Cal State Northridge alumna Kelly Cullen ’87 (Sociology) has spent more than 15 years as a volunteer and employee of the Peace Corps and has lived in five countries, including Jamaica and the Republic of Palau. This fall she will leave her current post as the Peace Corps’ country director of Tonga, in the South Pacific Ocean, to join the elite Peace Corps Safety and Security Officer team. She has been tapped to serve as one of 10 security consultants and advisors overseeing the safety and welfare of the more than 8,000 American Peace Corps volunteers serving in 77 countries.

The 47-year-old decided to return to a field she is passionate about and in which she feels she can make a difference. Her decision comes in the wake of recent, widely publicized criticism, particularly from female volunteers, about the Peace Corps’ safety and security policies and procedures.

“It’s a real honor to serve in this capacity for an organization that has done so much for me and others,” said Cullen. “The Peace Corps has been proactive throughout the years in getting plans and protocols in place to ensure the safety of its volunteers.”

Cullen will be working in Asia, training staff and volunteers on how to deal with physical and personal security, emergency planning, and preventative techniques to reduce crime incidents involving volunteers.

“Safety and security for our agency is a number one priority. It’s very important,” said Peace Corps spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson. She said individuals tapped to become Safety and Security Officers are “well respected and valued” in the Peace Corps.

Studied criminology at CSUN

Cullen’s interest in the Peace Corps was sparked at age 16 when she met a woman who had been a volunteer in Mauritania, Africa. Cullen, fascinated by the woman’s stories, found her “worldly.”

After high school Cullen decided to pursue a degree in sociology with an emphasis on criminology. Her grandmother was murdered when she was a child, and she hoped to better understand crime and those who commit crime by earning a degree in the field.

She was accepted at several universities but chose Cal State Northridge because of its “excellent reputation.”

Cullen went on to work for the city of Santa Barbara Police Department as a community service officer and spent seven years as an outreach consultant for several large psychiatric and chemical dependency facilities. She is also a registered private investigator for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

While her varied background will be an asset in her new Peace Corps role, she looks back on her college years in Northridge—where she worked two jobs and commuted to school—with special appreciation.

“Life at CSUN was good,” recalls Cullen. “I felt safe on campus and enjoyed the friendly and knowledgeable staff.”

• Philippines

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• Fiji

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• Jamaica

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• Tonga

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Photos courtesy of Kelly Cullen from her work and travels while with the Peace Corps.

Graduates of the Department of Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA) celebrate their 2011 College Television Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation.

This spring, a group of young filmmakers, recent graduates of the California State University, Northridge Department of Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA), won both a student Emmy and a coveted spot at Cannes.

The five alumni—Doron Kipper ’11, Crystal Nobregas ’10, Sevan Abrahamian ’10, David Veneracion ’10 and Joshua Nitschke ’10—started catching Hollywood buzz when Misdirection, a 15-minute dramatic film they made while students at CSUN, was featured in Northridge’s annual senior film showcase in spring of 2010. The showcase included several entertainment industry decision makers in the audience.

Since then, their film has been screened, and won honors, at dozens of film festivals across the country and around the world.

Misdirection explores what happens when Peter, the grandson of a famous magician, Castulo the Magnificent, discovers his grandfather’s greatest secret, which is much more dangerous than he ever imagined.

In April, the film’s producers Kipper (a performing magician since the age of five who also wrote and directed the script), Nobregas, Abrahamian and Veneracion received a 2011 College Television Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation. And in May, the film was featured at the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in France. In addition, cinematographer Nitschke was the first place winner representing the United States and Canada in the international 2010 Kodak Film School Competition.

“Everyone worked really hard on this film, and it’s nice to know that our work is getting recognized,” Kipper said.

Nate Thomas, the filmmakers’ former professor and head of CTVA’s film option, said he is not surprised by his former students’ success. “They are all very accomplished artists,” Thomas said. “I have no doubt that these young people are going places in this industry.”

2011 Honorees: Don Hahn ’75, Carol Vaness ’76, Hon. D ’98, Irv Zakheim ’71

Honored as this year’s recipients of Cal State Northridge’s Distinguished Alumni Awards, Hollywood producer Don Hahn ’75 (Music) proved dreams do come true; celebrated opera singer Carol Vaness MA ’76 (Music), Hon. D ’98 (Fine Arts) received rave reviews; and entrepreneur and business executive Irv Zakheim ’71 (Physical Education) attested that teamwork pays.

