Spring 2022

CSUDH Alumnus Donates Historic Gift

Successful business school graduate sets his sights on helping the next generation of Toros thrive.

Doug Le Bon didn’t start his successful career in high finance in some luxurious Wall Street office—he started his rise with a series of day jobs that helped him afford to attend CSUDH at night. But even as he drove a soft drink delivery truck around the South Bay, he knew that education was the key to unlocking a better future.

Le Bon earned a pair of business degrees at CSUDH: a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (1976) and an MBA (1979). Now, he’s giving back to the university, with the goal of helping others make the same leap into success.

Le Bon is the co-founder and senior managing director of Pathway Capital Management, one of the world’s most successful private market investment firms, managing over $85 billion in assets. Now, he has also made the largest gift to CSUDH by a living alum—giving the university $500,000 for scholarships, and another $200,000 for technology in the new Innovation & Instruction building.

As a long-time financial expert, Le Bon is keenly aware of the problems many students have paying for college today. “I think it can be really difficult now for young people to go to college,” says Le Bon. “It’s not only the actual cost of college, but students have to put food on their tables. My motivation was to try to make it easier for people to get their degrees and not leave college with so much debt.”

“That’s a really difficult thing now for students to do,” Le Bon adds. “Especially if you’re studying liberal arts, or studying to be a teacher or social worker. A businessperson or lawyer can expect to make money and pay off their debt, but for students in other disciplines it can be problematic.”

In fact, Le Bon believes that his success can be partially attributed to graduating from CSUDH without a lot of debt. “One of the real advantages of going to Dominguez Hills was that it was affordable. I didn’t owe anybody when I graduated. It afforded me the ability to take a job that I wanted, instead of the best-paying job,” he recalls.

Le Bon worked at a variety of jobs while attending CSUDH (including the aforementioned soft drink delivery gig), and went to classes at night. “For me, life was getting off of work, hustling to school, going to the library, and getting ready for my classes. Then when school ended, I went home. I was a pretty typical commuter student.”

After attaining his MBA from CSUDH, Le Bon got his first finance job at an investment firm then called Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. After a few years as an analyst, Le Bon says, “I was able to see how attractive private markets were, in terms of places to invest and make money. I wanted to make that work for more people, and to do it for pension funds and pensioners.”

He took a job at investment firm Wilshire Associates, where he started and grew a practice helping pension funds invest in private markets. During the 1980s, this was a fairly new practice in the industry, and Le Bon helped pioneer its use. By the end of the decade, Le Bon had become a partner at the firm, but he “still had the bug to run my own shop,” as he says.

He left the company and, with a few partners, founded a new firm called Pathway Capital Management in 1991. They moved to their current Orange County offices during the 1990s, and now employ almost 200 employees spread across four offices. Such success has enabled Le Bon to focus some of his energy on giving back—which resulted in his generous recent donations.

As a graduate of the business school, Le Bon was eager to help equip the new Innovation & Instruction building, which now houses the College of Business Administration and Public Policy (CBAPP). His largess enabled the university to purchase several Bloomberg Terminals, software systems that enable users to monitor and analyze financial market data.

“Access to education is the hallmark of CSUDH,” says Rama Malladi, associate professor of finance. “Bloomberg Terminals provide access to rich, real-time financial data to our CBAPP students, connecting them to a network of 325,000 of the world’s most influential decision makers.”

In addition, CBAPP students will get access to Bloomberg Market Concepts, a self-paced e-learning course that provides an interactive introduction to financial markets. CSUDH students who pass the course will receive a free certification.
“Technology is key, and access to technology is key,” says Le Bon. “If students are going to go into money management or anything like that, they are going to have to be facile and adept at using technology like Bloomberg Terminals in order to keep up.”

“I would really like it if more Dominguez Hills business students ended up in asset management, because there are just not enough young people from diverse or underserved communities in the discipline. If having these terminals in place helps spur interest and gives those students a background that makes them more attractive to employers, that would be great.”

As part of Le Bon’s donation, $500,000 will establish the Le Bon Family Scholarship at CSUDH. The gift will provide funding for the Presidential Scholars Program, the new Pay It Forward initiative, and the CSUDH general scholarship fund.

The biggest thing is you never stop learning.

