Student research, scholarship and creative activity capitalize on the strength of the faculty and add currency to students' educational experience, says Provost Andrew Rogerson. Aiming to strengthen the major opportunities that undergraduate students at SSU have for compelling research, Rogerson funded 29 grants for faculty-student teams this semester.

Kristal Raheem is very passionate about promoting social justice and serving her community.

After witnessing her friends and peers drop out of school, she wanted to create an organization that would help students stay at SSU and earn a degree.

Emerita Professor Myrna Goodman, Sociology, has spent 17 years as a Holocaust and genocide scholar including serving as Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide at SSU.

The issues confronting educators today are essentially the same as they were when she first began teaching about the Holocaust and genocide in 1997.

Looking for an exciting way to explore Sonoma County history? Then the University Library's Special Collections is the place to start. With thousands of unique primary materials, there are treasures on every aspect of North Bay history. With many items available online, you can start exploring from home.

The best place to start is with the collection materials from Sonoma County's famed historian Gaye LeBaron. The Gaye LeBaron Collection includes a truly eclectic range of items from letters to clippings to photographs, and more, organized into over 800 topics, many of which can be viewed online.

Kinesiology professor Lauren Morimoto has been named Director of Diversity and Inclusive Excellence at SSU. She applied for the position to reframe conversations about diversity - rather than something SSU "has" to do, as something SSU wants to do. Diversity promotes academic excellence and positive learning experiences for students in- and out- of underrepresented groups, she says.

Mo Phillips says she wakes up every day grateful she works at SSU.

Since 2000, Phillips has served as SSU's Associate Director of Student Development, prior to her current position she was a Residential Life Coordinator of Zinfandel Village from 1997 until taking her most current position.

As an Associate Director of Student Development she is responsible for supervising the Residential Life Coordinators who manage the continuing-student villages, which include Beaujolais, Tuscany, and Sauvignon East.

If 300 Northern California math teachers were supported by the North Bay Mathematics Project (NBMP) in summer 2013, how many K-12 students have benefitted from the Project's work over the past 10 years?

Tucked away in the back of the Facilities Department is the campus lock shop and the man who holds the keys to the kingdom that is Sonoma State--Mark Utarid.

Judging by the decorated workspace it is easy to see that Mark is definitely a fan of both cars and basketball. Cards of former players are neatly adhered to his desk and images of speeding cars fill the majority of empty wall space.

Although Mark has made this space his own, work is also done around the clock. Mark is in and out, sometimes making 10 to 15 service calls a day as a locksmith for Sonoma State's Facilities/Lock Shop Department. At times he has made up to 50 service calls in a single day.

A young man who is using his struggles with poverty in his native country to help his people, has been selected one of the 23 recipients of the California State University Trustees' Award for Outstanding Achievement. He is a graduate of Elsie Allen High School in Santa Rosa, CA.

Newly elected Associated Students President, Mac Hart, has big plans for Sonoma State University. Now entering his senior year at SSU, he was elected in Spring 2013. His running mate, Anthony Gallino, was elected as Executive Vice President.

Hart plans to improve upon the accountability of the Associated Students. He is dismayed by the disconnect between student representatives and the student body that elected them in the first place. Moving forward, he is also hoping to improve communication between student run organizations, as several overlap at with shared visions or goals.

Dr. Patrick Jackson has been with the Criminology & Criminal Justice Studies Program for more than 23 years. He is founding editor of an online scholarly journal, the Western Criminology Review, and teaches criminology, research methods, juvenile justice, and the senior capstone course. He has written a book, articles and chapters on wide-ranging topics and reports based on federal and state grants.

His latest publication is a dramaturgical analysis of how people manage their identities in a dog park. His current research uses photo elicitation interview techniques to understand the role of animals and animal-assisted therapy in the developing lives of foster youth.

"Studying literature is good for you," says Dr. Brantley Bryant of the English department. "Encountering literary texts helps develop sympathy, imagination, and critical thinking skills suited to a changing world. Playing around with books is fun, but it can also generate truly new solutions for the pressing problems of our society."

In his teaching, Bryant aims to help students hone their skills as perceptive interpreters and to connect them to the rich resources contained within the diverse traditions of literature in English.

Bryant joined the SSU faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 2007 after completing his Ph. D. in English at Columbia University, specializing in medieval British literature. Bryant's doctoral dissertation focused on the connections of politics and poetry in fourteenth-century England, expressing his interest in the political and social power of literature.

