HR News Campus Updates & Events | June 2022

You and your family are cordially invited
to join CSUN President Erika D. Beck for
the Faculty and Staff Summer Celebration

July 20, 2022

4 - 6 p.m.
Student Recreation Center

Join Dr. Beck and your colleagues for dinner and many fun activities for all ages - Giant Jenga, Giant Connect Four, basketball, hula hooping, Corn Hole, dancing and loads of fun!

It's time to celebrate you and all that you do to create a brighter and more equitable future for our students.

RSVP by July 6

This year’s summer celebration will feature a food drive to support the CSUN Food Pantry. Please bring canned goods and other non-perishable items for donation. For more information regarding donations, please visit the CSUN Food Pantry website.

This event is made possible by the generous support of The University Corporation, the University Student Union and the CSUN Foundation.

For more information, please email eventrsvp@csun.edu or call (818) 677-1300.

Your Hearing Health is Important to both you and to us! 

In honor of Better Hearing and Speech Month, CSUN’s Language, Speech and Hearing Center (LSHC) is offering free comprehensive hearing evaluations during the month of June. Available to employee, spouse and children. You can schedule online, call us at 818-677-2856, or email LSHC@csun.edu to make an appointment. 

The LSHC also offers speech therapy, hearing technology consultations, and hearing aid dispensing services.  We coordinate with insurances. 

Want to be a more understanding teammate? Practice better listening.

Creating a diverse, welcoming, and truly inclusive workplace starts with our own inner work of self-reflection and learning.

Reflecting on our own unique identity, bias, and privilege can help us to better understand what it looks like to show up at work fully ourselves—while supporting our coworkers to do the same. Creating an inclusive workplace means ensuring we all feel safe, supported and included at work.

We invite you to set aside time this week to try one of these simple exercises from Calm, our partner in mental well-being, to practice non-judgment and enhance your listening skills:

• Try out the Relationship with Self Series and Relationship with Others Series for self-reflection and examining the assumptions that we make about others
• Practice Mindful Listening and explore ways you can apply this mindset at work
• Pause your natural tendency to “put someone in a box” by using this Non-Judgment meditation and experience the peace of mind that comes from judging others less

As Pat Wadors wrote, “When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become a wiser, more inclusive, and better organization.” Thank you for being you, and for being a key part of what makes this organization thrive.

Haven't activated your free Calm Premium account yet? Visit the CSUN Benefits Calm page.

The Student Recreation Center (SRC) will be offering Children’s Swim Lessons on Saturdays throughout this summer at the SRC pool!

Parents who are summer SRC members will be able to register their children for a variety of levels from Parent & Me to Level 3. Please visit our website for more details or contact Aquatics Coordinator, Ryan Hairapetian at ryan.hairapetian@csun.edu or extension 5804. 

On May 5, 2022, President Erika D. Beck announced the appointment of Ranjit (Ron) A. Philip as Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO). 

Ron has served CSUN Information Technology since 1999 in increasingly responsible roles and was appointed Interim Vice President in January 2020.

President Beck noted that Ron has demonstrated exceptional leadership and an unwavering commitment to equity, justice and inclusion. In addition to his instrumental role in facilitating the pivot of our campus to remote and hybrid operations in response to COVID-19, Ron has been a champion of equitable educational opportunities through the initiation of programming to expand student and faculty access to technology, devices and internet connectivity. He has worked collaboratively across the university to utilize technology to fully support our academic and business functions, guided the use of technology as a vehicle to promote inclusion, and has catalyzed the opportunities presented through emerging technologies to enable teaching, learning and working. 

On May 4, 2022, Dr. Mary Beth Walker announced the appointment of Dr. Jeffrey Reeder as Dean of the College of Humanities effective August 1, 2022. 

Dr. Reeder has spent AY 2021-22 as the CSU International Programs Resident Director for Spain. Prior to his year in Spain Dr. Reeder was in his second term as Chair of the Modern Language and Literatures Department at Sonoma State University where he taught Spanish courses in Cultural Studies, Linguistics, Teacher Education, and Translation. Preceding his role as the CSU International Programs Resident Director for Spain Dr. Reeder, in addition to being the Chair of Modern Language and Literatures, has had a broad range of administrative experiences at Sonoma he served as the Coordinator of the Program in Spanish from 2009 to 2018, Acting Chair of Native American Studies 2019-2021 and Interim Director of the Jewish Studies Program in 2019.   Dr. Reeder joined Sonoma’s department of Modern Language and Literatures in 1998 attaining the rank of Professor in 2009.   

Dr. Reeder is the author of numerous publications on Spanish language acquisition, translation and education.  He graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a B.A and an MA in Spanish and holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.

On May 13, 2022 President Erika D. Beck shared that Drs. Marquita Gammage and Freddie Sanchez concluded their research and provided a report with recommendations relative to Identity-Based Resource Centers.

The work was commissioned last fall in an effort to advance new and compelling opportunities to foster belonging and student success. Utilizing a comprehensive and inclusive approach which included the ideas, insights and feedback from hundreds of CSUN students, faculty and staff, Dr. Gammage and Dr. Sanchez were assisted by student research assistants Kaylee Josefina, Naim Muhammad, Tracee Porter and Kamau Pruitt.

The report, which includes actionable items that support physical and aspirational centers of equity and holistic recommendations to support students’ identities and promote student success, may be viewed here.

The USU has opened their events up for the entire CSUN campus community to keep everyone engaged and provide beneficial services during the pandemic. You can find additional information detailed on our calendar or webpage.

You can access the online version of the May 19, 2022 CSU Leader here.