Research shows that the number of incarcerated people who re-offend or violate their parole after release goes down when they participate in educational opportunities. A 2019 RAND Corp. study estimated that every dollar spent on higher education in prison could save the state five dollars by reducing the number of former inmates who return.

CSUDH is playing a key role in this process with the newly launched Master of Arts in Humanities program. The program, abbreviated as HUX, was developed in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It’s the first fully accredited graduate degree exclusively for incarcerated individuals in California.

The first HUX cohort started in September, with 33 students across multiple facilities. They committed to two years of coursework, focusing on subjects within the field of humanities that reflect their own interests and goals. Coursework can be completed via a combination of email, letters, phone conversations, and independent study.

CSUDH originally established HUX as a series of correspondence classes in the 1970s, and hundreds of students earned their degrees before the program ended in 2016. When HUX Program Director Matthew Luckett began working with the state to reboot it four years later, the timing was right: Congress passed legislation later that year making incarcerated people eligible for federal Pell Grant funding for the first time since 1994.

That’s provided a boost to prison education programs around the country, and Luckett says the investment should pay off, especially for an institution dedicated to social justice like CSUDH. “Few programs, academic or otherwise, have as high of a return on investment as prison education programs,” he says. “Our students don’t just stay out of jail—they become leaders in
their communities.”

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Many Toros through the years have gone on to earn doctoral degrees after graduating from CSUDH, but they always had to go somewhere else to do it. Until now, that is.

The 17 students who began the Occupational Therapy Doctoral program this school year are the inaugural cohort for the first doctorate offered at CSUDH.

Historically, the CSU system only offered bachelor’s and master’s degrees, with doctoral programs reserved for UC campuses. That changed when the state legislature authorized a select number of doctoral programs at CSU institutions, with the caveat that they can’t duplicate existing degrees offered by any UC.

Gaining approval for such programs requires meeting a high standard, said Vice Provost Ken O’Donnell. “You need a more vigorous research agenda than you did before, and faculty have to be ready to pull students up to a level that they may have been at themselves not that long ago. That perspective shift is really the hard part.”

Students in the OTD program come from different backgrounds, but they all share a drive to succeed, both as individuals and as trailblazers in a new institutional program. Alyanna Paulino graduated from UCLA and considered becoming a doctor, but after working as an EMT, learned about other health specializations. “Listening to patients talk about how OT had improved their lives really showed me that as a discipline, it offered so much of what I was passionate about.”

The OTD is just one of several new doctoral degrees CSUDH plans to launch in the next few years, including a Doctor of Education (Ed.D) program in Summer 2024 and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in 2025.

Mi-Sook Kim, dean of the College of Health, Human Services and Nursing, said the OTD program represented a significant milestone. “It not only provides a pathway for students from diverse backgrounds to achieve the highest level of expertise in OT, but also contributes to the advancement of the field.”

Part of that advancement lies in the contributions the OTD can make in creating greater diversity in the field, said Sheryl Ryan, an assistant professor and capstone coordinator for the program. “We’re currently in a moment where there’s a lot of change happening in the profession. We want to build greater cultural, sexual, and gender diversity so that future leaders in the field can break new ground, and I think CSUDH is uniquely placed to be a conduit for that.”

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The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education just awarded CSUDH a Gold rating in its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). Sustainability Manager Ellie Perry credits CSUDH’s success in this area to the university’s commitment to social justice. “If we care about people, we should care about the planet we all live on,” Perry says.

We’re not just doing it for the awards, though. Sustainability is a core feature of the university’s Strategic Plan, which recognizes that communities of color are inordinately burdened by the effects of climate change. The university’s Climate Action Plan commits CSUDH to carbon neutrality by 2045.

Perry has also kick-started a campus-wide food recovery program and sustainable food production at the Campus Urban Farm. With the help of student volunteers and interns, the farm produces hundreds of pounds of fresh produce each year, which is distributed free of charge to students experiencing food insecurity.

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Best in the country. It’s just that simple.

The dancers scored their big victory last April, taking home the trophy in the newly created Spirit Rally category at the Collegiate Cheer and Dance Championships in Daytona Beach, Fla. That win put a capstone on the team’s rise from campus club to national powerhouse who you can see at any number of games where Toro athletes compete.

It also came as a validation for Head Coach Cilecia Foster, who founded the dance team after graduating from CSUDH in 2006 and has led it ever since. “We’ve been competing nationally for a long time, and we could never quite break the top 10,” Foster said.

Anika Vega, an elementary education major and the Dance Team’s gameday captain, teaches dance in her spare time and hopes one day to audition for a spot on the Los Angeles Rams cheerleading team. She noted that the category they won showcases the team’s regular, game day routines—a point of pride, especially with the increasing attention on CSUDH’s successful athletics programs. “I think it shows that the way we represent our university every day is the same way we compete,” she says.

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Toro students looking for academic advising or other support now have a new place to go on campus—five places, in fact. CSUDH advising options that used to be centered in the University Advisement Center are now divided up among the five colleges, with Student Success Centers opening their doors during the Fall 2023 semester.

“These new centers are meant to be extremely collaborative, and have a focus on holistic student support,” said Andrew Drummond, associate vice president for academic advising and career development. “Our new model recognizes that it takes the whole campus to support the whole student. We’ve created centers that bring multiple different offices together to support Toros throughout their college careers.”

Senior Associate Vice President of Student Life Matt Smith added, “We looked at data around student success and experiences, and realized that the way we did advising was a little bit confusing and disorienting for students. We wanted to leverage those recommendations with the student experience to figure out the best set-up and model for CSUDH.”

The Student Success Centers don’t just offer academic advising—they are meant to offer support to students throughout their college careers. To that end, the centers are staffed with retention specialists, graduation specialists, and faculty advisors from the specific college they serve. Students can do everything from plan their course loads to research career opportunities.

“With our new advising structure, you’ll have faculty, staff, and administrators working together closely to support student success,” said Smith. “All of those different types of expertise and experiences come together to work as one for our students. We can do so much more when we come together to advance those efforts instead of working in silos.”

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