Compendium (2024)

Vol. 7 Issue 1 2022-24

COMPENDIUM COM PENDIUM CSUDH COMMUNICATIONS ALUMNI PUBLICATION

TODAY’S STUDENTS Filmmakers, Rappers & Advocates

EMMY WINNER

Brad Pope Brings on his Knowledge

ALUMNI UPDATES

Former Students Show off their Success

COVERING THE

Beautiful

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ANNUAL STUDENT AWARDS Students honored and alumni welcomed to 37th annual awards and graduation ceremony

Page 6 SHOOTING FOR THE HOLLYWOOD STARS Thanks to the Golden Globe Foundation, FTVM student Christine Cortez was able to produce her own short

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TOROS GRABBING HOLLYWOOD BY THE HORNS Program gives students hands-on experience on and off campus working in the entertainment industry

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9TH ANNUAL STORY SLAM Students hit the stage and show off their storytelling skills

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GOLDEN SUPPORT The Golden Globe Foundation is helping CSUDH Communications students achieve their goals

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GOING ABOVE & BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY Nancy Perry has been supporting Communications students since 2021

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EXPLORING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN Assistant Professor Miriam Hernandez sheds light on the growing global issue of genderbased violence

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BROADCASTING NEW VOICES Reporting live from Cal State University Dominguez Hills... broadcast journalism has returned

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WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY Professional and aspiring journalists affirm their commitment to integrity within their field

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EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about the history of the student newspaper through the years

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QUEEN OF COMPTON West Coast rapper Dyamond Watts rises above a difficult upbringing to tell her story

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REINVENTING HERSELF Thirty years after graduating from high school, Licia Summerhill reached her academic goal and graduated this spring

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AND THE EMMY GOES TO...

From writing for TV to teaching at CSUDH, Brad Pope stays true to himself and his career

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JAVI GOES TO THE WORLD CUP Soccer superfan and CSUDH alumnus Javier Perez shares his experience covering the 2022 tournament

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SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE Ever since Paul Fornelli viewed the world through the lens of his camera, his world forever changed

Page 46 ROYAL TREATMENT Assistant Professor Larry Hygh uses his communications skills to further his involvement in his community

Sara Bhatt

Sheena Hutchinson

Mackenzie Ordonez

Mercy Calvo-Cruz

Mireya Preciado

Karl Hayes

Michelle Temoche

Holden Douglas Daniel Herrera

Cesar Rivas

Chase Waite

ALUMNI UPDATES Who, what and where former Communications students are these days

Page 58 CONGRATS TO CLASS OF 2024 Check out the smiles and proud moments at this year’s Commencement Ceremony

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COMPENDIUM CONTRIBUTORS Writers & Designers

THE VOICE THAT ECHOES THROUGH THE ARENA Fulfilling dreams and aspirations can come in many different ways and in Daniel Tom’s story, it’s about the perfect timing

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PRODUCED BY COM 388 STUDENTS SPRING 2023 AND 2024

Writers

By Asia Abadie

Danaly Estevez

Gabriel Gomez Marcelo Maximilian Joseph Sanker

Published By

Department of Communications California State University Dominguez Hills 1000 E. Victoria St. Carson, CA 90747

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Table of

FROM THE CHAIR Where the Communications Department is going

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From the CHAIR

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We have also developed a strategic collaboration with the DHTV studio in Welch Hall that has allowed us to access their television studio to bring back and reboot our former Bulletin TV offered as an independent study project, where students have been working this spring on creating a broadcast news series called “Voices,” which focuses on telling the stories of underrepresented and underreported communities on campus and beyond.

Additionally, after a year of reconstruction, our refurbished Bulletin newsroom was finally re-opened so that our student-run newspaper once again has a designated home where Journalism majors can cultivate a close-knit news culture by working collectively as a team in a professional newsroom setting. We have also refurbished another room on the third floor of the library, just down the hall from the Bulletin newsroom, where we hope to develop a practice studio space for students to be able to record and produce broadcast and other multimedia content.

These developments are particularly important because the Communications Department recently completed a successful academic search and hired the newest member of the COM

landscape and its transforming industries. That is why I recommend you keep a close eye on this space to see just what the future holds for our evolving department and what is yet to come for our AD/PR, Journalism and FTVM programs.

In the meantime, in this issue, you can read a variety of feature profiles on some of our accomplished students, faculty and alumni. These include stories about Journalism alum and sports announcer Daniel Tom, as well as COM faculty like Emmy Award-winning television writer Brad Pope, assistant professor Miriam Hernandez and computer lab coordinator and production instructor Paul Fornelli.

Other important stories to read in this issue include the return of Bulletin TV, the future of broadcasting in the department, award-winning students, grants from the Golden Globe Foundation, the challenges of being a re-entry student, and more.

So please enjoy reading this issue of Compendium and, in the continuing spirit of connection and community, we would love to hear from you too! If you have any successes or accomplishments you’d like to share or would like to be featured in the next edition of Compendium, please send me a note at bburkey@csudh.edu.

This fall, we also plan on sending out an alumni survey and hope to bring back our popular alumni gatherings, so keep an eye out for those and reach out to me if you’d like to join, participate, share your experience in our classrooms or just visit campus again. I look forward to welcoming you back to campus and reconnecting with you.

Until then, upwards and onwards…

Best Regards, Dr. Brant Burkey

Communications Department Chair

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s the new department chair, I’d like to personally welcome you to a special double issue of Compendium, our semi-annual alumni publication for the Communications Department here at CSUDH. In these pages, we try to maintain a sense of community and connection with our alumni by compiling student-produced articles about new developments regarding our department, programs, students, faculty and alumni.

So far, we have a lot to show for a very productive, rewarding and successful year. Despite decreasing enrollment throughout the CSU system, the Communications Department here at CSUDH continues to thrive and evolve. In fact, one of my primary goals as a first-time department chair has been to work diligently this year to actually expand our departmental footprint.

This includes developing collaborative partnerships with campus organizations like the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) to increase our access to the university radio station, KDHR, both for COM majors to use their recording studio for producing professional-caliber podcasts and getting hands-on experience through a variety of internship opportunities.

faculty, Adam Elrashidi, who will serve as the newspaper advisor and bring a host of broadcast news experience to the Journalism Program starting this fall.

An award-winning producer, reporter, showrunner and cartoonist, Elrashidi is a former Media Center Fellow at USC Annenberg and has worked for NBC, Al-Jazeera and the EW Scripps Company, Newsy. His contributions to the program will allow us to offer a broader menu of digital and broadcast news offerings for our Journalism majors, including the “Voices” series, as well as provide continuing leadership for the Bulletin newspaper.

Another significant change to the Communications Department this year has been the loss of the Field House computer and production lab, as the university will soon be demolishing the building for the construction of a new Health, Wellness and Recreation Center.

As a result, the Communications Department computer lab and its equipment were moved to a refurbished space in Welch Hall over the winter break. In terms of continuity, however, we have maintained a steady record of success with our PRSSA and SISJ clubs, Hollywood by the Horns program, as well as with our popular events like Story Slam and World Press Freedom Day, with the ongoing support of grants and fellowships from the Golden Globe Foundation, formerly the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Two of our major programs, FTVM and Journalism, were also recognized as “highlighted programs” by the university.

So, looking back, this year has indeed been one of expanding our departmental footprint with new collaborations, facilities and faculty.

However, looking forward, we expect even bigger developments and announcements in the coming years that will showcase our ongoing commitment to keeping up with and preparing our students for the rapidly evolving media

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The 37th Annual Student Awards and Graduation Celebration

By Daniel Herrera

Staff Writer

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he Annual Student Awards and Graduation Celebration was held in the LSU ballroom on Saturday, May 4, 2024. This event marked the 37th year that the Communications Department has honored the hard work and dedication of exceptional students and individuals.

The event began with Film, Television, and Media assistant

professor John Vanderhoef introducing three successful alumni who are thriving in their careers.

Christine Cortez, who graduated from Dominguez Hills in spring 2023 with a degree in Film, Media, and Television. She is currently interning at Disney, where she contributes to animation projects. Cortez says she enjoys the behind-thescenes work and values the creative freedom her role offers.

Just like Cortez, Brandon Cruz graduated in spring 2023 with a degree in Advertising and Public Relations.

Cruz switched majors after he realized during the pandemic that his music degree wasn’t going to lead to anything secure. He turned to AD & PR and hasn’t looked back since.

He is currently a media associate at Starcom global communications planing and media agency.

Gabby Medina also didn’t start her professional journey as a Journalism student. In fact, she started as a Biology major that was interested in working closely with animals.

After changing her major twice she decided to turn to journalism after her counselor gave her the recommendation.

Despite not knowing what she was getting herself into, Medina immediately fell in love with writing.

She graduated in spring 2022 and is

currently working on her master’s degree in Digital Media from USC while working as a desk intern for ABC7.

All three of the alumni expressed their gratitude to the department and gave a special shout out to the mentors that guided them throughout their time at CSU Dominguez Hills.

“You may feel like you’re doing too many pointless things in your classes, but trust me it all comes together,” Cruz said. “I use what we

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COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

learned in classes every day at my job.”

After the alumni introductions, five scholarships were awarded to students. Gisell Cruz received the Gil and Shirley Smith Scholarship. Maryam Darwish and Ashley Daze were honored with the Dorothy M. Hagan & Juanita W. Hicks Endowed Scholarship.

The HOPE Scholarship was awarded to Tayaba Wazin, Abby Garcia and Camila Cisneros.

The fourth scholarship, the Honeywater Scholarship, was awarded to Gloria Evans. Zulema Palencia received the final scholarship, the Donn E. Silvis Memorial Scholarship.

Creative Promise Fellowships were awarded to Elgin Rebucas, Gloria Evans, Maryam Darwish, Liv Magee and Aurora Sanchez. Screenwriting Promise Fellowships were presented to Liv Magee and Dylan Bertani.

The Journalism fellows, Chase Waite, Danaly Estevez, and Vicky Pineda were also recognized. All three fellowships were supported by the Golden Globe Foundation.

FTVM majors Liv Magee, Dylan Bertani, John Otero and David Cayetano were also recognized for their contributions to Hollywood by the Horns program.

Before the end of the awards ceremony, selected students were called up on stage to receive Outstanding Student Awards for their hard work and dedication to their education.

The first award was given to Maryam Darwish for Outstanding Junior.

The outstanding AD/PR students recognized for their work included Zulema Palencia and Dana Foss.

FTVM also had two winners: Liv Magee and Rhea Anne Masilang.

Journalism had two outstanding students this past year, Eduardo Alfaro and Jasmine Sanchez.

The event closed with one final recognition for Outstanding Senior. This award was given to Journalism major Vicky Pineda.

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Shooting for the

HOLLYWOOD Stars

By Asia Abadie

Contributor

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equal practices and celebrating inclusions,” making the partnership a staple in DH’s mission to equality.

The Equity in Journalism Fellowship grant represents $21,500 for both the World Press Freedom Day event and the fellowships for which the money is divided between the students to pay their tuition. Last year, one of the fellows, mentored by Dr. Cheever, looked at the roadblocks Latina journalists face in professional jobs such as being passed up for opportunities, not being given the resources they need or having their stories denied.

Cortez got GGF funding through the FTVM Program. To get it, she had to write an outline on a past or current project. Once her application went through the first stage, she sent a detailed version of the film project she would realize with the grant. Although the fellowship provided financial compensation as it was issued through the financial aid office, the total amount allocated to the project is largely different based on the receiver’s financial status.