When the candidates for Associated Student Government gathered in The Commons on results night, Mac Hart was exhausted and ready for the election process to be over.

"I was pleased by how many of our supporters turned out to hear the results. When the results were read I smiled incredibly wide, high-fived Anthony and hugged Sachi Silva, who was our spectacular campaign manager," he said. "With so many of our supporters at the results night, it felt really good to have won because it showed how effective their efforts were."

For many Sonoma State students, faculty, and staff parking is something that crosses their minds when driving to campus to attend class or go to work. For Missy Brunetta, parking is work.

Jamila Dozier spent her K-12 education attending Catholic school in San Francisco, and when she began as a freshman at Sonoma State University she admits it was "a tough transition." From uniforms and classes on religion to the atmosphere of SSU, Dozier was able to find a common link between these two environments in the form of community service.

"I enjoyed living in other cultures during my travels, and was treated like a queen," says Martha Peterson (BA English '85, MA English '87). Peterson says she has used the knowledge gleaned from Sonoma State in many ways over the past 30 years.

Dr. Armand Gilinsky joined the Sonoma State faculty in 1994. Before receiving his doctorate in business with an emphasis in policy from Brunel University of London, he received an MBA in finance from Golden Gate University and degrees in educational administration and policy analysis as well as English from Stanford University.

Dr. Ben Ford came to SSU in 1998 and holds several degrees in mathematics including his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.

Marylu Mattson, one of the first professors to teach in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University, passed away on December 30, 2012. Admired by colleagues and students alike for her combination of rigor and creativity in teaching, she was also a dedicated researcher in the humanities and sciences.

A lifetime love of California history led her to explore many corners of the state and culminated in a comprehensive historical narrative: Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War came out in print a few weeks before her death. She also co-authored an acclaimed textbook on writing, Help Yourself: A Guide to Writing and Rewriting, which went through several editions and was used by teachers throughout the country.

Marylu Catherine Mattson was born on September 12, 1933, in Los Angeles, California, daughter of Fred and Lucille Mattson and younger sister to Fred junior. She attended St. Agnes grammar school in the central area of Los Angeles, then following the war the family moved to San Fernando where her father had a grove of ornamental eucalyptus that also included resident geese, goat, cow, dogs, and her cherished horse.

Childhood friends remember her playing the ukelele with the same zest that she prepared for debates, at which she shone. Lu attributed her intellectual awakening to an elderly woman in the neighborhood who shared with her a rich and varied library and collection of classical music, the origin of her lifelong love of literature and opera.

She graduated in 1951 from the high school at Mission San Fernando, and that fall entered Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles. Her classmates remember her wit and passion, and "creativity in subverting draconian dormitory regulations." In 1955 she graduated with B.S. in microbiology and chemistry; the avant-garde yearbook she produced that year anticipated lifelong experiments in the arts.

After a year spent touring Europe, she returned to Mount St. Mary's and completed requirements for the B.A. in English, then went on to UCLA, earning an M.A. in English in 1964. A summer spent in art classes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, initiated a lifelong avocation in visual arts, especially sculpture and printmaking.

In 1965 Lu entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Southern California. From graduation through her years of postgraduate study in the humanities she continued scientific work, primarily in the UCLA Hematology Research Laboratory.

Co-workers note that she mastered the arcane language of enzyme biochemistry and developed into a highly sophisticated experimentalist, making a valued contribution to a seminal study in pyruvate kinase deficiency.

In 1967-68 she returned to Europe, first participating in an archeological excavation, then traveling via an Italian scooter through England and the continent, and eventually plunging into the intensive research in London libraries, archives and public records offices that culminated in her frequently-cited Ph.D. dissertation, "Censorship and the Victorian Drama" (1969), still one of the most comprehensive studies of the subject.

From 1968-1970 she was a lecturer in English at California State University Los Angeles, where she initiated an innovative student-to-student tutoring program.
In 1970 Marylu Mattson joined the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University as one of the original faculty members hired to create the new School's interdisciplinary curriculum.

She was valued as colleague and administrator, at different times serving in the Academic Senate and the Vice President's Council, as Campus Coordinator of Computer Assisted Instruction, as elected Chair of the Division of Cluster Schools, and as Provost of the Hutchins School.

Students and peers alike recognized her excellence in teaching: besides teaching expository and creative writing she helped design team-taught undergraduate courses as well as upper division seminars in her areas of special interest including "Censorship in the Arts," "Masterpieces of the Humanities" and "The Irrational in the Western Tradition."