“Sometimes, the passions of our alums remain more latent than visible, but once revealed, they point a way to a brighter future. Mr. Le Bon’s extraordinary generosity represents everything that’s special about our Toro Nation,” said CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham. “His contributions will make a huge impact on the lives of scores of CSUDH students and faculty going forward. When our successful alumni extend a helping hand to those coming after them, it both establishes a legacy to build on, and illustrates exactly what we mean by ‘Go Far Together.’ We are all more than grateful for and appreciative of Mr. Le Bon’s stunning philanthropic support.”

As for current and future Toros, Le Bon offers this advice: “Come out of Dominguez Hills with the attitude that it’s taught you how to learn and how to adjust. The business that I started in private equity wasn’t even taught in business school when I went to CSUDH.

“The biggest thing is you never stop learning. Nurture the ability to continue learning and adjust to the marketplace and the environment, so that you’re not the tail being wagged by the dog. That’s the best way to foresee and react positively to changes in the economic and business environment.”

Le Bon thinks that the current generation of students will be well-placed for such changes in the future, due to the disruptions they’ve all had to endure during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The COVID generation has been through a lot,” he says. “This generation of college graduates have proven themselves to be really resilient, and they should be proud and pleased with everything they’ve been able to accomplish during this time.”

Return to Spring 2022

CSUDH Philanthropic Gifts Top $8 Million in Record-Breaking Year

Philanthropic Gifts Top

$8 Million

in Record-Breaking Year

CSUDH received a total of $8.3 million in philanthropic gifts and pledges during the 2020-2021 fiscal year. The record-breaking amount continues the upward trend of CSUDH giving, almost doubling the total of $4.5 million raised in 2019-2020.

Vice President of University Advancement Scott Barrett shared his excitement for the success of the university’s fundraising efforts. “We set a very aspirational goal for the university, and we were very fortunate to meet that goal,” he said. “It’s clear that our campus is doing inspiring work, and our donors are answering the call to support the needs and opportunities across our campus.”

One important effort involved the Toro Fund, the university’s unrestricted annual fund. Due to urgent pandemic-driven needs among the CSUDH student population, money from the Toro Fund was used to support emergency and basic student needs. When asked to support this effort, the response from Toro alumni was impressive: the university received 937 gifts totaling $132,469.

The donations were used to provide more than 1,400 students with meals, fresh produce, and pandemic preparedness kits. In addition, the funds provided shelter for 31 students facing housing insecurity and allowed more than 200 students the opportunity to participate in wellness events.

Generous corporate and foundation support was also essential to the university’s philanthropic success.

Among 2021’s notable corporate donations were:

Hollywood Foreign Press Association – $152,000 for journalism and media programs; emergency and COVID-19 related student needs
Sony Corporation – $150,000 to the CSUDH Male Success Alliance (MSA)
Kaiser Permanente – $100,000 to MSA
Del E. Webb Foundation – $79,000 to the College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences for the purchase of a virtual cadaver table

While the university received federal assistance under the CARES Act to distribute to students, Toro international and undocumented students were not eligible for aid through the COVID-19 relief program. Toro donors stepped up in a big way again, providing $141,000 in direct financial support for these students.

“When CARES funding came through, it helped support our documented, domestic students, but left out all of our international and undocumented students,” says Barrett. “The fact that we had the money in the Toro Fund to be able to support those students was critically important.”

Among the most noteworthy alumni donors is Doug Le Bon, co-founder and senior managing director of Pathway Capital Management LLC in Irvine, Calif. Le Bon, who attained both his bachelor’s degree in business administration (1976) and MBA (1979) from CSUDH, contributed a remarkable $500,000 for student scholarships and an additional $200,000 for technology in the new Innovation & Instruction building – in total, the largest donation to the university by a living alum in CSUDH history.

Long-time Toro supporter Maureen McCarthey, an alumna who earned her MA in special education from CSUDH in 1996, contributed $70,000 to the Maureen P. McCarthey Foundation Scholarship, which she originally established in 2001. Her contributions have increased over the years, and this is now one of the university’s premier scholarship endowments.

The CSUDH Philanthropic Foundation has set a multi-year goal to secure $10 million in scholarships and student success support by June 2026. They are well on their way to attaining that goal: in the first year of their initiative alone, more than $5 million was committed to these student needs.

“I think this is the beginning of an upward trajectory,” Barrett added. “We expect that philanthropic investment will continue to grow on a sustainable basis over the next few years. When we look at the nature and the history of CSUDH, our alumni, and the support we receive from the wider community, in terms of friends and corporate and foundation gifts, I think we can be very confident that’s where we’re headed.”

Return to Spring 2022

CSUDH Receives Largest Single Donation in University History from Snap Inc.