Cortez, like many others at CSUDH, is passionate about creating opportunities and experiences for her fellow students. Once she got the grant, she created an opportunity by enlisting others wanting to make it in the entertainment industry to help on the project. Richard Soto, one of the team members, stated he joined the project to experience being part of a team in relation to film. The team was made up of almost 20 students, most working for the first time in their respective roles. Cortez said she “would love to expand people’s portfolios and skillset with this short film.”

In order to have the film be both efficient in the story arc and shooting logistics – locations, characters, length – the script was reviewed by FTVM professors during pre-production. But before this came the writing of said script.

Cortez remembers the start fondly, although she stated it seemed it happened ages ago.

“Writing the script was definitely a fun learning process,” Cortez said.

With the seven other writers she recruited, they

threw ideas around every Thursday morning on a whiteboard as well as “scavenge for a dryerase marker.”

As a first-time producer, Cortez confessed to learning the significance of having a linear plot line while keeping in mind budget, cast and other production components. Moreover, to achieve her goals, deadlines and responsibility delegations had to be set.

Getting others to join the team was crucial, and Cortez is grateful to all those who got on board. Two of them were key components in encouraging Cortez to follow her ambitions. She remembers pitching this project to her friends and teammates Ceejay Nicholson and Sandis Wightman in a study room September 2022. Wightman recalls the moment as well, stating how Cortez mentioned starting a club with FTVM majors to create their own material, which other schools do and DH did not at the time.

He added that he joined as he wanted “the CSUDH FTVM Program to have more of a presence at the school” and he wished to be “a part of something and leave a legacy.”

Later a producer on the project, Wightman had come a long way from telling his friend, and Nicholson, the director, how it did not matter if they were the only three on the project or had to film on their smart phones; the goal was to collaborate and make something.

Keone Roberts, one of the post-producers, shared that “post-production is a tedious but fun process” that can take one to two weeks to complete and perfect. Ultimately, Cortez would like to submit the short to the CSU Enter-

FTVM students working together on a short film last year.

tainment Alliance (EA) film festival with a premiere screening on campus, with hopes of making it available on YouTube as well as hosting networking events.

Cortez would like the project to “extend beyond, to cultivate a sense of community and curiosity on campus.”

The Communications Department greatly supported the project, whether it was for script coverage or finding equipment. The Las Vegas native expressed her gratitude to them providing resources for the shoot and extending their time.

To showcase the behind-the-scenes events and making of the project, two students worked on the short’s social media presence. Soto and Dylan Bertani assisted in marketing the short for an on-campus screening and making a mini-documentary of the shoot. The social media posts showcased how well the team worked and functioned together.

Cortez expressed her gratitude to her team by saying, they are “comprised of wonderful, creative, and dedicated people” who support and encourage one another. And the feeling is mutual.

Talking to some of the members of the team, reviews of Cortez’ leadership were all positive. Wightman could not stop raving about his friend and teammate, affirming that getting funding for the project was a “testament to how hard Christine has worked from day one.” He went as far as comparing her to Superwoman with her passion and commitment to making this a successful project and helping everyone involved.

“I am seriously in awe of her because she has so much going on with internships and work and school,” Wightman said.

Robertson echoed this sentiment.

“Christine is a great leader,” he concluded.

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tudying film is one thing, but being given an opportunity to make a film for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, now known as the Golden Globe Foundation, is a new level.

This happened over a year ago to Christine Cortez, a former Film, Television Thanks to the and Media student. Cortez Golden Globe got funding to create her own short film and showcase it.

Foundation, The Golden Globe FounFTVM student dation (GGF) is a nonprofit Christine Cortez organization made up of journalists and photographers. was able to Its most famous endeavor is produce her founding and organizing the Globe Awards in Los own short film. Golden Angeles.

California State University, Dominguez Hills has been working for several years now with the GGF, getting grants for its Journalism and FTVM programs. They provide students with funding to showcase their work in their choice of medium.

For the Journalism Program, the grant covers fellowships for Journalism majors and the World Press Freedom event at the end of April. Journalism program coordinator Dr. Nancy Cheever explained how to apply. Students write a personal bio and an essay on what work they want to complete. The department then considers financial need, GPA, performance, aptitude and whether the student will be able to complete the work.

The grant pays for the fellows’ tuition, which helps those struggling to pay for it and allows them at the same time to practice their craft.

Journalism fellows then produce a news package

by World Press Freedom Day, which is when they present their work. The package is made up of a podcast, video, feature story and investigative news story, all published on a website. Students can pick their own topics, which usually revolve around social justice and ensuring equality in the newsroom and issues of representation.

Dr. Cheever said the “GGF is committed to

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THE CALL OF DUTY

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Nancy Perry has been supporting Communications students since 2021

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By Gabriel Gomez

photos. Perry didn’t know what to do with it, however.

She didn’t want to pursue photojournalism because she felt that it would be tough for her personally.

“I feel like there’s a lot of times where you have to put yourself in a position where you’re taking pictures or scenes of an event that are kind of personal to another person,” Perry said. “I’m not the type of person to push those boundaries.”

So, she put that on the backburner. One of her friends worked for Cerritos College as an assistant and, after a long weekend with a friend and talking to her advisor, Perry found that advising just might be her calling.

In order to be closer to her parents, she attended Cal State San Bernardino, where she finished in two years.

Perry then got hired at CSUDH working with the Negotiation Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding (NCRP) program in 2018. She was an emergency hire and was contracted for six months but ended up working there until she got the coordinator position with the Communications Department in 2021.

There is no typical day in the Communications Department. Among her many duties, Perry helps students, works on the weekly department newsletter, assists with committees, and supports just about all of the department business. Helping faculty with any questions they have is also a focus of hers.

Special circumstances include when students or teachers are traveling, because she handles all the paperwork and makes sure that it is approved on time. She makes sure faculty can get access to their classrooms, manages an office assistant and documents faculty meetings.

Perry’s job is crucial to the COM Department because she values bridging the gap between her department and other departments.

By having a support coordinator like Perry, it allows the department chair and faculty to do what’s most important—be there for the students. It frees up more of the faculty’s time and focuses on important issues for them.

Perry has been the front person since faculty can’t always be there to meet with people or students because they have to teach throughout the day. Perry also does a lot of problem solving and detective work to find the correct answers or documents, which she thoroughly enjoys.

In essence, Perry is the face of the department.

With the support of the dean’s office and the Communications Department, Perry has also been able to further her education. She was admitted to the Higher Education Administration and Leadership (HEAL) program with a master’s certificate here on CSUDH campus. She com-

pleted it last fall. She was also accepted to Kansas State University’s online master’s program for academic advising. She has hopes of finishing this summer.

Perry is very appreciative of everyone she works with and reflects positive energy with whoever she comes in contact with. She is particularly appreciative of her student assistants, who were hired through the Work Study program. It’s given Perry experience in supervising, since she’s never had that type of responsibility before, and provides her with support whenever Perry is out of the office.

They learn from each other on a daily basis, she says, but Perry is learning the dynamic of being an authority figure and not just a coworker, teaching her assistants skills like Excel, doing mail merges, how to write professional emails and how to respond to them as well.

Perry is also the committee chair of the Communications Department Student Awards and Graduation Celebration, held on campus. The committee wants to put more emphasis and focus on the students receiving awards and celebrate their achievements. Their goal is to have it more concentrated on what the students deserve, the acceptance of scholarships and awards. It is a great opportunity for students to come and celebrate the year.

Additionally, Perry finished the mental health first aid training. There have been a couple instances on campus where she felt she could have intervened, but because she didn’t have the proper training, she felt it was inappropriate to intervene. She also wants to have a fueling station in the office for students who are suffering from food insecurities. She is working with the Basic Needs program to accomplish this goal.

Outside of work, Perry is a talented photographer who enjoys creating art with her photographs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in photography from CSUSB. She specializes in photographs of the moon that look similar to ink blots she calls “sky blots,” which are completely different each time and illustrate her unique vision and style.

Her attention to detail is superb and her passion is shown in every image. If you want to see more of her work, look up the hashtag “#skyblots” on Instagram to see these incredible photos.

If there is one person who deserves recognition for excellency, Perry certainly fits the bill. The amount of care and attention to detail she puts in every day really shows.

From the beautiful newsletters to the patience, understanding and attending to the needs of students or faculty, she rises to the occasion in any situation and does it with admirable energy.

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eing the department coordinator for the Communications Department wasn’t always something Nancy Perry envisioned for herself. Always wanting to help other people, she dreamed of being in some kind of role that would allow bringing happiness to others on a daily basis. Naturally coming into her role as the department coordinator was a pleasant surprise, but not totally unexpected.

Perry was born in Torrance, California, and lived there until she was in second grade. Her family moved to Riverside and later she attended Norwalk High School. After high school, she began attending Cerritos College, where it took her 10 years to get her associate’s degree. She struggled with advisors who gave her wrong information about the courses she needed to take and was largely lost in what she wanted to do with her life.

While growing up, she went back and forth between psychology or teaching. She liked helping people and due to having a very large family, they used to joke that they needed a psychologist in the family. This is something she seriously considered and wanted to pursue.

When she realized how much schooling it required, it steered her away from psychology. Still determined to help others, Perry decided she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. She took four classes to get her certificate and completed one more class to be an infant-toddler teacher.

But this job required more caregiving than teaching and it wasn’t exactly what she envisioned herself doing long term. She started taking more GE classes at Cerritos and fell in love with photography. She got into photography because a friend of hers loved it and she admired her friend’s

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Reporting live from Cal State University, Dominguez Hills... broadcast journalism has returned!

By Holden Douglas

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Staff Writer

hile California State University, Dominguez Hills students have been able to study the principles of journalism, the broadcasting element has largely been missing.

That is about to change.

The Communications Department is bringing back Bulletin TV after several years of inactivity with plans to rebrand it as a broadcast news program called “Voices.”

Bulletin TV debuted in 2018 after Communications students pushed for a broadcasting program on campus. These students produced a broadcast version of the CSUDH Bulletin campus newspaper, which included interviews and news segments.

Communications Department chair Dr. Brant Burkey said Bulletin TV got off to a successful start with positive recognition from students and viewers. However, the program was put on hold when COVID-19 hit.

“In that period, our program disappeared,” Dr.

Burkey said. “Nobody was able to do Bulletin TV remotely.”

Once pandemic restrictions were lifted, students returned to the classroom. Bulletin TV did not.

This fall, newspaper advisor Adam Elrashidi will oversee the relaunch.

The broadcast class will be composed of reporters and editors. Originally, Bulletin TV covered school-related news; however, “Voices” will have a different approach.

Elrashidi says the goal will be for students to go into the community and find compelling stories.

“I want students to have a grasp of journalistic tic ethics so that when they land in a professional newsroom, they’ll have a deeper understanding,” Elrashidi said. “I want them to look much deeper, beyond the surface level, and really apply some critical thinking to how they produce content.”

After students find and report stories in the area, they will produce segments in the classroom.

(Front row from left) Vicky Pineda, Danaly Estevez; (back row from left) Juan Pablo Franco, Eddy Alfaro prepare to film their first broadcast segment of “Voices.”

Finding Their Voices

By Sara Bhatt

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ith just one semester left until graduation, Journalism majors who wanted broadcast experience decided to create their own opportunity.

California State University, Dominguez Hills students Vicky Pineda, Juan Pablo Franco, Eddy Alfaro and Danaly Estevez envisioned a career reporting on air, whether it be sports, news or features.

While a broadcast program is in the works, current and former students have been unable to get hands-on experience or take classes related to reporting in front of the camera.

“I wish there was a broadcast opportunity for us here much sooner, but when we realized there wasn’t, we took matters into our own hands,” Franco said.