At a ceremony on April 16, all three alumni thanked California State University, Northridge for giving them their start on the journey to a successful career. Hahn said Northridge was the place that “welcomed” him even though he was “dangerously introverted.” Vaness credited an emeritus music professor with honing her talent. Zakheim said being a member of the Matador’s 1970 NCAA national champion baseball team changed his life.

“There are many ways to measure what a great university is but surely one of the most important ways to judge the significance of the university is to consider its alumni and their impact on their professions, on their communities and on the world,” said President Jolene Koester. “Through tonight’s honorees…we have the very best of California State University, Northridge.”

Master of ceremonies and CNBC commentator Bill Griffeth ’80 (Journalism) joined Koester and Alumni Association President Tammy Tolgo MBA ’02 in presenting the awards to the honorees before an audience of nearly 400 guests at the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village, Calif.

Tolgo welcomed guests on behalf of the nearly 12,000 Cal State Northridge Alumni Association members. She expressed the university’s and Alumni Association’s appreciation to the event’s sponsors: Northern Trust, Zak! Designs, Liberty Mutual, Capital One, and Debbie and Milt Valera ’68 (Journalism).

“By honoring me, you are honoring my teachers.”

I’m a big believer in the butterfly effect—the idea that an action that you take today has echoes throughout the universe.

One of the most satisfying things in my recent career has been lecturing at universities and having students come up and tell me that when they were kids they grew up on Disney movies and now they love musicals and are into film and music. These are clear echoes of my mentors and teachers at Northridge.

By honoring me, you are honoring my teachers. And I can still hear their words. They said: Good artists borrow; great artists steal—a phrase my art teacher stole from Picasso.

Your time on earth is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

You have 10,000 bad drawings in you and the sooner you get them out the sooner you get to the good stuff.

Their words still reverberate in my life everyday. When I do a drawing or paint or make a film, I hear their words and benefit from a university that has always done the arts right. This university knows how to grow students who give back to their culture. I am incredibly proud to be associated with this great institution.

Excerpt from speech given at DAA ceremony by Don Hahn, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker who produced Disney films including Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

Photo of CSUN Alumna Adriana Ocampo

Of the eight planets in our solar system, Jupiter is by far the largest. Its volume could contain 1,300 planets the size of Earth.

In August 2011, NASA will launch from Cape Canaveral its long-awaited Juno mission to orbit the massive globe of dense gases in search of new scientific understanding. Previous missions have flown past Jupiter, including in 2007, the New Horizons mission to Pluto (which is still en route, expected to reach Pluto in 2015). But only one previous mission, Galileo (1995–2003), has repeatedly orbited Jupiter.

As NASA Headquarters’ program executive for the science mission directorate, CSUN alumna Adriana Ocampo Uria, MS ’97 (Geology) is responsible for both the Juno and New Horizons missions. She has been professionally dedicated to geological research for more than three decades.

As a child in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ocampo Uria remembers constantly gazing at the stars and playing “astronauts” instead of “dolls.” After moving to the United States at age 14, her passion for space exploration flourished. In 1973, still in high school, she landed a summer job at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. She worked at JPL throughout college and then as a research scientist from 1983 to 1998. She earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from Cal State Los Angeles in 1983 and a master’s degree in geology at California State University, Northridge in 1997. She received CSUN’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2008.

The upcoming NASA Juno mission seeks to improve the understanding of Jupiter’s formation and structure, ultimately advancing the knowledge of the origins and early evolution of the solar system. After a five-year journey, Juno should reach Jupiter in 2016.

The combined missions to Jupiter and Pluto mark a new career milestone for Ocampo Uria. But her work does not end there. Ocampo Uria also serves as the lead Venus scientist responsible for NASA’s collaboration in the European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission (launched in 2005), Japan Aero­space Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Venus Climate Orbit (launched in 2010), and NASA’s own Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG).

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CSUN alumni Teri Jones and Benjamin Kay at Santa Monica High School where they both teach.

Teri Jones ’05 (Business) and Benjamin Kay ’08 (Teaching Credential Program) are teachers at Santa Monica High School, a top-ranked California public high school popularly known as “Samohi.” The California State University, Northridge alumni have collaborated multiple times over the years and their students often work together on environmentally themed projects.