The company’s generous donation of $5 million will help create a new institute to address equity gaps in computing education.

Snap Inc., developer of Snapchat, announced a $5 million gift to CSUDH for the creation and endowment of a new institute focused on addressing equity gaps in computing education. The gift comprises the largest single donation ever given to the CSUDH campus.

Housed in the CSUDH College of Education, the new institute will serve as a leader in computing education research, teacher preparation, and curriculum development centered around equity and access, particularly for students with special needs and for bilingual, multilingual, and dual language learners. Additionally, through strong partnerships with Los Angeles area school districts, the institute will work to make high-quality computer science education an integral part of the experience of all K-12 students.

“The legacy that Snap Inc. is helping to build will positively impact the South Bay and California as a whole, and reverberate through generations of computer science teachers and learners,” CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham said. “Integrating computer science education into the curriculum of K-12 schools in underserved communities is an important step in closing the digital divide that leaves many would-be scholars on the outside looking in.

“With Snap Inc.’s help, CSUDH will smash that digital divide and create technology-savvy, academically engaged leaders throughout Southern California.”

Snap Inc.’s gift was made in conjunction with the launch of the Action to Catalyze Tech Report, created by the Catalyze Tech coalition. One of the report’s key recommendations is to transform future pathways into tech for underrepresented talent, and to solve the acute lack of computer science teachers by funding endowed centers of excellence for computer science teaching in colleges.

“We’re so excited to begin the work. We’re going to incorporate computer science knowledge and theories into course material, working with teachers in Los Angeles Unified School District, Inglewood, Lynwood, and other local districts to support them as they learn to integrate computer science into their everyday teaching,” said Jessica Pandya, dean of the College of Education. “We are also going to start a variety of activities for school-aged students, from coding nights to coding summer camps, with an explicit focus on issues of access and equity.”

Return to Spring 2022

Shooting for Student Success

Dena Freeman-Patton steps into her new role as CSUDH director of athletics.

“I’ve always been the type of person who likes to help others get to where they’re trying go,” says Dena Freeman-Patton, the recently-hired CSUDH associate vice president and director of athletics. “Even back in high school, our boys’ basketball coach called me ‘coach’ because I would fuss at the team about getting their grades up!

“I knew what it would mean to them and their families if they went to college. I’ve continued doing that through most of my career.”

Freeman-Patton has brought her passion for student service to her new role as CSUDH’s athletic director, after many years in the athletics departments of universities across the U.S. She came here directly from the University of New Orleans (UNO), where she served as the school’s deputy athletic director and chief operating officer.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Md., Freeman-Patton’s love of athletics was nurtured during her high school years. She competed in basketball, volleyball, and softball at Lake Clifton High School—while also serving as class president and participating in her school’s Academy of Finance program. “I thought I was headed for a career in finance,” she says.

She was accepted into Liberty University on a basketball scholarship, playing “power forward, unless all the centers were hurt,” she laughs. During her last year of high school and first years on the Liberty campus, Freeman-Patton was focused on a career in finance, and landed finance-sector internships with the Federal Reserve Bank and at a law firm doing accounting work.

“I was fortunate to get those internships so early in my high school and college career,” she says. “After working at a few finance jobs, I realized I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life.”

Freeman-Patton also feels fortunate that at an early age she was exposed to role models who proved that women could have careers in athletics. “I was one of those few women who was able to see women in athletics administrative roles. At my high school, we even had a female athletic director, which is still very rare to see.”

When she realized that Liberty University was one of the few institutions offering sports management as a major, she decided to give it a try. A summer internship with short-lived Canadian Football League expansion team the Baltimore Stallions convinced her that a career in athletics was for her.

“I worked there all summer,” she remembers. “I didn’t get paid a cent, but I absolutely loved it. I thought, ‘If I can do this for free, I can definitely do this and get paid.’”

Upon graduating from Liberty, Freeman-Patton’s career in athletics took her from Atlanta, Ga., to stops in Raleigh, N.C.; College Park, Md.; Bakersfield; and New Orleans. Along the way, she worked her way up from academic coordinator to her current position at CSUDH.

When offered the job at CSUDH, Freeman-Patton was excited by the prospect of working at a university that shared her enthusiasm for helping students. “Everybody here is fighting for our campus and for our students,” she says. “Everybody wants what’s best for the students, and has the same passion and vision that I do.”

She believes that the university is in the process of moving away from its history as a commuter school. “I can envision and see all the excitement building around the campus. With the new buildings that we have, I think it’s going to become a destination campus, and I want to be a part of it.”