Last fall, Pineda approached Communications Department chair Dr. Brant Burkey, asking for a broadcast opportunity on campus. Dr. Burkey suggested she pursue this idea individually to meet her internship requirement.

Pineda turned it down.She wanted her peers to have the same opportunity and taking this on as a solo mission would not have allowed that.

Instead, through word of mouth, three others joined Pineda in the independent study class with Dr. Burkey as their advisor. They created “Voices,” a news program focusing on underrepresented communities and stories.

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Students will have access to important resources such as a designated room on the third floor of the library equipped with a TV set for cameras, lighting and green screens. Although the headquarters location hasn’t been identified yet, there is a plan on how the space will be set up.

This will allow the students to get practice on camera and working on set.

“Voices” will also share resources with DHTV, the university’s broadcasting studio. This grants the class access to more microphones, a bigger recording area and an actual studio to work in. The connection with DHTV allows students to work in the facilities of an actual broadcasting facility, Dr. Burkey said.

Dr. Burkey believes that “Voices” is the final piece needed to give students a try at as many forms of journalism as possible.

“When I came on board here 10 years ago, if you were a Journalism major all you could do was work for the newspaper,” Dr. Burkey explained. “So we started offering them opportunities to create other forms of journalism, including feature writing for magazines, creating podcasts and other digital content. But we still didn’t have the capability to expand our broadcasting offerings.”

With the revived Broadcast Journalism class and “Voices” program, Journalism students will once again be able to report in front of the camera.

“Getting experience broadcasting as a student can help build skills,” said Journalism major Robbi Gallegos, “[including getting] first-hand experience, knowledge and skills that will make you stand out in the job market.”

Students will not only be working in their preferred career field but they will also have an audience. “Voices” will be available through the DHTV YouTube channel and the cable channels of local cities. This is where residents of Carson, Torrance and Lawndale will eventually have access to the work that Toro students are producing.

Program content for “Voices” intends to focus on people in the South Bay, who have compelling stories about their background, as well as the culture, upbringing or any type of social issues that can be relevant for South Bay area audiences.

Dr. Burkey says “Voices” is only the beginning. The Communication Department plans to add more electives revolving around broadcasting.

“This is just the beginning,” Dr. Burkey said. “Students have enough of an interest in broadcast journalism of various forms, whether it’s sports, entertainment or news, that I think it will be able to continue to grow, evolve and develop over time.”

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he Hollywood by the Horns Program was first launched in the fall of 2014 at CSUDH with two missions in mind—to create meaningful connections between the talented students and professionals in the entertainment industries and to foster students’ creative voices to help them see how they can best make an impact on the entertainment industries.

The name, Hollywood by the Horns, embodies the hope to encourage Toro students and for them to take Hollywood by the horns. Since its inception, it has since become a crucial program on campus and a gold standard initiative for the Communications Department and the FTVM degree program.

Associate professors Dr. Ryan Bowles Eagle and Toddy Eames have both led the program, and their dedication to it shows again and again.

Each year, Hollywood by the Horns hosts events on and off campus that bring students closer to the professionals and work practices in the entertainment industry.

The professionals brought in by Hollywood by the Horns are experts in telling stories, including screenwriters and professional actors.

They give advice to students on how to improve or tweak things they are writing in order to make their stories more powerful. Students learn through the program to not be afraid to open up and share their emotions through storytelling.

“They get to be exposed to professional stories to how they got to

by the Horns

Program gives students

hands-on experience on

and off campus working in

the entertainment industry

By Gabriel Gomez and Joseph Sanker

Contributors

where they are, which oftentimes, I’ve found from both teaching that class and sitting in on it, their professional stories are often times circuitous, they don’t follow one set path,” said Dr. Eagle. “So it helps students see that ‘maybe I as a student haven’t had the direct path that somebody else has had. Maybe my path isn’t something that makes sense to somebody else. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to end up where I’m meant to be or where I dream of being because everybody’s path to get there is different.’ So I think it opens up doors for our students in terms of what they can imagine for themselves and it opens up new understandings of how these industries work, where they might find fulfillment, where they might find meaning.”

Story Slam is an impactful part of the program where students can really hone in on their craft and learn to tell their stories in front of large audiences. The students who participate in Story Slam are incredibly courageous as it takes a lot of strength to go up in front of a room full of strangers

who you are unfamiliar with and be vulnerable. It helps them connect to their peers in a way that is unlike any other event on campus.

This program is incredibly important to CSUDH and is worth attending to experience for yourself.

The Hollywood by the Horns program also offers many other tools and events to help students get a sense of what it’s like to work in the industry. It helps by offering practical programming like panels, workshops, job shadowing, tours, mentoring and feedback. Courses both for credit and non-credit are offered that focus on increasing students’ access to and opportunities within the media industries.

Hollywood by the Horns strongly advocates that by bringing together students and industry professionals, the program can both create a pathway to careers and put students in a position to change the landscape of the entertainment industry. The students of CSU Dominguez Hills are incredibly creative with unique voices and have the potential to be a valuable resource for Hollywood.

They also possess the power to make changes in the narratives told and the stories created.

“The industry at large is really looking to support and encourage and hire our student population,” explained Eames. “They’re looking for underrepresented voices which certainly we have on campus in spades and so it’s a matter of sort of bridging that gap on the one hand, equipping our students so that they

are competitive in the field and to be able to secure these jobs but also to create bridges between the companies that are making the decisions that are doing the hiring and our students. I know that they are looking for these stories and looking for our students.”

Programming for Hollywood by the Horns is highly valuable for students to take advantage of.

The program nurtures students; creative voices and storytelling skills. It allows them to have a safe space to be themselves. It facilitates important encounters between students and professionals.

This is to bridge the gap between student life and professionals. A main focus is emphasizing the diversity of the campus where professionals can equally utilize the diversity of the student body at Dominguez Hills. This in turn provides valuable insight into the inner workings of the entertainment industry. This can highlight the tools necessary to carve a path into the job market.

These events also allow students to look at media critically and ensure that they go into their new careers being able to better navigate through it and be more successful.

“I think there are two ways we hope to help students,” said Eames.

“One is to inspire them to dream big with their professional goals. I think having direct interaction with people who are sustaining a career, with people who can speak directly about their experience, and maybe the students can see their own experience reflected in the speaker, then they can feel like maybe they can do it too.”

Hollywood by the Horns and the Women’s Studies Program and the Women’s Resource Center hosted Luna Fest last year as part of the 7th annual Women’s Conference. To start things off, there was a keynote lunch

and yoga with Jessamyn Stanley, an award-winning author, body positivity advocate, yoga teacher and entrepreneur.

The list of events included the beauty in entrepreneurship, establishing culturally informed boundaries, a self-love poetry workshop, LUNAFEST film screening and a happy hour mixer. Students discussed their experiences and received feedback from Stanley on the fundamentals of being an entrepreneur and what her experiences have been like. Having this kind of insight for students is incredibly engaging and creates meaningful connections for those involved.

Keeping programs like these on campus has proven to be a vital resource for students to take advantage of and will continue to do so.

The sheer success and vitality of the program speaks volumes to the dedication of staff, students and professionals willing to open a dialogue and engage in meaningful conversations about how to improve Hollywood’s

current landscape.

While progress may be slow, the impact is felt throughout the industry with so many diverse stories being told on multiple platforms. The future looks promising for the talented and hardworking students who want to create engaging stories for years to come.

“We’ve always believed that our students have incredible stories to tell, that they have valuable perspectives, and working through the experience in the Finding Your Voice workshop I think allows students to reflect on how they got where they are, how they became the people that they, where they want to take that story, and how to tell it in a way that connects them to other people,” Dr. Eagle said. “Because really the more vulnerable, the more personal we can get in our storytelling, actually the more universal it becomes, the more that other people relate to us.

So, that’s the reasoning behind that program.”

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Toros Grabbing

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he 9th Annual Story Slam at CSUDH was a much-anticipated event that drew both seasoned storytellers and eager listeners alike.

Held on the evening of May 7 in the Loker Student Union, the event promised an evening filled with captivating narratives by Stephanie Chilo, Abla Gorashi, Jesse Calabrese and Mansur Abdullah.

Associate professor Toddy Eames kicked off the event with opening remarks that set the tone for the festivities.

The Story Slam wasn’t just an ordinary gathering, it was a tradition deeply ingrained in the fabric of CSUDH’s community. Originating nine years ago, the event has evolved into a grand affair that showcases the diverse talents and stories of its participants.

Each year, the event has grown in popularity, attracting storytellers from all walks of life eager to share their unique perspectives and experiences.

Among the lineup of storytellers were Chilo, whose tales reflected on her personal life and finding her voice.

Gorashi, with her gift for storytelling,

offered those afraid to face their fears a humorous yet heartwarming story about how she dove out of her comfort zone after parasailing for the first time.

Calabrese’s narratives carried the weight of profound wisdom and strong emotion as he shared a personal story about family bonding and learning to provide support for loved ones.

Meanwhile, Abdullah’s stories were often infused with humor and wit, eliciting laughter and smiles from the audience as he also spoke about how he was able to break out of his comfort zone and make friends through his journey to seek a romantic interest.

As the evening drew to a close, literary agent Lisa Callamaro, who helped launch the storytelling program, took the stage for the closing remarks, expressing gratitude to the participants and audience for making the event a resounding success.

The night concluded with a soulful performance by Ashanti Dyles, whose music served as the perfect finale to an evening filled with stories that touched hearts and ignited imaginations.

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9th Annual Story Slam

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Students hit the stage and show off their storytelling skills.

By Mercy Calvo-Cruz

Staff Writer

Students (from left) Abla Gorashi, Stephanie Chilo, Jesse Calabrese and (at back) Mansur Abdullah participated in the 2024 Story Slam and were supported by Lisa Callamaro (second from right), who helped launch the program.

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Students have been sharing stories of pain and triumph through Story Slams since 2015.

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GOLDEN SUPPORT COMPENDIUM

The Golden Globe Foundation is helping Communications students at CSUDH achieve their goals with annual donations.

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By Cesar Rivas Gonzalez Staff Writer

Vicky Pineda (right) was one of five Communications students who received a fellowship from the Golden Globe Foundation this year.

The cumulative few thousand dollars in donations has grown to a total grant giving of $5 million.

“We have helped over 2,500 students since the inception of this program,” Cuneo said.

CSUDH has a large percentage of students who come from minority communities, which is 92 percent of the total enrollment.

“This type of help from organizations represents a huge opportunity for students in the Communications Department to keep pursuing their bachelor’s degrees,” Dr. Cheever said.

And students appreciate the financial support.

“I am paying for school out of pocket. This scholarship has greatly helped me out financially for my last year at Dominguez,” said fellowship recipient and FTVM major Liv Magee. “I am so honored to be recognized for my writing. It is a boost of confidence before going out into the industry.”

Vicky Pineda, a graduating Journalism major at CSUDH who received the scholarship this year, agrees.

“I was very humbled to be selected for this scholarship because I honestly thought I was not going to get it,” Pineda said. “I was doubting myself a lot but I told myself it was worth a shot.”

“These scholarships provide much needed support for students pursuing creative endeavors, strengthening their portfolios and creating opportunities for professional development,” said FTVM associate professor Toddy Eames. “We’re very grateful to the Golden Globe Foundation for their ongoing support, which connects our students to the film and television industry in exciting ways.”

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he Golden Globe Foundation gives millions of dollars every year to Los Angeles-area schools and their journalism and communications programs with the goal of helping underrepresented communities.

California State University, Dominguez Hills is one of those recipients.

The foundation currently supports over 25 film and journalism schools. To date, over $55 million has been given to charitable causes.

