May 2016

CLA Alumna Earns Peabody
International Studies Alumna, Caitlin Dickerson (2011),
has won the 2015 Peabody
Award for NPR’s Investigation of Secret Mustard Gas
Testing during World War
II. In addition, she has been
named a finalist for the Livingston Award for Excellence in National Reporting
for her article WWII Secret
Mustard Gas Testing.
To listen to her work, please
follow this link to the Livingston Award page: http://wallacehouse.umich.edu/
library/wwii-secret-mustard-gas-testing/
THE 14TH ANNUAL SOLANKI LECTURE
The Yadunandan Center for India Studies welcomed Dr. Anand Yang at its 14th annual Solanki
Lecture. Dr. Yang's presentation was titled
"Subaltern Speak: An Indian Soldier’s Travelogue
of China, 1900-1901"
Dr. Yang, professor of International Studies and
History at the University of Washington, Seattle,
was born to Chinese parents in Shantineketan
and grew up in New Delhi. Yang is fluent in
Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish.
Yang's research takes a global approach to understanding Indian and Chinese relations during
the diaspora of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. He discovered a text written by Thakur Gadadhar Singh called,
“Thirteen Months in China," which he translated from Sanksritized Hindi and
used as the basis for his own book. Thakur Gadadhar Singh was an Indian Subaltern, or military officer, who was part of the 7th Rajput regiment of the British Army. Gadadhar Singh’s motivation for writing his book was to share information on
China, the Boxer Uprising and the victory of these soldiers. As an Indian soldier,
he felt a certain kinship with the Chinese. The book looks at the atrocities of war
as committed by the supposed civilized world (westerners) upon the barbarians
(easterners). The book closes with a comparison of strengths and weaknesses of
India and China.
The lecture concluded with a question and answer session along with a presentation of a book on Mahatma Gandhi by Uka Solanki. To read the India Journal article on the lecture, please follow this link: http://www.indiajournal.com/usmetros/indian-view-of-1900s-china-discussed-at-solanki-lecture
Faculty Award Winners
Clorinda Donato
Outstanding Professor Award
Clorinda Donato,
the George L.
Graziadio Chair
for Italian Studies, joined the
Department of
Romance, German, Russian
Languages and
Literatures in
1988 as a professor of French and Italian, and she has continued to divide her teaching, research,
and service between the two fields of study. Donato has taught some 20 different courses — many of which she created or co-created — and was a driving
force behind the creation of several new degree programs. An expert in eighteenth-century cultural studies, particularly in the areas of knowledge transfer,
encyclopedic compilations, and gender, Donato has authored and edited numerous books and articles in her multiple fields of research. She is proudest of having worked with community members to establish the George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies, a point of intersection for the university and the local Italian-American community, and of the innovative NEH-funded project, “French
and Italian for Spanish Speakers,” which has become a national model for multilingual communication and language acquisition. Donato is a recipient of
CSULB’s Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity Award, and her work has also
been honored by the French government and the Sons of Italy, among others.
Jennifer Flemming
Distinguished Faculty Advising Award
Jennifer Fleming, an associate professor
in the Department of Journalism & Mass
Communication, received the Distinguished Faculty Advising Award. The
award recognizes excellence in academic
and career advising. Jennifer has conducted thousands of advising sessions over
the years, and she played an integral role
in ensuring advising and other student
services for the department as it underwent accreditation. She'd like to share the
award with the heart and soul of advising
in the College of Liberal Arts, Bron Pellissier, and her ATLAS team.
Leakhena Nou
2016 Community Service Award
Since joining the CSULB faculty, Dr.
Leakhena Nou has conducted extensive applied research in public/
medical sociology, especially at the
intersections of medical sociology
and international/transitional justice and human rights/
international law, peace and conflict, and gender research. She has
actively engaged the Cambodian
Americans as witnesses in the ongoing international war crimes trials of senior members of the
Khmer Rouge regime (Case 002/01
and Case 002/02) since 2009, and her work on victims’ participation in the tribunals could be used as a model for future war crimes tribunals globally. Her work
is often cited in the national/international media such as the BBC/New York
Times/Voice of America, among others.