“Even folks outside of the university are starting to see that growth and potential,” she says. “I think we have started to brand ourselves as a destination campus for a certain kind of student. Our students are known to have a little bit of grit to them, they’re hard working. Things might not come easy, but Toros have that passion, they have that resilience to keep fighting for their dreams.”

Dena Freeman-Patton, CSUDH associate vice president and director of athletics

I want to improve the experience that student-athletes have at the university, so they’ll have great memories of their time here, and they’ll want to return and give back.

Freeman-Patton’s dedication to student success was one of the main factors that excited her about the CSUDH position. “From Georgia State to CSU Bakersfield to UNO to here, I’ve been at schools where there’s a melting pot of people, and there’s a large first-generation college student population. I feel like those kids need me more. That’s why I’m drawn to those type of institutions.”

Her goals for the CSUDH athletics program include improving the on-campus facilities. Some CSUDH teams don’t currently have locker rooms, so they have no spaces to change or prepare. She would also like to boost the school’s athletics scholarship fund, to help CSUDH recruit more student-athletes. “I can’t expect the coaches to compete at the top level if they’re not at the top in terms of what they can offer for scholarships.”

Overall, she says, “I want to improve the experience that student-athletes have at the university, so they’ll have great memories of their time here, and they’ll want to return and give back.”

She is also a vocal supporter of the proposed on-campus health, wellness, and recreation center. “I remember the impact that having a rec center made on CSU Bakersfield. When we got that done, the campus just thrived,” she says. “It became less of a commuter campus, because we had dorms, but you’ve got to make it so you don’t have to go somewhere else to work out or just shoot some hoops.”

Freeman-Patton isn’t shy about aiming high, and her ultimate goal for CSUDH athletics is to have teams competing for NCAA championships. “Winning is important because it improves the student-athlete’s experience. When you’re winning, it’s a lot of fun. Student-athletes remember winning championships for the rest of their lives.

“I want them to experience that. It’s up to me to try and put those pieces in place so that they can achieve it. I know it’s possible at CSUDH, because we have won titles in the past. I’m excited about where we are. And I don’t think it’s going to take us forever to get to where we want to be.”

A recent pep rally for the revived men’s soccer program gave Freeman-Patton a glimpse of what she hopes the future at CSUDH will be. “Everyone was out there having a ball. It was great to see the students just having fun, because they haven’t done that in so long.”

Once students return to campus in greater numbers, “I think it’s going to grow, and we’ll be able to help with the spirit of the campus. I saw a vision of that at the pep rally and was getting all excited. They even got me out there dancing with them! It’ll be really exciting once there’s more people on campus.”

Return to Spring 2022

Connecting With Culture Through Music

Connecting With

Culture Through Music

Mary Talusan Lacanlale uses music to share Filipino history and culture with a younger generation.

Assistant Professor of Asian-Pacific Studies Mary Talusan Lacanlale has long found music to be the route through which she has connected with her Filipino history, roots, and culture. Through her scholarship as an ethnomusicologist, she helps pass that connection on to the next generation of Filipino Americans.

Lacanlale’s parents were doctors who immigrated from the Philippines in the 1970s to help fill the need for medical practitioners, settling in the suburbs of Boston, Mass. “My parents were busy,” she recalls. “They had very little time and, to be honest, little interest in educating us about the Philippines. They spoke English, so we spoke English. They were very Americanized.”

In Massachusetts public schools, she had little access to Filipino culture or history. But visits from her grandmother helped keep that connection alive. “My grandma would visit from the Philippines every other year and stay with us for a couple of months,” recalls Lacanlale. “She was my only connection to Filipino culture, as well as my own history. She would close her eyes and tell us these fantastic stories about how her father—my great-grandfather—was a famous band musician, how he came to the U.S. many times to perform in symphony halls in New York, Boston, and Chicago.”

Ten-year-old Lacanlale playing the cello

Her grandmother’s tales ignited a spark in the young musician, who had been playing the cello since the age of 10. “This is where my knowledge of the Philippines and my passion for music come together, because I wanted to know more about Philippine history through music.”

Her passion for discovering Filipino culture through music took her on an educational journey from the New England Conservatory of Music to UCLA to Tufts University, with stops at Tulane University and the Peabody Conservatory of Music in between. She joined the faculty at CSUDH in 2011, where she teaches a variety of courses in the Asian-Pacific Studies Program.