The Golden Globe Foundation aims to promote cultural exchange and understanding through support for major programs and exhibitions that utilize film to ignite critical dialogue and promote global understanding. Donations are used to support special projects, education and cultural activities connected to the news and entertainment industry.

Last year, CSUDH received $21,500 for the Journalism program and $60,000 for the Film, Television, and Media program to provide fellowships for Communications students.

This year, the Communications Department will receive another donation from the organization. The amount has not yet been announced.

Applicants are required to write an essay and submit an application to the Communications Department, where faculty chooses the most promising ones to submit.

FTVM students who demonstrate a strong interest in film or television are eligible for the Creative Promise Fellowship and the Screenwriting Fellowship. For the Creative Promise, students present a creative project which they will undertake and decisions are made based on the project’s merit and feasibility.

Screenwriting Fellows participate in and work at twoin-person professional screen and TV writing conferences and must exhibit professional engagement skills and a strong desire to enter the field of screenwriting (or TV writing) along with a demonstrated potential in that field.

More than 50 Communications students have benefitted from these grants over the years, said Journalism program coordinator and professor Dr. Nancy Cheever.

Sandra Cuneo, grants officer at the Golden Globe Foundation, said the first donation to CSUDH was in 1989.

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The rate of domestic violence has increased significantly, with women being the main victims (83 percent on average for the 2005-2016 time frame).

Dr. Miriam Hernandez presents her research to help spread awareness on the politicization of an immigration agenda.

Exploring Violence

AGAINST WOMEN Assistant Professor Dr. Miriam Hernandez sheds light on the growing global issue of gender-based violence.

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r. Miriam Hernandez never thought she would end up talking about violence. But once she started writing about it, she never looked back.

Dr. Hernandez covers minorities in the news media, immigration and gender-based violence in her research.

Additionally, she’s an assistant professor at California State

University Dominguez Hills in the Advertising and Public Relations program. She teaches the senior project class, social media strategies and strategic communication courses.

Dr. Hernandez found her passion in researching domestic violence after earning her Ph.D.— immigration was her final research component. During her

research on how immigration shapes the United States, she read an article that addressed how immigration laws affect women.

“I read every article I could find on the topic and learned a lot, though there is still much more to discover,” Dr. Hernandez said.

see RESEARCH, page 22

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By Mireya Preciado Staff Writer

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In the process, she ran across an article about domestic violence in other countries. She started exploring how it manifested in these groups and other cultures such as in in Asia, Latin America and Europe. She was surprised by how abuse shares many commonalities and is truly a global problem.

During her journey of becoming a professor, she studied at City University of Hong Kong where she earned her doctorate in Communications. It took her five and a half years to finish.

“I took that long because I was not understanding the things that I needed to do,” Dr. Hernandez said. “I was not submitting the quality of work that my professors were asking me to do. So even when I wrote my thesis, I thought this is not good enough, perhaps I’m not going to get my degree, and what am I going to do then?”

Now as a tenure-track associate professor, Dr. Hernandez says she can relate to how students feel.

“I know it’s not always easy to keep going,” Dr. Hernandez said. “That everything you do has to teach you something. You must want to know even if you don’t know what to do. There are many lessons you learn, and you just have to push through.”

After graduation, Dr. Hernandez continued her research and reported on femicide and domestic violence against women.

One of her favorite articles she wrote was published in Journalism Practice in 2023: “Covering Feminicidios: How Mexican journalists fight to improve representation of violence against women.”

Dr. Hernandez found that Mexican journalists are challenged on how they report the everyday violence women face in the country. This particularly relates to the coverage of feminicidios (killing of women) in media.

“I wrote the article after four years of reading and interviewing journalists who cover violence against women,” Dr. Hernandez said. “I realized that although this is a major problem in Latin America, there are very few articles that interview Latin American journalists. We need to understand what happens inside the newsroom that leads to biased reporting on this issue.”

A second article she wrote was “Killed Out of Love: A Frame Analysis of Domestic Violence Coverage in Hong Kong,” where she explains how the news coverage either

“

I read every article I could find on the topic and learned a lot, though there is still much more to discover.

— Dr. Miriam Hernandez CSUDH Assistant Professor

”

protects the perpetrator or overlooks the victim.

The rate of domestic violence has increased significantly, with women being the main victims (83 percent on average for the 2005-2016 time frame). Most stories revolve around the perpetrators’ feelings and momentary irrationality such as sadness, distress over a breakup, anger or “hot temperament.”

Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, roughly 565 miles north of Mexico City, Dr. Hernandez gained a unique perspective on the coverage of news in Mexico. She saw the effect it has on their culture and how it differs from others.

Dr. Hernandez says she never gave much thought about violence toward women due to victim blaming.

“People always say stuff like, ‘Why was that person out of line? She was asking for it for wearing that,’ and other expressions like that,” Dr. Hernandez said. “What they are saying is, ‘If I control what I wear, that won’t happen to me.’ So it’s a way that you try to control the senseless violence that is happening and say, ‘If I do this, this won’t happen to me.’”

Dr. Hernandez says the reality of gender-based violence is that when you live with this type of identity, there is nothing you can do. You can reduce the risk to some degree, but all you can do is take precautions, Dr. Hernandez reasons.

“Usually what I like to know is that it can get better,” Dr. Hernandez said. “I mean, the news media is still the first way that we think about communicating values to society. I think it’s just about noticing. You open your eyes to the matrix, and you try to do better helping to open the eyes [of others] to the violence along the way.”

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RESEARCH, from page 20

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aspiring journalists affirm their commitment to integrity within their field

years in the field.

And manager of brand strategy Vincent Samperio rounded off the panel with a discussion of how to build a sports brand with the the most eye-catchy content.

Dr. Brant Burkey, Communications Department chair, said that World Press Freedom Day has always been essential and that more schools need to take this matter seriously.

“I feel it’s crucial to society and these journalists at Dominguez Hills truly make it worth something amazing,” Dr. Burkey said. “They change the game and they really make every situation truly inspirational as they give their take on the idea in a journalist’s lens with much creativity.”

In 2024, World Press Freedom Day assumes a heightened significance, particularly in light of the ongoing global environmental crisis, and with the current massive Gaza and Israel

protests at USC, UCLA and Columbia University, journalism is in the most needed state right now.

This topic has been a hot one and it’s important to cover the situation from all points of view. The need for journalists to delve into every facet of this crisis, from supply chain woes to climate migration and beyond, cannot be overstated. Their role in amplifying the voices of affected communities and shedding light on urgent issues such as pollution, deforestation and climate change is paramount.

Advisor of the student-run newspaper Adam Elrashidi said he feels journalism is more important now than ever.

“We as journalists need to act now and act carefully,” Elrashidi said. “We truly have the best time to report on

current issues at hand and it only makes our society better with each article produced.”

Yet, journalists face formidable challenges in this pursuit. Disinformation campaigns make for a lot of doubt, undermining the very foundation of informed public discourse. Misleading narratives dispel efforts to address environmental concerns and also perpetuate inequalities, leaving vulnerable communities further at risk.

To combat this tide of misinformation and uphold the principles of press freedom, a multifaceted approach is imperative. Protecting journalists from harm, safeguarding the rights to freedom of expression and access to information, and promoting media diversity are essential tenets of this endeavor.

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WORLD

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By Chase Waite Staff Writer

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he Society for Independent Student Journalists (SISJ) celebrated World Press Freedom Day this spring with gusto, transforming the upstairs of the Loker Student Union into a hub of journalistic fervor.

The event, a testament to the importance of unfettered journalism and the freedom to express, was a rallying cry for student fellows showcasing their senior projects alongside esteemed guest speakers.

Among the luminaries gracing the event was ABC7’s Oscar Flores, whose insights into the evolving landscape of digital journalism captivated the audience. CBS’s Claire Flores brought her wealth of experience to the forefront, shedding light on the intricacies of broadcast journalism in an ever-changing world.

KTLA news anchor Rick Chambers, a familiar face in the realm of news reporting, shared anecdotes and wisdom garnered from

In countries where press freedoms were strong – including the United States – journalists now face systematic campaigns to undermine their credibility, followed by attacks on the legal protections that safeguard their work.

More journalists are being killed for their work and the number of imprisoned journalists has reached a new record.

As the Society for Independent Student Journalists commemorates World Press Freedom Day, it does so with a renewed commitment to championing journalistic integrity and the free exchange of ideas. In an era defined by uncertainty, the beacon of press freedom shines ever brighter, illuminating the path toward a more informed, equitable society.

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Professional and

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Read All About the History of the Student Newspaper Through the Years

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By Chase Waite • Staff Writer

he student newspaper stands as a pillar of expression and community engagement, covering news and stories on people and events throughout the campus.

Starting in the early 1960s, California State University, Dominguez Hills’ student newspaper has won awards. It’s also changed names, formats and gone from black and white to color. The publication has allowed students to cover, reflect upon and disseminate information to the campus.

While plans are in the works to rebrand the newspaper, its previous name have included The Toro Times, Dominguez News, Weekly Toros and the current CSUDH Bulletin.

“The department is looking to make a brand

new impact coming soon to CSUDH,” said Communications Department chair Dr. Brant Burkey. “We will be making many updates to our system and will add a fresh coat of paint to our Journalism program to keep them in the best shape they can be to help students develop in all the most effective ways.”

With the faculty providing lessons on how to write a lead, perfect a cutline and start a story with an anecdote, students have been able to put these tricks of the trade into practice thanks to the newspaper.

The goal is for students to report on topics that are current. These ideas can be mainstream or underlying issues that need to be addressed.

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1960s

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The student newspaper dates back to 1965 when it was known as “The Mariner.”

This era was known as the “birth of journalism” at Dominguez Hills and played a pivotal role in nurturing the next generation of

journalists and storytellers. Aspiring writers and reporters found a platform to hone their craft, amplify their voices and make their mark on the world.

In the debut edition, Jackson Lion the editor-in-chief wrote: “We have a

focus to make this an efficient newspaper and hope the community will back our future endeavors of reporting positive news writing.”

The student newspaper was also know as El Trompetero in 1967 and the Weekly Bull in 1969.

1970s

Collections Department, detailed that the rebranding during this five- to eight-year stretch was to maintain attention and prevent the newspaper from becoming stagnant.

In 1974, CSUDH students decided to captivate a larger audience and named the newspaper The Daily Planet. This publication quickly became impactful, as its catchy planet symbol and bold title were eye-catching.

According to Hazel Jenson, a parttime historian at CSUDH, the name for this publication was intentionally selected to resonate with the audience familiar with the iconic newspaper from the Detective Comic’s realm where Superman worked as a journalist.

This nod to pop culture added an extra layer of appeal and recognition to the publication, making it stand out among its peers.

In 1978, the newspaper adopted the iconic and long-lasting name, Dominguez News. This name lasted 13 years. In this edition of the paper, art director Nancy Sue said that the staff not only “wanted to make an impact on campus but on the world” with their front page design.

According to Philo, this edition also won an award in the Carson community for “Best Journalistic Direction” for a local newspaper. see NEWSPAPER, page 28

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Extra! Extra!

In 1970 the name changed to “The Newspaper.” The first issue featured the start of student roles, where editors managed sections of the paper in the capacity of editor-in-chief, managing editor, news editor, sports editor and art director. These roles have kept a solid balance for each team of students to communicate and focus on what needs to get done per each issue of the newspaper.

As students became more active, so did the reporting, with a noticeable increase in the coverage of campus events and issues compared to earlier issues in the late 1960s.

“Roles make students flow and communicate in any work environment,” Dr. Burkey said.