Today, the single most important global influence in Cambodia is the prosecution
of the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. These trials and their outcomes will
have a significant impact on Cambodian social health/mental health and wellbeing.
Research indicates that genocide has a negative impact on the health of multiple
generations. These findings led Dr. Nou to connect her research to the legal proceedings underway in the Cambodian Court System.
Hugh Wilford
Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award
Dr. Wilford is the author of
four monographs (two of
them published since he
joined CSULB in 2006), a coedited collection of essays,
and numerous articles and
book chapters. His work on
the CIA and Cold War culture
has reached a wide public audience as well as an academic
one. Wilford's last book,
America’s Great Game: The
CIA’s Secret Arabists and the
Shaping of the Modern Middle East (Basic Books, 2013),
received extensive newspaper
review coverage, including an
Editor’s Choice in the New
York Times Book Review; and
has led to many speaking invitations, for instance at the
Woodrow Wilson Center in
Washington, DC, and the
State Department, as well as
TV and radio interviews; and
earned the 2014 Washington Institute Book Prize Gold Medal.
Wilford has also gained an international reputation as an expert on the CIA and
the Cold War. He has been involved in leadership and service roles outside of
CSULB, including a book series editorship for Edinburgh University Press, visiting
or associate positions at various institutions, and a steady stream of inquiries regarding his research from members of the public, filmmakers, and other researchers.
Dr. Wilford stated, “I am extremely grateful for this award and wish to thank
those who have supported me in my scholarly endeavors, including my deans and
department chairs, both present and past, and departmental colleagues, especially my U.S. academic mentor, Patricia Cleary."
Jake Wilson
Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award
Professor Wilson’s classes challenge his
students to analyze power and social inequality through the lens of social justice
by applying course concepts and theories to their own lives and communities
in what he calls: “Sociology for the People!” He has tremendous success in both
large sections of Intro to Sociology courses and his theory-driven upper-division
Sociology courses. Whether the class is
large or small, Dr. Wilson strives to create community in his classrooms in order
to “bring students in” by integrating two
interrelated core principles into his classrooms: empathy and respect. According
to Professor Wilson, empathy begins
when students (and teachers) treat others’ experiences and social locations with
dignity and respect. Empathy, he believes, can help build kinship-like bonds between students in the classroom allows for more self-reflection and comparative
analysis among students.
Professor Wilson diligently works to ensure that each of his students feels
acknowledged, valued, and important at CSULB. It starts with seemingly simple
things like learning his student’s names, the neighborhoods they grew up in, the
types of jobs a student or their parent’s have, along with other aspects of students’ biographies. He views his classes as micro-communities in need of the
proper resources, support, and intellectual space to grow and ultimately flourish.
Respecting the differences between one another, whether they fall along racial,
gender, cultural, sexual, or class-based lines, provides the key foundation for
learning that allows students, especially those who have been historically marginalized in higher education, to feel like they, too, belong at the university and are
active shapers of knowledge.
Continued on the next page
Jake Wilson—continued
Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award
Professor Wilson’s Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award builds upon his already
strong teaching dossier at CSULB which includes awards and honors relating to
teaching, pedagogical innovation, and mentoring, including two CCPE online
course conversions, a “Flipping the Classroom” award, multiple EOP Mentorship
Awards, and the “Most Inspiring Professor” from the CSULB Alumni Association
among other distinctions.
“I am extremely thankful and honored to have received this teaching award. This
award has allowed me to reflect upon my own academic journey and the critical
role that my professors had in changing my own life as a young person. As a former community college student, there was a time that I, too, was lacking mentorship and academically “lost”. I found my inspiration from a few of my professors
who challenged me to think deeper, more critically, and more creatively. I knew
that if I ever became a professor, I would always strive to bring a human element
in all of my interactions with my students.”
CLA Award Winners
Please join me in congratulating these outstanding winners.
Student Research Award Winners
Ashly Romero
Anthropology (Major)
Biology and Forensic Studies (Minor)
(Ceremony 2)
Alberto Daniel Diaz
Religious Studies (Major)
Linguistics (Minor)
(Ceremony 3)