A skilled seminar leader, Professor Mattson modeled intellectual curiosity and openness to new ideas with strong critical sensibility and an absolute commitment to high standards.

A former student spoke for many in saying she was "blessed to be among the fortunate lives she touched and enriched," and a colleague commented on Lu as "a wonderful colleague, and a person of great depth and kindness."

Retirement in 1992 brought more opportunities for research, travel and exploration in the arts. In 1998 she relocated to a vacation cabin in South Lake Tahoe, and in 2001 moved to Santa Fe and then to Glorieta, New Mexico; the southwest sojourn included many trips to San Miguel where she continued study in graphic arts and was welcomed into an intellectual expatriate community.

In 2009 she returned to her beloved Russian River valley and resumed research on the Modoc War. Shaman's Dream: The Modoc War began in the 1970s as a film project and eventually engaged her in far-flung and obscure archives and libraries throughout the west and in Washington, D.C.

Framed as "creative non-fiction," it is the most comprehensive and well-documented study available of the last "Indian war." She also continued work in the arts, proudly showing friends a new press she was using to produce graphic designs, and she integrated professional and artistic interests by promoting a collaboration between the Mendocino Art Center and the Sonoma State art department.

Those who knew her--friends, colleagues, students from many places and diverse backgrounds--share admiration for her intellectual integrity, her personal loyalty, and above all her generosity and courage and her great joy in life. Faced with risky and complicated surgery for cancer, her question was, "Which procedure will leave me still able to ski?"

After suffering a massive stroke, she fought to regain her verbal skills by writing a novel. She loved to gamble, at the blackjack table and at the track; when she won a scratch-off prize she used the money to treat friends to a day at Santa Anita-- where she won the daily double; when she lost, she threw back her head and laughed at the unpredictability of everything.

She plunged wholeheartedly into all her projects, she was constant in support of her friends and colleagues and their endeavors, and from their first appearance in California she was a dedicated fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Marylu is survived by her life partner of 35 years, Linda Day, and was a wonderful second mother to Linda's children Erica Sargent, Andrea Sargent Harbin, and Scott Sargent . She will also be missed by her grandchildren Clara and Amelia Schaeffer, Rowan and Duncan Harbin, Owen and Tavis Sargent.

Intrigued by the environment at a young age, Sonoma State Director of Field Stations & Nature Preserves Claudia Luke always knew that her place was outdoors. "When I was in 5th grade, I went home and I asked my mom what do you call somebody who studies animals," Luke reminisced. "So at a very young age, I knew I wanted to learn about the natural world."

Coming from a family of educators, Mark Fabionar finds the subject of cultural diversity to be "an interesting and compelling way to serve communities and serve universities," he says.

Bringing with her a passion for community service, Genevieve Sullivan finds her new role as the Community Service Coordinator of Join Us Making Progress (JUMP) to be a perfect fit.

Associate Professor Jeffery Reeder will soon be using his Spanish language expertise in a whole new way. Reeder has been appointed the Chief Reader Designate by the College Board to oversee the scoring of the Spanish Language Advanced Placement (AP) examination.

"I have been involved with the Spanish Language AP program for 18 years, including serving for six years as a member and then as chair of the committee that creates the exam itself," Reeder said. "It's a great honor to be chosen to lead a wonderful group of over a thousand talented and dedicated university faculty and high school teachers."

Merlin Hanauer, assistant professor of economics, has earned the prestigious Cozzarelli Prize for an article that demonstrated how protected regions -- areas that have been closed off to protect the environment -- have affected both poverty and deforestation in Costa Rica and Thailand.

Sonoma State University professor and chair of physics and astronomy Dr. Lynn Cominsky has been selected as the September 2012 Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) Woman Physicist of the Month.

Carlos Pena dedicates his time to a community that needs it.

Over the past year Pena has spent his time working with local businesses and charitable organizations to improve Cotati and surrounding communities.

The North Bay Business Journal recently published the following article about SSU's Christopher Dinno who was among the Facilites Managers Recognition Award winners for 2012. Below is the interview he gave the publication.

EXCEL for Youth is a unique academic enrichment program at SSU that offers students entering 4-9th grades accelerated classes in science, math, technology, visual art, drama, and writing. It is celebrating its 30th year and has served over 19,000 students since 1982.