In 1973, students and faculty supported globally impactful ideas in society, and the cover echoed these thoughts by detailing the pure emotions of the message in the captions and photos. Students also balanced a saga of the newspaper, where there were numerous rebranding efforts that shaped a landscape for how the newspaper would represent the campus.

Beginning at the start of 1970, the name changed several times—Weekly Bull, Daily Planet, Nameless News, Toro’s Hoofbeat, Weekly Journal, then finally Dominguez News.

Tom Philo, archivist/cataloger for CSUDH’s Gerth Archives and Special

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NEWSPAPER, from page 27

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1990s

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In the 1990s, the school newspaper was briefly called Dominguez News again, as well as The Toro Times and The Rainbow. Some of the top stories of the day recognized the pressing need to address gender inequality and feminism.

With a commitment to amplifying the voices and experiences of women, the newspaper dedicated some of its

The Bull’s Eye was considered a catchy title at the time and editions focused more on how world society issues correlated with the “college experience,” wrote news and style editor Karen Days on page four of this particular issue.

2000s

At the start of the 2000s, color was added to the student-run newspaper.

This made the paper more interesting and let students who worked for the paper enjoy the feeling of seeing their work in a nice setting.

In 2001 “The Informer” made its way as the start of a pure creative mindset with the ability of consistently adding color to the paper. Once the newspaper was rebranded to the “CSUDH Bulletin” it implemented the ideas of the school color, which actually increased the number of people picking up the newspaper by 17 percent, according to the CSUDH archives.

With all of the newspaper’s aspects looking solid, this consistent wave continued until 2009 when CSUDH had to shut down its journalism pro-

gram due to lack of funding from the university.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Dominguez Hills administrators shuttered the student newspaper to save $76,000, making it the only general education California State University campus (the Maritime Academy has no paper) without a regular outlet for student journalism.”

They saw this as a better approach, yet the Journalism program advocated strongly to secure their newspaper back into the heart of their Toros in 2010. This gave a start of the “new generation” of journalism as it also led to the addition of more than 13 faculty members hired either part-time or full-time.

see BULLETIN, page 30

focus to highlighting the contributions and achievements of women within the campus community and beyond.

In addition to fostering greater gender equality and appreciation for women’s rights, the school newspaper continued to highlight other important developments on campus with its distinctive yet diverse articles, features and opinions.

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1980s

In 1984, The Bull’s Eye replaced the Dominguez News name. According to Joseph Joe, a former archivist at CSUDH’s Gerth Archives and Special Collections, “The leaders of the Communications Department saw differences in options” when it came to analyzing the best branding for Dominguez Hills.

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BULLETIN, from page 29

2010s

2020s

In the 2010s, despite facing setbacks, the student newspaper at CSUDH managed to thrive. The department regained their newspaper and saw a new light in how they were going to propel their program.

The Communications Department received a boost with the launch of its online edition.

“We saw a massive increase in interest

and because society was evolving, so did we,” said Dr. Fernando Severino, former Bulletin advisor.

This was a chance to change the way the campus saw the newspaper. Writers and editors focused on mainstream attention. The audience loved this, as overall retention rates went up 56 percent via the CSUDH Bulletin website.

The Journalism program obtained national accreditation in the early 2020s and since then the program has been improving. Former advisor Dr. Severino spearheaded the release of a series of media/podcast projects, revitalizing the legacy of the newspaper.

Adam Elrashidi, the current advisor for the newspaper, now called The Bulletin, says the newspaper holds immense

potential and is truly remarkable in allowing upcoming journalism students to master their skills.

“It’s amazing and I love being able to have a part of an opportunity that shapes our decade of new journalists,” Elrashidi said. “I love the students and they surprise me every day with their abilities and I only wish the best for each individual.”

MAY 8, 2024 • ISSUE 6

Reinventing

Herself

@dhbulletin csudhbulletin.com

BULLETIN Dymally Jazz festival grooves on campus

Photos by Jimmy Dominguez Bulletin

The Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Judith Hill performs on the main stage at the Dymally International Jazz & Arts Festival on Apr. 27. The annual festival honors the legacy of Mervyn Dymally, who traveled to more than 60 countries to promote cultural exchange.

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Dignity Health Sports Park was the site of the fifth annual Dymally International Jazz and Arts Festival on Apr. 27. The groovy sounds of iconic musicians like Stanley Clarke and Angelique Kidjo filled the campus air to the delight of attendees young and old. The festival also featured a visual artists’ pavilion, a bazaar of local vendors, and a smorgasbord of tasty treats and foods for jazz fans to enjoy.

As the acclaimed, Grammy award-winning soul musician Judith Hill held court on the main stage, festival attendees soaked up the sun beaming down into the park. One of them, Ebone Robey, came out to Dignity Health Sports Park this year to support small businesses while listening to live music, particularly Jonathan Butler. The DNA of music and rhythm, according to Robey, is jazz.

“I think about instruments working together to compose beautiful masterpieces,” Robey said. “Being in a space where artists are creating, that is really wonderful. I'm a young adult – a young millennial – so coming here and just seeing all these generations come together on top of that is really cool.”

CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham told The Bulletin the jazz festival

Mira Gandy was among the artists featured at this year’s Dymally jazz festival at Dignity Health Sports Park. In addition to collages and photography, Gandy also paints portraits of women she meets in her travels.

exemplified the idea that the campus is an integral part of the greater Carson community.

“To invite the community into our space is just wonderful – I’m loving it,” Parham said.

The president also loved seeing Dominguez Hills’ own Teodross Avery kick off the festival with a soulful saxophone performance on the main stage. Avery has been a professor of jazz studies and commercial music at

CSUDH since 2017.

Mira Gandy and Wendell Wiggins were two of the local artists whose work was featured at this year’s festival. The event was a change of pace for Gandy, whose art is usually showcased at galleries. She said the jazz festival offered an opportunity to connect music and visual art.

“I love music, and I think there’s a real connection between music and art,” Gandy said. “As an artist – a visu-

al artist – you’re always playing music, so I thought that [attending] would be great.”

Gandy’s artwork explores the ways in which women move through society. She described her work as colorful and expressive, and said she was inspired by the atmosphere of the festival.

Wiggins was also a first-time attendee at the Dymally festival, though he’s been a jazz fan all his life. To be sharing a space with such esteemed musicians like Clarke, Kidjo, and Third World was “perfect” for the type of work he does, Wiggins said.

“I grew up with it before I was old enough to buy a record of my own,” Wiggins said. “My father had all the great jazz albums. I didn’t even know it at the time … all the albums that everybody thinks are the classic jazz hits and the most iconic ones were the ones that I still have in his collection at home.”

Meanwhile, on the second stage, jazz singer Aretha Scruggs performed for the crowd. Scruggs loved the constant flow of music throughout the venue. She said the festival introduced jazz fans to new artists.

“To have festivals like this, we get the opportunity to not only perform as performers, but people get to hear sounds and colors that they’ve never imagined from different artists from all over the world,” Scruggs said.

Licia Summerhill graduated this spring with a degree in Journalism.

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Carson shows up for a day of food, funk

By JIMMY DOMINGUEZ AND JEREMIAH ROJAS Staff Reporters

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Thirty years after graduating from high school, Licia Summerhill

reached her academic goal and graduated from CSUDH this spring.

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n 1996, Licia Summerhill graduated from high school and enrolled at California State University, Long Beach. She was studying to become a teacher, just like her mother.

Three years later she got a full-time job with the Department of Water and Power for the city of Los Angeles and dropped out of college.

Summerhill always wondered if she made the right decision leaving school.

She often thought about going back to finish her degree. But she had kids to feed and at her new job she was earning the same salary as her mom.

A couple of years after Summerhill started working for the county, she became close with a co-worker who was in charge of the office. Rene Anderson was a California State University, Dominguez Hills alumna who graduated in 2003 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Anderson was also a mother of four children who earned her degree while working full time.

“She was part of the inspiration for me to know that I can go back, even with my load as a parent,” Summerhill said.

Three years ago Summerhill did just that and enrolled at CSUDH to study journalism.

This spring she joined that long list of college graduates in her family after earning a bachelor’s degree in communications.

Summerhill is one of dozens of students each semester who are redefining their path and returning to school.

Growing up in Carson, Summerhill lived close to Dominguez Hills but she was unaware of the impact the school would have on her life.

“I thought about [CSUDH] negatively, because who wants to be that close to their college?” Summerhill asked. “But looking back, that was just an immature thought process because it [CSUDH] had everything I needed, I just didn’t realize what I needed.”

Summerhill, now 46, at first was hesitant to return to school because she couldn’t find classes that worked with her schedule. That changed when she met Penny White, Communications Department advisor, who said her goal is to help all students prepare for graduation.

Summerhill (pictured here with her children) proves that relentless dedication makes anything possible.

The number of re-entry students in CSUDH is like a seesaw, the numbers go up and down, but right now numbers are on the rise as students are starting to pick up from where they left off before the pandemic.

“Right now I’m seeing a trend for the people that fell out of continuous enrollment in fall of 2020 after COVID hit,” White said. “We’re seeing those people now return and finish up their degrees.

That semester we had a lot of people who didn’t complete.”

This spring there were 121 returning students at the university this academic school year. Approximately, 24 of them are in at least one of the three majors in the Communications Department.

White helps returning students begin where they left off by reactivating their catalog rights and by helping them avoid the hassle of taking additional classes.

It wasn’t easy to find the time to study, Summerhill said, but the school’s ability to cater to all types of schedules has given her the opportunity to manage her time effectively and address her academic priorities.

Summerhill said she could not have done it without determination and the motivation and inspiration from the women around her.

Summerhill aims to use the writing and communications skills she gained at CSUDH to secure a management role at her current job.

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By Daniel Herrera Staff Writer

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Javi Goes to the

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WORLD CUP

By Marcelo Maximilian

he pressure of deadlines is a shared familiarity between journalists and university students.

It was crunch time, the stakes were high, and finals were nearing their deadlines for CSUDH Journalism major and professional photojournalist Javier Perez.

Right as he was about to graduate, Perez was given the biggest, most career defining assignment in his lifetime.

Literally, while trying to finish his senior project, the soccer superfan was given a weeklong assignment to attend four games at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as a multimedia journalist for Cabra Sports.

Graduation heavily relied on his senior year courses where he was met with a fork in the road.

His choice? Finish college or embrace his looming career.

The abruptness of covering news as both a journalism student and a professional journalist kicked in for Perez, as he was faced with the reality of juggling his overlapping schedule.

As a Mexican-Honduran American, Perez cherishes the memories growing up watching the Mexico National Futebol Team on television with his Mexican father.

Considering the fact Mexico was scheduled to compete, declining an opportunity to attend the 2022 World Cup was not an option for Perez, but neither was neglecting his college coursework.

Perez had to think quickly on how to complete his senior semester when his career required him to report from Doha, Qatar.

“I tried to make sure that in the best way possible I didn’t complicate them,” said Perez, who was given the blessing from his professors to leave the classroom to get out and report on the field. “I turned everything in on time and I got everything done, but it was bit of a hassle.

When you have 15-hour flight, you just put everything

on offline mode, and you type away, that’s what I did.”

Perez is a unique example of a student who is already employed in the field he is majoring in before earning his degree.

The situation is usually reversed as it’s common for students to wait until they graduate to find a career or neglect to use their degree at all.

Perez currently has media credentials to cover Los Angeles Galaxy and is a photographer for their rival team, LAFC. Prior to being media for Galaxy and LAFC and reporting on the World Cup, Perez opened up about his humble beginnings.