Two of the professor’s long-term projects came to fruition in 2021, both of which examine Philippine history through a musical lens. Her book, Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during U.S. Colonization of the Philippines, was published in August. That same month also saw the release of a CD she co-produced for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan & Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora.

The book is the culmination of 20 years of research—having been sparked by her grandmother’s musical tales. Lacanlale’s great-grandfather was a member of the Philippine Constabulary Band, a collection of Filipino musicians originally formed in 1902. They toured the world for several decades as a propaganda tool of the U.S. government, helping convince audiences that the American colonization of the Philippines was worthwhile and just. Lacanlale also highlights how the band resisted this role by performing as soloists and playing works by Filipino composers to express their own identities. The band dissolved at the outset of World War II, and its history was all but forgotten in the U.S.

Lacanlale performing with the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble

We want to keep teaching the younger generation about this and giving them access to it. I’m really excited about that. That’s where my work really collides with my life story and the passion that I have for education and learning through music.
– Mary Talusan Lacanlale

Her graduate school research project on the band became a side project that Lacanlale worked on during summer breaks and when grant funding allowed. She discovered that her grandmother was right—in 1916, Lacanlale’s great-grandfather Pedro Navarro became the band’s first Filipino conductor. He excelled in the role, even receiving praise from legendary bandleader John Philip Sousa.

In the course of her work, Lacanlale found that the Constabulary Band had been assembled specifically to promote American colonization. An African American army officer named Walter Loving was appointed by then-Governor General of the Philippines William H. Taft to lead the band, and he scoured the islands for musicians to fill out the roster.

“This Filipino band was sent to all of these states and several world’s fairs to project an image of the Philippines that legitimized U.S. colonization,” says Lacanlale. The U.S. government brought over 80 Filipino band members to tour the states on multiple occasions.

“Filipinos had been playing Western music for at least 150 years before the U.S. got there,” says Lacanlale. “Of course, the U.S. promoters didn’t highlight that fact, so American audiences watching them in these lavish symphony halls thought, ‘Oh my God, we took them from being total savages who had no idea what western instruments were to these superb classical musicians in just a few years!’”

In truth, because coveted band positions were often handed down from father to son in the Philippines at the time, most of the Constabulary Band had been playing similar music for generations. But to American audiences of the time, they represented tribesman who had been ‘civilized’ by the influence of the U.S.

“Of course, it seemed miraculous,” she says. “‘In just a few years, we created this symphony!’ It was an amazing tool to promote the success of U.S. colonization.” Lacanlale chose the book’s title to reflect this fact. “They were ‘Instruments of Empire’ because they were used to prove to the American public that ‘civilizing’ Filipinos was possible.”

Lacanlale with a Maguindanao woman in Cotabato City, in the southern Philippines

The CD she co-produced for Smithsonian Folkways was another labor of love. It focuses on kulintang, a form of gong and drum music indigenous to the Maguindanao Muslim culture of the southern Philippines. Because it originates in islands that were never brought under Spanish rule, the music retains its pre-colonial traditions.

Much of the album serves as a tribute to the late kulintang master Danongan “Danny” Kalanduyan, who taught and played the music in the U.S. for over four decades. He is revered in Filipino music circles for preserving kulintang heritage and passing it on to future generations. Lacanlale and her co-producer, Theo Gonzales, structured the two-disc set to reflect his legacy.

The first disc of the double album features Kalanduyan and his ensemble performing 24 traditional kulintang songs. They showcase kulintang as it has been played for generations by women, as well as a newer, faster style in vogue since the 1950s, when more men started playing the music. The second disc represents the influence of Kalanduyan’s advocacy and teaching—it features 13 modern tracks that incorporate kulintang elements.

“Many of the musicians on the second disc were Danny’s students, most of them Filipino American,” says Lacanlale. “They learned traditional kulintang from him, then incorporated it into their own music. They have taken kulintang in new directions.”

The result is an eclectic mix of genres, from hip-hop and electronica to jazz and hard rock. “It still has a recognizable connection to a musical culture that’s rooted in the Philippines. It’s so cool to hear these new works, and the ways that young Filipino musicians are keeping the music alive.”

Mary Lacanlale performing with the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble in New Mexico

Spring 2022

CSUDH Alumnus Donates Historic Gift

Philanthropic Gifts Top

$8 Million

in Record-Breaking Year

CSUDH Receives Largest Single Donation in University History from Snap Inc.

Shooting for Student Success

Connecting With

Culture Through Music

Social