Since September 2006, Kay has taught honors marine biology and college prep biology at the high school and is the head coach of Team Marine, an award-winning teen action group in science and sustainability.

Jones started teaching at Samohi in 1988, where she created an entrepreneurship program that teaches students how to effectively run businesses. She is the faculty adviser to SAGE (Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship), which has won multiple competitions in the United States and overseas.

To Kay and Jones, it makes sense that the products of one of the nation’s leading teacher-producing institutions would work at one of the most progressive high schools in California.

CSUN alumna Teri Jones shows off the Samohi student store where some of her entrepreneurship program students work.

“The teachers at this school are energetic and motivated, and I love the positive atmo­sphere,” says Kay, who recalls enjoying a similar atmosphere when he was a student at Northridge. He enrolled in the CSUN teaching credentials program in 2006 after hearing about its “outstanding reputation.”  The Santa Monica resident earned his bachelor’s degree in aquatic biology at UC Santa Barbara in 2001 and a master’s degree in marine biology from the University of Queensland in Australia in 2005.

He says professor Norm Herr, a member of CSUN’s secondary education faculty, helped take his teaching “to a whole new level.”

“He was a guru,” recalls Kay.

Award-winning biology teacher Benjamin Kay brings "science to life" in his classroom.

Similarly, Jones credits emeritus CSUN professor Jay Christensen with teaching her techniques she uses in her classroom today.

“He used to repeat information and make students repeat it back, a technique I appreciate now more than ever because it worked,” Jones said.

A resident of the San Fernando Valley, Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Cal State Northridge after having achieved success in the business world. She completed UCLA’s credential program in 1990.

She has won several awards including Most Inspirational Teacher and Most Outstanding Vocational Teacher. She was the 2005 recipient of the National Leavey Award and was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Virtual Enterprise Teachers in 2011.

—Shanté Morgan and Angela Browne

“Good teachers are not born, they’re made,” says Cal State Northridge alumna Ellen Moir ’72 (Spanish). “And we have to help them grow and continue to develop their skills as they keep teaching.” To that end, she created a national nonprofit organization, New Teacher Center, providing mentors and resources to help beginning teachers survive their first few years—the most crucial in ensuring that the best and the brightest stay in the profession.

Studies show that up to 50 percent of those who receive teaching credentials leave the profession within the first few years. Helping new teachers succeed is even more critical in underserved communities, where children disproportionately are taught by new, inexperienced teachers year after year, Moir notes. Faced with the demands of working in a disadvantaged school, new teachers often leave before they become effective—and another new teacher enters the classroom in their place. The resulting revolving door of teachers not only widens the achievement gap, but also fosters in students the attitude that they’re constantly being abandoned.

“I want to make sure that every child, regardless of where they live, their socio-economic background, their race, have the best teachers. I am passionate about this,” she says. “Many new teachers have the potential to be outstanding educators, but they must stay in the classroom long enough to realize that potential. If they don’t, it will have direct impact on the future, not just the future of our children, but all our futures,” says Moir.

The founder and CEO of the Santa Cruz-based New Teacher Center graduated from what was then San Fernando Valley State College in 1972. Inspired by a high school teacher who made a big difference in her life, Moir says she developed her passion for education and teachers while an undergraduate in Northridge.

“I had excellent training to be a teacher at San Fernando Valley State, particularly from Dolores Escobar Litsinger,” she recalls. “I felt the program properly prepared me to be a bilingual teacher and laid the foundation for what I do now.”

Today, as a key player in the national education reform discussion, Moir has testified before the U.S. Senate on federal policies impacting teachers and teacher development. She advised Arne Duncan while he was head of the Chicago Public Schools system and more recently in his role as U.S. Secretary of Education. She also offers help to school principals, superintendents and other education leaders across the country as they grapple with the issues surrounding education reform and teacher performance. She has won national awards, including the 2005 Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education and the 2011 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

After graduating from Valley State, Moir became a bilingual teacher in Santa Paula and Pajaro Valley Unified School Districts, and later director of teacher education at UC Santa Cruz. In 1988 she started New Teacher Project (which evolved into New Teacher Center in 1998) at Santa Cruz, eager to keep the “best and the brightest” teaching.