Perez had a job working construction with his father, but he couldn’t envision it becoming his career. He became eager to explore real world hands-on experience on the field within his journalism major.

As an Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) member, he took initiative and contacted his advisor for career counseling. EOP provides services such as mentoring, to historically low-income, historically educationally disadvantaged, first-generation college students.

It was through EOP where Perez met the mentor that gave him his first reporting assignments covering high school sports in the Los Angeles area.

“I had an advisor named George,” Perez said. “I came up to him one day, I was in my sophomore year, and I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, like I needed to be out there.

I told him I needed an internship, and he gave me the number of one of my now mentors, Mr. Rico Cabrera, the founder of East LA Sports Scene, and he brought me on.”

“He was very punctual, very diligent, very eager and ambitious to take on the assignments,” said Cabrera.

Perez reminisced about the cold nights filling his tank with his own money and driving long distances across Los Angeles to cover high school sports on as an unpaid intern. see PEREZ, page 36

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Soccer superfan and CSUDH alumnus Javier Perez shares his experience covering the 2022 tournament

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“There’s this thing Mr. Rico Cabrera told me, and it was you have to pay your dues sometimes, and I feel like I paid my dues for a year covering high school football,” Perez said. “Everyone wants to get their opportunity and get into the big leagues, but sometimes you have to pay your dues.”

Perez covered high school football and accompanied Mr. Carrera to photograph Roosevelt High school, Garfield High School, and even covered the East LA Classic ELAC. “I was with an outdated little video camera just recording the game from the press box,” Perez said.

Perez noticed they primarily covered basketball and football and convinced Mr. Carrera they should cover soccer as well.

As they began to work together and see success in their coverage, Carrera suggested they cover professional sports teams for the MLB, NFL and NBA. Perez suggested LA Sports Scene expand their coverage to soccer, as well, which led the duo to begin covering LAFC. “Once I knew I was doing professional teams, I upgraded, I bought myself a camera,” Perez said.

Perez uses the words “confidence,” “consistency” and “self-marketing” to describe the factors that helped him build his reputation as a reporter.

“You can’t wait around, you gotta put yourself out there,” said Perez, who combined his love for soccer and journalism to use his social media platform to report on soccer games as an independent. “I’m a very avid sports fan, I love soccer, that’s my passion.”

Perez said once he started tweeting, he was on Twitter just every day.

“Whatever news came out from

another journalist; I wasn’t the first one,” said Perez, explaining his initial idea to use Twitter to report on soccer. “I was never the first one, I don’t have the sources other established journalists have in the industry.”

All journalists were tweeting out for the Mexico National Team, Perez realized.

“Which is something I am very passionate about. It was in Spanish,” Perez said. “I’m Mexican American.

I belong to a community of kids who grew up with parents who spoke Spanish but all the content we consume on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter is in English, so how can I bridge the gap?”

Perez began using the aggregate journalism method

to report soccer to his social media followers.

“I was taking, a lot of the stuff these journalists reported and, obviously giving them credit, I just translated it in English, and I built a following,” Perez explained. “People started following my stuff, liking my stuff, and asking me for opinions and, through there, my company that I now work for had just opened up and they were looking for content creators, so they were like, ‘hey, we really like your writing style, your Twitter, and we see that you’ve gotten a fair amount of followers’...they [Cabra Sports] brought me on.”

Today, Perez continues his career as a professional soccer photojournalist. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in Journalism from CSUDH in spring 2023.

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QUEEN of

COMPTON

West Coast rapper Dyamond Watts rises above a difficult upbringing to tell her story—and follow her dreams.

Staff Writer

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ompton, also known as “Hub City,” has produced some of the greatest rap artists in history: Easy-E, Kendrick Lamar, Ice Cube, and most notably, Dr. Dre. Now you can add another name to that list: Dyamond Watts, the Queen of Compton and soon-to-be California State University, Dominguez Hills graduate.

Watts’ road to graduation certainly has not been an easy one.

The oldest of four kids, Watts and her siblings moved around different foster homes. Her parents lost custody by the time she was eight.

“We were taken away due to my mother’s mental illness and emotional depression,” Watts said.

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One day, Watts was shopping at a local Food 4 Less in Compton with her foster mother. She saw

an old neighbor and asked her to let her family know Child Protective Services had taken her and her siblings.

It took a year before Watts’ aunt found her.

“My father was on drugs, he also had a criminal background, so they denied him custody,” Watts said. “My mother fought hard for me and my siblings; she was also denied. The only one that had a clear record was my aunt Sheree. I will never forget her willingness to take me in.”

Watts had few female mentors, but the most important one was her social worker, Alicia.

“I looked forward to her coming because my childhood was rough growing up,” Watts said. “I didn’t see a lot of women that inspired me. I will never forget that, and I wanted to be who Alicia was to me for somebody else.” see DYAMOND, page 40

Dyamond Watts performs her song “Bottomline” at a local festival. Photo credit: Akashic Photos

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By Sheena Hutchinson

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In addition, Watts was teased for having dark skin.

“I remember coming home from school telling my aunt that people made fun of me calling me ugly and black,” Watts said. “My aunt looked at me with so much love and said, ‘You are black, and you are beautiful.’”

Watts didn’t know that colorism was an issue.

“My aunt helped raise me. She taught me things my mom couldn’t, and I look back to this day and say thank you,” Watts said. “I understand there is preference and that’s fine, but there’s also colorism and it isn’t talked about much. It’s the same thing as prejudice and discrimination and it’s racism, and I don’t respect that.”

Watts believes this narrative should be erased; it keeps women separated and women are beautiful in every shade.

“I love who I am, my dark skin doesn’t offend me,” Watts said. “So, for the little girls that are brown, just like me, you are beautiful. Doesn’t matter what you look like or what you’re built like or what you identify as.”

Years ago, before Watts hit a breaking point, she was fighting to get out of an abusive relationship. There were days she went back to the toxicity. During this time, she became pregnant. She knew it was time to make a change.

Determined to take a different route and follow her dreams, Watts walked into Homeboy Industries. This moment became a refresh button.

“I was spiraling down, I thought I had control of my life,” Watts admitted. “When I walked through the doors of Homeboy Industries, it was another world that I never knew existed with strangers who instantly became family and a support system that can build a solid foundation for a lifetime. That’s what they did for me.”

Homeboy Industries, based in downtown Los Angeles, is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the country that has been providing training and support for over 30 years to former gang-involved and previously incarcerated people.

Dyamond Watts attended the nonprofit Radiate Motivate women’s empowerment event last year.

Photo credit: Rays Flavs

Dyamond Watts credits Missy Elliot and Lauren Hill with inspiring her to pursue a career where her voice could be heard.

The organization has helped many change their lives and become working community members. Where others only see criminals, founder Father Greg Boyle sees people in need of help. His goal is to guide the population that nobody took a chance on.

Through the support groups offered at Homeboy, Watts learned accountability and vulnerability.

“I was forced to come face to face with every flaw that makeup and a smile could never hide,” Watts said.

Homeboy also provides therapy and financial support.

“Father G himself helped me get tires so that I could drive five hours away for one of my hip-hop showcases,” Watts said. “They are the reason I am a returning student at CSUDH since I dropped out.”

To support her son, Watts left college years ago to get a job.

“We struggled financially,” she said. “Years later, I entered the program at Homeboy Industries. They believed in my talent and leadership enough to create my own

internship in the development department for advertising and public relations and media relations.”

Homeboy Industries helped guide Watts toward a brighter future for college and music.

She is now in her last few semesters as an AD/PR major. She is also pursuing a career in rap.

Her moniker, Queen of Compton, came from the time Watts ran for homecoming queen at Compton College.

For the campaign, she had to come up with a slogan.

She wanted to stand out from the other candidates, so she decided to showcase her musical talent.

“If I win homecoming queen, I will be the Queen of Compton,” said Watts. “No one has ever called themselves the Queen of Compton—that’s who I am, that’s who I want to be.”

Watts performed and won.

At Compton College, Watts’ music instructor taught her about the business side of the music industry.

“It may look pretty, and if this is your dream, you must

govern yourself like a business,” said Watts, reciting his advice.

With a gift for writing poetry and rap, Watts forged ahead. In the era she grew up in, female rap was celebrated and respected. During that time women had positive messages.

“More importantly they were powerful and had a voice,” Watts said. “As a child I had no voice. I looked up to these women, Lauren Hill and Missy Elliot. These women are being heard and they inspired me.”

Watts is also interested in writing TV scripts. In 2019 she created her own online reality show, “The Cypher House,” available on YouTube. She’s hoping the show eventually gets picked up by a television network.

“As a female rapper, I have noticed there isn’t a lot of female rappers representing the West Coast at the moment,” Watts said. “The show, ‘The Cypher House,’ came from me doing battle rap every year and wanting to bring attention to female rappers from all over. I wanted the outcome to be a unity for females to come together.”

Watts has already made a name for herself.

In 2020, she was called to participate in a battle rap hosted by Drake. She was ecstatic. It wasn’t until a limo arrived at her house that she believed the moment was real.

She continues to perform throughout Los Angeles at festivals and venues, such as the Marsee Auditorium in Torrance, one of the biggest stages she has performed on to date. Her music has played on “Making the Band,” where two of her songs made appearances.

Despite her rough childhood, she is thankful for the town where she grew up.

“The city of Compton means the beginning,” Watts explained. “Compton means home. Compton is the ‘Hub.’ Compton is like the start square on the Monopoly board.

Compton is my throne.”

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And the

EMMY Goes to...

From writing for TV to teaching at CSUDH, Brad Pope stays true to himself and his extraordinary career.

By Holden Douglas

Staff Writer

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TV called “The Austin Stories.” Jones added Pope to the team to not only write for the show but to also act. This experience helped him gain another perspective on writing good characters. Soon Pope was writing a movie, “Highway to Oblivion,” and another TV show, “The Goode Family.”

Pope thought that working on these smaller cinema pieces may not catch much attention.

However, that was proven incorrect with one phone call in 2010. Ellen DeGeneres noticed Pope’s work and told head writer Kevin Lehman to recruit him. Pope was in awe; he couldn’t believe someone as big as Ellen would go out of her way for him.

Every show, Pope arrived at the studio at 9 a.m. and worked until 7 p.m. He says there was a lot of conflict as staff would bump heads, resulting in many fights. The staff regularly yelled at each other and the bosses were fastidious with how the jokes were written. see POPE, page 44

Brad Pope proudly displays the two Emmys he won in 2011 while working on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

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he panhandle around Amarillo, Texas, was dry, rusty, boring and not the sort of place Brad Pope could fit in. This guy was a funny, creative kid who had dreams of working in the entertainment industry.

By age 12, Pope had his eyes set on moving to Los Angeles. It started with the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. All the nice houses, interesting people and funny dialogue were mesmerizing.

After college, Pope decided to make his dream a reality and hit the road to California.

His first job was working as an intern for Black Entertainment Television, driving a 30-foot-long flatbed truck through Van Nuys.

Nowhere near the studios.

Pope quickly realized that show business was temporary. He held different positions on and off for years. It took six years to find stable ground.

In 1997, Pope caught a break at age 27, when producer Jim Jones put together a show on Mad

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(Left) Pope in the studio listening to audio clips of “Beavis and Butthead.” (Right) Pope collaborates with fellow co-writers to create jokes for “Beavis and Butthead.”

(Left) Pope on set filming George Lopez for the show, “Lopez.” (Right) Rapper Lil Yachty introduces himself to Pope, a “Beavis and Butthead” writer at the time.

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Creator Mike Judge would bring Pope in a room to share jokes he had written in the voice of Beavis.

