Doctoral Student Named ‘Rising Star’ by NASPA

Ángel Gonzalez, a doctoral candidate in San Diego State University’s Ed.D. in Community College Leadership program, has been named recipient of the Graduate Rising Star Award by NASPA Region VI. 

NASPA is the premier professional organization for student affairs professionals. Its Region VI includes California, Arizona and Hawai’i, as well as New Zealand, Australia, China, Guam, Malaysia and Singapore. 

Alumna Music Educator Named San Diego County Teacher of the Year

By Michael Klitzing

Almost every year, Paula Richardson (’06, ’19) says she experiences “one of those moments.” Often, they will occur before a concert, as her assembled middle schoolers nervously rehearse. Invariably, Richardson will need to intervene and offer her students encouragement and guidance on how to play better. 

And then? 

“And then they do it, and they hear it, and they feel it,” said Richardson, a music teacher at Wilson Middle School in San Diego’s Normal Heights neighborhood. “You can see their faces change and their demeanors change. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. That is what I live for.”

DLE Master’s Alumna Selected to Education Policy Fellowship

By Michael Klitzing

A few months ago, Amber Riehman (’14, ’15, ’20) found herself listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “All, Here, Now” speech. King — speaking in 1966 at the height of the Civil Rights movement — warned against what he called “gradualism,” asserting: “We want all of our rights, we want them here, and we want them now.” For Riehman, those words made an impact.

“'All, Here, Now' has been really sticking in my head as a mantra these last few months — and it's really been driving a lot of the work I've been doing at my site,” said the San Diego State University alumna who now teaches social science and is an English learner (EL) coordinator at El Cajon Valley High. “So often you’ll say, ‘Well, this is a small step in the right direction.’ Well, how many steps does it take to get there?” 

EDL's James-Ward Talks COVID-19 and Inner-City Schools in U-T Commentary

Dr. Cheryl James-Ward, associate professor in the San Diego State University Department of Educational Leadership, recently published a commentary in the San Diego Union-Tribune about the crisis many schools are facing because of the COVID-19 pandemic — and the opportunity this moment presents to reimagine schools. 

Read James-Ward's full commentary.

COE Announces New Black Advisory Council to the Dean

Clockwise from top left: Abdi, Butler-Byrd, Chizhik, Harris, Negash, Robinson and Stewart.

Seven members of the San Diego State University College of Education faculty, staff and student communities have been named to the newly-formed Black Advisory Council to the Dean. 

The council was created by Dean Y. Barry Chung in response to the many instances of systemic racism and violence against the Black community, and in acknowledgment of the longstanding inequities that exist within higher education. Chung will consult members on various initiatives to address racism and anti-Blackness in the college. Advisory Board members will also be empowered to suggest actions to strengthen the cultural climate of the college, as well as teaching and mentoring, to better serve all Black students and community members. 

New Counseling Master’s Program Co-Director Shaped by Refugee Experience

By Michael Klitzing

In a world often defined in black and white terms, Selam Gebrekristos (’07, ’13) has learned to embrace a life somewhere in the middle. 

“I'm not part of my country anymore, and I'm not fully part of American culture,” she explains. “So I like to say that I'm in the gray.” 

Gebrekristos was a young girl when she and her family fled their homeland of Eritrea in the 1980s, refugees of a three-decade war of independence from Ethiopia. The family settled in Redlands, California, finding safety, though not exactly a sense of belonging.