New Teacher Center works with school officials across the country, enabling beginning teachers to tap into the experience of their veteran colleagues while also receiving professional development. This fall, New Teacher Center will be developing a program for teachers in District 7, the South Los Angeles area of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Moir also hopes to set up a collaboration among Cal State Northridge, Cal State Domiguez Hills, UCLA and LAUSD that focuses on providing new and continuing teachers with the support and resources they need to succeed.

“I’m more motivated about the work we do now than ever,” says Moir. “In the end, it’s all about the people—the teachers and the principals. They are the ones who understand what goes on in the classroom. After a child’s parents, they are the ones who have the biggest impact on that child’s success. Now the conversation finally has turned to teachers. Now we are focusing on sustainably building human capital.”

CNN correspondent Barbara Starr walks through Ramadi, Iraq, with General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2007.

Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, changed majors three times in her first three months of college.

Burning with “post-high school idealism,” she set her cap for a sociology major and a career as a social worker. That changed to speech therapy. Then she landed in Journalism 101, and was hooked. As a reporter, she “could still do ‘good stuff’ but folks would actually pay me for…poking my nose in, and generally being a pest. What could be better?”

Starr was a Sundial reporter back when “students streaking on the quad” was a big story, and in her senior year won an internship at the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle. Mentored by former Los Angeles Times labor writer Bob Baker ’70 (Journalism), then the Chronicle city editor, she covered the city planning commission and the real estate boom.

Starr and photojournalist Peter Morris speak with schoolchildren in Ethiopia.

Baker “let me make mistakes and learn from them.” And she learned well; her internship turned into a paying job. At $8,000 per year, it was one of the best jobs she ever had. “Small town newspapers are disappearing, and sitting at your computer in your socks blogging away will never give you the experience of sitting in a small town newsroom,” she said. “Most days, I am still trying to turn out the same type of clear, clean, crisp copy as the folks I used to work with in community reporting.”

One of the worst days in American history thrust Starr into her broadcasting career. On September 11, 2001, she was working as ABC News’ Pentagon producer. “When the plane hit, the world, and my world, changed forever,” she said. Within weeks, Starr had become CNN’s Pentagon U.S. military correspondent. Since then, she has covered stories from Afghanistan and Iraq to East Africa and Beirut, from Hurricane Katrina to the Chinese-North Korean border.

“My greatest honor,” said Starr, “has been to report on stories of the troops and the young men and women who serve in dangerous places and far-off war zones. No matter how tough a day they are having, they always let us journalists tag along.”

But Hurricane Katrina was “more unsettling than any war zone experience.” A “story far beyond the powers of a blog or laptop computer,” only news cameras could convey its epic devastation, Starr said.

Visiting the CSUN campus a couple of years ago with her sister, Sandra Starr ’73 (Business), she marveled at how it has grown. A stop at the Oviatt Library brought back memories: for four years, Starr had been “the girl” at the information counter.

At CNN, she still deals with information, but in the years since she left the Oviatt, it has shifted from first gear to the “hyper-news cycle.” More than ever, said Starr, a lesson she learned from Bob Baker rings true: “It’s not enough to be accurate; you also have to be fair.”

Cheryl McCrary

A passion to learn American Sign Language (ASL) brought Cheryl McCrary ’83 (Political Science) to Cal State Northridge. Growing up in South Los Angeles, McCrary dreamed of becoming a legal interpreter for the deaf. She never imagined that combining interpreting classes and a political science major would lead to her meteoric career in federal law enforcement.

In November 2009, McCrary was named Director of the Office of Investigations for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). An independent but integral part of the NRC, the Office of Investigations (OI) is charged with conducting investigations as part of the agencies’ regulatory responsibility for protecting public health, safety and the environment by ensuring safe operation of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors and other commercial uses of nuclear materials.

“Right now,” said McCrary, “there is an anticipated nuclear renaissance in conjunction with the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which calls for the building of more nuclear reactors to supplement the nation’s energy needs.

“We ensure that any reports of potential wrongdoing are investigated in a timely, thorough and credible manner by NRC OI special agents working with the technical staff.”

Prior to joining the NRC, the law enforcement executive enjoyed a long career (1984-2000) and a multitude of assignments with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Secret Service. Her last assignments with the Secret Service were in the Major Events Division and as a special agent on the Vice Presidential Protection Division protecting former Vice President Al Gore.

McCrary is a graduate of the Senior Executive Services Candidate Development Program, an 18-month program that prepares candidates for successful careers in the senior executive ranks of the federal government.