If Judge was recording this, it meant the jokes would likely be used. No recording signaled the joke was a dud.

This gave Pope insight into which of his material created a fun interaction with the writers for the show.

“Beavis and Butthead” was a great fit. Pope said it was one of the most enjoyable experiences he has had as a writer. It was a relaxed environment where jokes among co-writers flew around the room. Working on “Beavis and Butthead” was a lot like the show itself, Pope said. It was about making each another laugh to create the best writing.

One memorable scene is from the episode “Drones,” where Beavis gets emotional about Katy Perry.

During the writing process, the song “Firework” played in the writing room and Pope got emotional listening to it. The writers replicated this real-life experience and incorporated this scene into this episode.

Although the show ended in 2011, Judge kept in touch. He seemed to appreciate Pope’s writing material and personality. If the opportunity presents itself, Judge told him, he’d love to work together again.

The next big break came five years later with a new TV show: “Lopez.” Pope would not only write for the show but also guest appear in a couple of episodes.

“I once messed up my lines and George yelled at me, then the next scene he messed up his lines; we both laughed it off after,” Pope recalled. “George respected me a great amount since I also came from a comedic background.”

George was the life of the party, Pope said, and always made it fun to work on the show. Unfortunately for Pope, the show only lasted two seasons.

Pope needed a steady paycheck and health insurance, so he applied at California State University, Dominguez Hills. In 2022 he was hired as a part-time lecturer for the Film, Television and Media (FTVM) Program.

Anyone in the entertainment field should

express themselves and their creativity to the world, Pope preaches to his students. He encourages them to make videos, write dialogue and even act out the projects he assigns to make their experience with film-related content more exciting.

He still works in the entertainment industry and Judge did come calling. Currently, Pope is writing for the newest reboot of “Beavis and Butthead.”

While Pope hopes to keep writing for animation or any other show, he’s enjoying sharing his knowledge with students. And students, in turn, appreciate learning about the entertainment industry from a down-to-earth instructor.

“Pope is one of a kind, he shows a lot of empathy for us as young screenwriters as he uses a lot of what he’s learned from his own experiences to teach us the material,” said FTVM major Dylan Bertani. “The best thing is Pope is always himself every class, whether it’s playing music before class or wearing colorful clothes. He’s himself, which allows us to be ourselves as well.”

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The tight structure, Pope admits, was overwhelming both mentally and emotionally.

Despite the long hours, high tensions and sleepless nights, Pope considers the experience an extraordinary accomplishment. He was part of Ellen’s team that received two Emmys in 2011—the Special Class Writing Award and the Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment Award.

However, Pope believed there was more to TV writing than a trophy.

“I didn’t last long on the show; it wasn’t a good fit for me,” Pope explained. “The writing, jokes for daytime TV, it wasn’t my forte.”

After one season, Pope left the “Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Luckily, the breaks kept coming. Brad started working for another big-time show, “Beavis and Butthead,” as a video consultant.

He would watch hours of the show to come up with the perfect jokes. What was different from this animation series compared to other shows is that Pope would have to mimic the characters when pitching ideas.

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SPEAKING FROM

EXPERIENCE Ever since Paul Fornelli viewed the world through the lens of his camera, his world forever changed.

By Karl Hays

Staff Writer

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wood.

He quickly realized that the red carpet was not all it’s chalked up to be and that he preferred the live production aspect of media.

“My original thought was that I was going to get into the film industry and win Academy Awards, Oscars, red carpets, glamour, all that kind of stuff, and during grad school I realized what was involved,” said Fornelli. “That in film you are lucky to get three to four minutes of footage in an eight-hour day. I saw that in the same eight-hour day I could go out and cover a football game, a couple of basketball games back to back and cover news stories, which just fit a lot better with my personality.”

Fornelli started out in the music and recording industry working with various garage bands helping out with the stage production, setting up the band equipment and making sure the show ran smoothly.

“I would be on the road with some of the bands as they went from gig to gig, traveling to various clubs and venues,” said Fornelli. “So, there were plenty of instances of somebody’s van or car breaking down in the middle of nowhere, then you’d have to scramble to make it to the next show on time.”

Occasionally, that meant sleeping overnight in one of the cars.

“Or the band being forced to play with borrowed gear loaned to them from one of the other bands on the bill when the equipment van never arrived,”

Paul Fornelli with Barbra Eden, a popular television actress best known for her role as Jeannie on the TV show, “I Dream of Jeannie.” The photo was taken at a charity event honoring Bob Hope in 1993.

Fornelli said.

Fornelli described this time working for bands as “hardly work in the traditional sense.”

“During a typical work day, you weren’t necessarily see FORNELLI, page 48

In addition to teaching, Fornelli currently serves as chair of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Advisory Board for CSUDH and is the lab coordinator for the Communications Department.

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aul Fornelli saw the camera, the possibilities behind it and the productions he could make as a way to access the fame and glitz of Holly-

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A very grainy picture from the early 1980s taken in Phoenix while Fornelli traveled with the band, Surgical Steel. At the time they were prodigies of Rob Halford, the vocalist from Judas Priest. That’s Rob in the center of the shot, with Fornelli down toward the very front.

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Fornelli (at back) on a production shoot with actor Charlton Heston (left) and producers Kim Reynolds and Ron Petke.

Fornelli teaching his Digital Production class during the 2021 semester.

rance High and Peninsula High through the Southern California Regional Occupational Program, which allowed him to try out teaching.

From there, Fornelli taught at El Camino College, Santa Monica College, briefly at CSUDH, his own alma mater LMU, and finally made his home at Dominguez Hills in 2001, where he has been teaching ever since.

Fornelli’s passion for video production and film stems from early MTV music videos and Martin Scorsese- and Brian De Palma-directed films.

With his enthusiastic knowledge and experience in pre-production, behind-the-camera work and post-production, Fornelli helped co-author a text in 2018 for up-and-coming media producers titled “Viral Media: A Digital Production Marketing Guide for Advertisers, Journalists and Public Relations Professionals.”

“The nature of the industry is so much different than ever before,” Fornelli explained. “When we tried to find a textbook, we couldn’t find any that addressed it from either the film or video perspective and what you have to factor in in terms of journalism, advertising and viral content and their nuances.”

Fornelli’s goal when writing “Viral Media” was

essentially to attract and create a new subset of journalists who can branch out into the ever-evolving field of digital media.

“Part of trying to write the text was to get a different audience; someone that is not dedicated to ‘I want to be the next director, next Scorsese,’ but somebody who is not 100 percent sure what they want to do in a journalism, advertising or PR career,” Fornelli said. “A lot of this stuff now you can have some control over what you want to do.”

The changing nature of the field of video production and media can be one of its biggest hurdles but can also be the catalyst for new content and skill adaption, Fornelli said.

“Circumstances change, technology changes,” said Fornelli. “That’s the history of the profession we are talking about. This is an industry, whatever subcomponent of TV, radio, advertising, journalism, whichever you choose to go into. It’s about constant change; as technology changes the means of distribution, your skill sets will change over time.”

Recently, Fornelli assumed the role of chair of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Advisory Board where he has taken on many responsibilities including writing resolutions, going to Senate meet-

ings and finding out the inner workings of how the campus operates, who does what on campus and how to institute meaningful change.

Fornelli is also on the leadership group for the E-sports organization where he helps get the team into the HyperX Gaming Tournament held in Las Vegas each year.

“I’m not the huge gamer that I used to be at one point in time,” Fornelli admitted.

Fornelli is also intrigued by the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it can be implemented into the classroom.

“What seems to be the new academic approach to AI is, let’s not pretend it doesn’t exist, let’s find ways to make AI a part of the assignment or a portion of your course, where part of the assignment would require using AI to do ‘X, Y and Z’ so there isn’t this guessing game of, is this student using it to do something they weren’t supposed to do?” Fornelli explained.

Fornelli’s message for alumni and students in general is: “The nature of students is changing; a lot of the older generations are coming back for degrees, and I say more power to you. For all students in general, we must become lifelong learners, and that is truer now than ever.”

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interacting with the bands themselves. It was more mundane than that. You were more likely to be interacting with folks like club managers, DJs and sales vendors,” said Fornelli. “It was after normal working hours when you’d really get a chance to hang out with the bands, when you went to see them play at local clubs, concerts or even house parties.”

Fornelli worked at Green World Records for a time as well, collaborating with and helping produce vinyl records for artists such as Motley Crue, Great White, Rat, Mojo Nixon and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“South Bay was actually a big hub of rock and roll, heavy metal and hair metal back in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Fornelli. “So we worked with some of those groups and then I kind of segued out of that and into video production.”

Fornelli moved on to do film work for Cannon Films, then began working for several city governments including Torrance, Santa Monica and Long Beach on local productions. While working for these local access production programs, Fornelli trained many of the people under him in video production skills while pursuing his master’s degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

He taught a few video production classes at Tor-

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Treatment Assistant Professor Larry Hygh uses his communications skills to further his involvement in his community.

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ost students know assistant professor Dr. Larry Hygh as one of the newest faculty members of the Communications Department, currently finishing his second year at CSUDH and fourth year being a college professor in the CSU system.

What students may not know, however, is that Dr. Hygh has also been involved as a volunteer officer in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade for more than 16 years. In fact, he recently finished his second year serving on the Rose Parade Queen & Court Committee, where he helped select the last couple of years’ Rose Parade Queens.

Dr. Hygh grew up in a small town called Marshal in

east Texas, where he was in a band, played the alto saxophone, and was a drum major his senior year in high school. He later went to CSU San Bernardino, where he got his undergraduate degree in Radio and Television, and then interned during the summer of 1997 at the White House with former President Bill Clinton.

Prior to becoming a college professor, he was a non-profit religious communicator for more than 20 years at the United Methodist Church as the chief communication officer for five different regions of the country and the international mission agency when it was based in New York City.

He was also the chief communication officer for the Black AIDS Institute, the nation’s only HIV/AIDS think tank focused on Black communities. As a result of his professional career, he has been to 29 countries and six of the seven continents.

But it was when he moved to California back in 2002 when he met some people who were involved with the see HYGH, page 52

By Alex Avila

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Pasadena Tournament of Roses. He was about 28 years old when he went to a member interest meeting to learn what the organization did, and it caught his attention.

When he first started, he had to submit two letters of recommendation and participate in an interview to be part of the Tournament of Roses. He joined in 2006 but the first parade he did was Jan. 1, 2007. He is currently on his eighth committee, having already participated in 18 parades.

“The committees that I have been to have been great and I have met some great people,” Dr. Hygh said. “I’m not an all-nighter so the first two years were hard because you had to stay up all night and I have never been a person that stays up all night. But I believe in being civically engaged and I wanted to become involved in the community.”

The Tournament of Roses Parade involves 31 committees, which rotate every two years, and most of the volunteers either live within 15 miles from Pasadena or live in Pasadena. The Rose Parade, one of the oldest institutional community organizations in Pasadena,

is always held Jan. 1, unless it’s a Sunday, and all the floats have to be made of natural materials and colors to complete the five-and-a-half-mile parade route.

The Tournament of Roses president selects the theme and the grand marshals every year. The volunteers at the Rose Parade have a membership in order to volunteer and they have to purchase their own white suits to wear the day of the parade.

According to Dr. Hygh, everyone starts with three big committees for their first six years, which are the Big Theory Formation, Parade Operation and Pose Parade. The Big Theory Formation gets the parade lined up the night before the parade. Parade Operations, which moves the parade down the parade route, requires members to spend two years on. The Pose Parade committee sets the floats up in Pasadena and creates events where the public can go and view the floats up close.

