVE TO AN AREA OR PROGRAM THAT IS MEANINGFUL TO YOU: Annual Fund (university’s greatest needs) Athletics (Victory Club) College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School of Education Graduate School of Psychology PLTS Seminary Fund School of Management School for Professional and Continuing Studies Veteran’s Resource Program

A special THANK YOU to those who participated in Cal Lutheran Cares Day by making an unrestricted gift!

CalLutheran.edu/annualgiving

Continued from Page 37

BY BRYAN CHAN

LINKS

Gabe is congratulated by his mother, Flora Laizer, at his Cal Lutheran commencement 20 years ago. His mother came from their Tanzanian homeland to the United States for the first time to attend his graduation.

“Simply coming to this country was not my only dream. I wanted to show my siblings if you work hard you can achieve your dreams. I wanted to show all God’s children have the potential if given equal opportunities.”

Throughout my life, I have been reminded often of Luke 12:48, “to whom much is given, much will be required.” God has given me more than I deserve. My encounter with the late Ruth Klavano, my time at Cal Lutheran and The American University as well as my first job at Bread for the World prepared me to undertake a vocation so close to my heart.

As a husband and the father of a 3-year-old girl, I would be heartbroken if forced to choose between feeding my daughter or providing her with an education or medical care. Millions of families make these choices daily. Conflict, climate change and economic downturn are major causes of hunger, and all are solvable. We need the political will and the commitment to influence public policy to support the poor. I am trying to do my part, and I know through collaboration and cooperation we all can achieve a world where every person is nourished body and soul.

Gabe Laizer is strategic partnerships and outreach coordinator for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

TIRELESS IN NYC As COVID-19 cases swamped New York-Presbyterian/ Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Laureen (Spinas ’83) Hill helped convert the university’s soccer stadium into a field hospital. Hill, the hospital’s chief operating officer, was interviewed by Craig Melvin on MSNBC as a wind storm howled outside. Through a face mask, she explained the 216-bed ward would care for patients with mild to moderate cases, including those in recovery but still dependent on oxygen to boost their COVID-weakened lungs.

A board certified anesthesiologist, Hill also was interviewed

by The New York Times for a report titled “The Other Option is Death,” confirming the medical center faced with a shortage of ventilators implemented a system of hooking up two patients to each machine.

As she conducted the MSNBC interview, a volunteer corps of military veterans were undergoing training in the background.

“They are accustomed to providing health care under duress,” Hill told Melvin.

She should know. Before arriving at New York-Presbyterian, the 2016 CLU Outstanding Alumna successfully treated the United States’ first two Ebola patients at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The New York Times | March 26 MSNBC | April 11

CLU ECONOMIC IMPACT ON UPSWING If California Lutheran University ceased to exist, would Ventura County notice?

The answer is a resounding “yes,” according to a recent economic impact report by Cal Lutheran School of Management professor Jamshid Damooei, who also serves as executive director of the Center for Economics of Social Issues. The state and the nation would take note, as well.

While the regional economy has improved at a moderate rate since the last such study a decade ago, Cal Lutheran has grown rapidly in its contributions to the economy, job growth and generation of tax revenue.

Read the Economic Impact of California Lutheran report at callutheran.edu/president/documents/Cal-Lutheran-EconomicImpact-Report-2020.pdf.

AUGUST 2020

39

NO N PRO F IT O RG .

U. S . PO S TAG E

PAID THO U S AND OAKS C AL IF O RNIA PERMIT NO. 68

60 W. Olsen Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91360-2787

Change Service Requested

CAN YOU HELP? If this magazine is addressed to a Cal Lutheran graduate who has established a new address, please notify us at clumag@callutheran.edu or 805-493-3151. Thank you!

THANK YOU Thank you for supporting our students on Cares Day through gifts and stories that supported initiatives touching all aspects of campus life for students, including their most immediate needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your donations during this unprecedented time led to an historic amount of generosity.

Because of your kindness, we raised $1,922,914 from 1,489 gifts, and collected 115 stories. Thank you!

You offered inspiration to current and future Cal Lutheran and PLTS students! Your generosity is vital to Cal Lutheran’s mission.

With sincere appreciation, On behalf of the entire Cal Lutheran Cares Day Team,

Regina Biddings-Muro, Ed.D. Vice President, University Advancement