“Throughout my career, I have identified people of integrity and commitment in leadership positions and asked them to serve as my mentors,” she said.

Her career path has taken her from days spent signing with deaf friends and students in Sierra Quad to the heart of Washington, D.C. but McCrary tries to stay fluent in ASL by signing whenever the opportunity presents itself. She also encourages college graduates to take advantage of careers in the federal government and law enforcement.

“Post 9/11,” she said, “specialized forensics occupations and federal law enforcement are always looking for qualified people and the minimum requirement is a four-year degree.”

The NRC, which currently employs about 4,000 people, has been voted the best work place in the federal government for two years running.

“Throughout my career, every day in federal law enforcement has been different and interesting,” observed McCrary. “No two days are ever the same.”

Mike Davis, Assemblyman

For most, a long commute to evening classes at the end of an even longer work day could prove to be a deal buster. Assemblyman Mike Davis ’94 recalls as a treasured time his weekly commute to pursue a master’s degree in public administration at Cal State Northridge.

“It gave me the opportunity to organize my thoughts about the office and to ponder issues we would be discussing in class,” said Davis, who at the time was serving as a senior deputy in then-Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke’s 2nd district office.

The 1994 earthquake left its stamp on Davis’ time at Northridge.

“The first semester we were in normal classrooms,” he recalled, “but the second semester classes were held in mobile units, which considerably changed the flavor of the campus.”

Looking for an educational experience that was both informative and practical, Davis found that Christopher Leu, emeritus professor of political science and the Master in Public Administration Program’s former co-director, made sure the lectures could be applied to everyday situations.

“Leu organized wonderful extracurricular activities that included bringing Ted Gaebler, co-author of the bestseller ‘Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector,’ to speak to us,” said Davis.

Davis was elected in 2006 to represent the 48th Assembly District, which encompasses a virtual cornucopia of communities, including Koreatown, University Park, the Coliseum, Wilshire Center, and West Adams.

“The 48th District is a wonderful example of the ethnic richness and diversity that exemplify California. Its different cultures are a microcosm of the state,” he said.

Serving as chair of the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media keeps Davis on his legislative toes. The Assemblyman has found that when basic educational funding is lacking, innovation and the arts suffer conversely.

“I am dedicated to reforming our current educational infrastructure and raising revenues to fund the arts,” said the legislator.

Rona Sebastian

In the light-filled conference room of the Herb Alpert Foundation headquarters, Rona Sebastian, who graduated in 1972, surveyed the extraordinary paintings and sculpture that surrounded her. The walls fairly shook with color.

“Few people know that Herb Alpert has also been active as a visual artist for the past 40 years,” Sebastian said of the famed trumpeter, co-founder of A & M Records.

The Herb Alpert Foundation supports a kaleidoscope of programs that include compassion and well-being, arts and arts education.

“It’s wonderful to share in the amazing generosity and spirit of Herb and Lani Alpert,” said Sebastian, who became the foundation’s president in 2004. “They are true philanthropists and the impactful spirit of their generosity is reflected in the foundation’s strategic funding and program development.”

For Sebastian, who served as vice president of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and spent 15 years in a variety of senior leadership positions at the J. Paul Getty Trust, each job has provided her with a exceptionally diverse skills set.

“At The Getty, particularly, when I was associate director of the Getty Conservation Institute, I learned to think strategically and create partnerships throughout the art world,” said Sebastian. “In each work environment you enter, there are new and different challenges. My experiences at The Getty were invaluable at the University of the Arts, where I was once again required to create strategic plans but in a completely different context.”

At the Herb Alpert Foundation, Sebastian has maximized its goals by building a network of colleagues at other philanthropic foundations.

“Getting a pulse on the philanthropic community is imperative,” she said. “You begin to recognize the potential for collaboration among grantees.”

A sociology major at Cal State Northridge and a classically trained pianist, Sebastian is fascinated by societal values and the link between culture, politics and music.

“CSUN was a godsend for me as I imagine it continues to be for people who are working on a college degree while holding down a fulltime job,” said Sebastian, who ran two Yamaha Music Schools while pursuing her degree at Northridge.

Arts education is essential, she believes, for young students. “Keeping the arts alive and available is critical to the future of our children,” she said. “It is an avenue to a different way of being where there are no right or wrong answers, just different ones.”