There is also a Rose Queen, who is chosen from among a royal court. The Queen & Court committee is involved with selecting the royal court for the Rose Parade. Hundreds of high school girls go through a three-day interview process over three weeks before

the queen is selected from the court. There are three rounds of interviews to see who will be among the seven princesses. The first one is 15 seconds of them talking about themselves and the committee will select who they liked best based on their answers. The following interview goes more in depth and in the final round they choose who will be the seven princesses from among the finalists. The Queen and Court committee not only selects these finalists for the royal court but then must also select the Rose Parade Queen from among them.

Dr. Hygh says he loves to interact with people and tell them what the floats are made out of. The princess wins $7,000 in scholarships.

The Pasadena Rose Parade is a whole day event, featuring floral decorated floats, marching bands, horse riders, musical performers and more, but Dr. Hygh’s involvement has been even more involved, as he participated in the selection of the Rose Queen from the royal court and took part in a number of events leading up to the actual parade in the last couple of years.

“I think it benefits the community,” Dr. Hygh explained. “There’s a huge economic impact to the community. The Tournament of Roses is a foundation and

the foundation awards grants to community organizations in the Pasadena area.”

Dr. Hygh was on a committee for two years called Alumni and Social Media, where he used his skills as a communications professional going to all those events and taking photos. He said being part of the Rose Parade means “being part of the world’s new year’s celebration because everyone knows about the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade.”

“I encourage my students to be involved in the communities they live in, I am huge on community service,” Dr. Hygh said.

Another piece of advice he gives to others is to always “look for opportunities to serve wherever you are.”

A moving moment for him last year was when he got to meet Grand Marshal Gabby Giffords (above), a former congresswoman who was shot in the head several years ago in Tucson, Arizona.

“The fact that she’s alive is amazing and her spirit is amazing,” Dr. Hygh said. “It was joyful and ecstatic seeing when she was announced for grand marshal at the house and knowing her story of what she has overcome. Getting to meet her was my hype of the year.”

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DANIEL TOM

THE VOICE THAT ECHOES THROUGH THE ARENA Fulfilling dreams and aspirations can come in many different ways and in Daniel Tom’s story, sometimes it’s about the perfect timing.

By Chase Waite • Staff Writer

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as a whole. In 2021, he proudly put on a cap and gown, marking the culmination of his academic journey as a Communications major with a focus on Journalism.

“Choosing to pursue journalism was truly the best decision of my life,” Tom said enthusiastically.

Growing up, Tom’s daily immersion in sports ignited a curiousity about game announcing. He recognized that this career path would allow him to forge connections with students and athletes, and it would lead to him connecting with amazing mentors along the way.

Tom refused to let obstacles hinder his pursuit of his sports-related dreams. His drive to achieve these see TOM, page 56

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ark Jackson passes the ball to the corner. Jeff Stacks has two defenders around him with only five seconds left in the game. Five, four, three, Stacks shoots up a tough shot, two, ONE! BEEEPP! HE SCORES IT! Stacks wins CSUDH the game in overtime 102-101!

In the heart of the game, where the air is charged with anticipation and excitement, one voice rises above the roar of the crowd, commanding attention and setting the stage for an unforgettable experience: public address announcer and California State University, Dominguez Hills alumnus Daniel Tom. Tom strikes the mic with pure intention and enthusiasm with each word he conveys to the crowd.

Born in Torrance, Tom has always loved the spirit of sports and has an immense passion for the culture

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TOM, from page 55

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door to get future opportunities,” Tom said. “When they finally gave me my chance I was filling in for someone who had been announcing for 25 years and I was nervous but I knew that surely everything was going to fall into place.”

With nerves heightened in the announcer booth, Tom knew he could be prepared for any game. Even when Tom explained that he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy shortly after he was born, he emphasized that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t play contact sports because he knew his true intentions.

Things were going well for Tom until the coronavirus shut down schools—and sports programs—his junior year of college.

During this time, Tom had more time to develop his writing skills. He liked not having a restricted essay style of writing like in standard English classes because it let his creativity flow into new levels of storytelling.

Student-athletes are “the backbone that builds the new gener6ation of sports.”

—Daniel Tom

CSUDH Public Address Announcer

“When you’re working in athletics and COVID shuts everything down, you don’t know where to turn to,” Tom explained. “But in news writing, you can write your own stories and have your own voice heard without having to control some sort of narrative.”

Next Tom enrolled in the student newspaper class at CSUDH. “It was the best thing to ever happen to me here,” Tom said. “I had the ability to write about so many opportunities and have control over what I was publishing. Whether that was for my internship News4usonline or for CSUDH, I felt accomplished because I was able to do something.”

His path back to public addressing came just after he graduated. Athletics asked Tom to return. His voice echoed once more, marking the beginning of a journey that would see him addressing numerous athletic games in the years to come. The opportunity allowed him to achieve his goal.

“I’m so happy with where my career is and I feel I have accomplished a lot with what I have done,” Tom

said. “If there is a way I can make public addressing a full-time job and then squeeze in a little journalism, I think that would be the best thing possible.”

CSU broadcaster Jimmy Becket has taken note of Tom at many games.

“I feel his voice just sits with you like you are talking to him in a conversation, what a lovely man,” Becket said.

Play-by-play Los Angeles broadcaster Andrew Rector, a close friend, says Tom’s work ethic is “unreal.”

“He worked so hard to be where he is and I feel he deserves the spotlight,” Rector said. “I think he will stay for a while because he is loved here and I think his determination will only let him keep growing as an amazing person and announcer.”

Tom hopes to remain in his role as a public address announcer and to give back to the CSUDH community.

“I want to help the students the same way I was helped,” Tom concluded. “I want to be there for them because if they succeed that makes me happy.”

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goals started freshman year of high school, when he began announcing games. It was ultimately the beginning of the first-ever movement of student-announcer programs in Carson.

When the time came to apply for college, Tom applied to several; CSUDH was at the bottom of the list. However, Dominguez Hills was the only one that said yes.

“When I talked to my parents about whether to go to a junior college or Dominguez, they assured me that I shouldn’t ever write off a CSU when they were giving me an amazing four-year opportunity,” Tom said.

Tom studied Journalism under the Communications Department while working in the Student Athletics Department under game management. The experience was “immensely helpful,” especially since Tom could build his credibility within the field of sports.

“We did everything from game stats to announcing games to even monitoring staff and that got my foot in the

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Alumni Updates ________________________

Michael Waite

Although he studied Communications, Michael Waite (B.A. Communications, 1981) decided to turn his career goals around and pursue a career in art. Waite is now a graphic designer for Sony in their cartoon department and loves transforming the imaginary into reality.

2000s

Yolando Mitchell Brown (B.A. Communications, Digital Media Arts, 2007) went on to earn a master’s degree in Education and Multimedia from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is currently a freelance project manager for her company The Starting Blocks, where she designs websites for businesses, campaigns and nonprofits.

Tiffany Edlin

Chardae Jenkins

After earning a Master of Business Administration from California State University, Long Beach, Tiffany Edlin (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2008) is the deputy athletic director/chief of staff at CSU Long Beach, where she manages several internal departments such as Financial Services, HR Services, Compliance Services and Student Athlete Health & Wellness Services. She said she “loves helping athletes grow and always wants to be there for them throughout every step in their journey.”

2010s

Chardae Jenkins (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2013) is a multicultural executive at Netflix. She works on campaigns to drive publicity and marketing strategy content that includes films, series and documentaries.

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Kim (Pham) Barkley (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations and Applied Communication, 2015) creates initiatives and is in charge of event planning for Porsche Cars North America.

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Kim (Pham) Barkley

Reggie Malasique (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2015) is currently the director of Media Strategy & Investment at Zenith.

Audrey Ngo (B.A. Communications, Journalism, 2015) is a freelance podcast editor, producer and showrunner based in Artesia.

Joseph Polanco (B.A. Communications, 2015) is currently working as a social media manager for CyberArk identity security in Philadelphia.

Audrey Ngo

Guillermo Garcia (B.A. Communications, 2016) went on to earn a master’s in Business Administration and Marketing from the University of Redlands. He now works as a digital marketing specialist for Delightful Communications, a business-to-business technology marketing agency based in Seattle.

Jessica Pedraja (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2016) is associate media director for Zambezi, a female-owned integrated and independent creative communications agency based in Culver City.

This spring, Claudia Uballez (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2016) will earn her master’s degree from USC. She currently produces award-winning feature and informative segments as an associate producer/talent coordinator at Telemundo52, a division of NBCUniversal.

In 2022, Uballez was named Influencer of the Year

by Diversity Fashion World and nominated for an Emmy for her work with NBCUniversal Media.

CeJay Anderson (B.A. Communications, Film, TV & Media, 2017) is executive assistant to the chief creative officer at AGBO, founded by award-winning, record-breaking directors Anthony and Joe Russo. AGBO is an artist-led entertainment company focused on creating content borne of innovative story universes across film, television, and digital platforms. see UPDATES, page 60

Guillermo Garcia

Claudia Uballez

CeJay Anderson

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1980s

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Alumni Updates

Alumni Updates UPDATES, from page 59

2020s

Jordan Darling (B.A. Communications, Journalism, 2020) is a staff writer and layout designer for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. She covers news from Ontario to Pomona.

Jordan Darling

Destiny Torres (B.A. Communications, Journalism, 2020) went on to graduate with a master’s degree from USC. She now writes about local county government and the city of Santa Ana for the Orange County Register.

Jessica Baldwin (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2021) loved the idea of media entertainment but ultimately decided that it was best for her to go into the education system. She is currently pursuing her teaching degree in history and hopes to get an internship at a local middle school in Carson.

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Destiny Torres

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Nathan Bell-James

After earning a master’s in sports management at CSU Long Beach, Nathan Bell-James (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2021) is now working as assistant manager of event services for AEG at Dignity Health Sports Park on the CSUDH campus.

Oscar Carmona (B.A. Communications, Film, TV, and Media, 2021) is a Live Experiences and Entertainment assistant at Netflix.

Kirsten Korkis (B.A. Communications, Film, TV, and Media, 2021) is an assistant to a television literary agent at United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills.

Oscar Carmona

Christopher Martinez (B.A. Communications, Journalism, 2021) is a marketing coordinator for the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, where he creates media kits, arranges hosted media/influencer stays and serves as an on-property media liaison.

Jasmine Nguyen (B.A. Communications, Journalism, 2021) is a multimedia journalist focused on issues regarding Asian American identities in today’s modern age. She also shows prowess in anything regarding entertainment and social-economic politics. She is currently the managing editor at Character Media in Gardena.

Kristen Korkis

Akshaya Sridharan (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2021) is an account executive for ad agency Deutsch LA in Los Angeles.

Jacob Stec (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2021) is a media planner at Publicis Imagine in Burbank, the assigned media agency for Disney+, The Walt Disney Studios, Disney Parks, Experiences and Resorts as well as ESPN/ ESPN+.

Jasmine Nguyen

Christine Cortez (B.A. Communications, Film, TV, and Media, 2023) is a Disney TV production/ post-production intern assisting in developing ideas and general post production tasks.

Akshaya Sridharan

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Dylan Miller

Dylan Miller (B.A. Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, 2017) is working as an associate media planning director for Amazon’s streaming service, Prime Video. He oversees all the U.S. media planning for the platform, meaning that he and his team determine how much to spend on each advertising channel—traditional and digital media—and come up with entertaining PR campaigns.

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Congrats Class of 2024

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Department of Communications COLLEGE OF ARTS & HUMANITIES California State University Dominguez Hills 1000 E. Victoria St. Carson, CA 90747 310.243.3313 (c) 2024. All Rights Reserved.