We asked you to tell us who has helped you along your way as a student at CSUN. You sent us eighty-one submissions naming CSUN faculty and staff members who have contributed to your success.
Submissions were reviewed by a committee of CSUN faculty and staff serving on the Matador Momentum team. The Faculty Champion and Staff Champion were featured during the April 16 Provost's Student Success Series event (on Zoom), along with six others receiving Honorable Mention. If you missed the Zoom webinar, you can view the captioned recording instead. You can also read this CSUN Today story: Provost's Series Celebrates Student Success Champions (12 May 2020).
Current events (COVID-19) kept some of you from completing your nominations. But we hope to invite you to share your success stories next time, in spring 2021. There's certainly no shortage of heroic faculty and staff at CSUN cheering you on!
Here are the champions for 2019-2020:
Faculty Champion
- Alex Ojeda, Lecturer, Criminology & Justice Studies
Staff Champion
- Cindy Cruz, Graduation & Retention Specialist, Dean's Office, College of Engineering & Computer Science
Honorable Mention
- Alison Freeman, Staff Psychologist, University Counseling Services
- Ed Jackiewicz, Professor and Department Chair, Geography & Environmental Sciences; Faculty Athletics Representative
- Brad McAuliff, Professor, Psychology
- Lauren McDonald, Associate Professor, Psychology
- Ramon Muniz, Coordinator, Educational Opportunity Program Partnership Programs
- Scott Plunkett, Professor, Psychology
Additional Nominees
- Kristal Alconcel
- Bianca Alvarez
- John Asatryan
- Guillermo Aviles Rodriguez
- Meeta Banerjee
- David Boyajian
- Martha Campos
- Gabriel Castaneda
- Richard Chambers
- Jeffrey Charonnat
- Kyusuk Chung
- Irene Clark
- Irene Cota
- Susan Dickman
- Andrew Dominick
- Martha D. Escobar
- Tara Fahmie
- Randy Farber
- Myriam Forster
- Roza "Rosie" Gabrielyan
- Shadi Ganjavi
- Julie Garcia
- Gina Giotta
- Rosemary Gonzalez
- Dennis Halcoussis
- Matthew Jackson
- Mercedes Juan
- Doug Kaback
- Jessica Kwack
- David Lane
- Kaila Lavin
- Brian Malec
- Andrea Marques-Perez
- Peter Marston
- Ryan Mason
- Kristi Meador
- Katie Mortimer
- Yanira Pineda Darcus
- Rosie Quezada
- Trista Payte
- Carissa Rhoads
- Denise Sandoval
- Christoph Schaal
- Nyssa Silbiger
- Jon Stahl
- Katherine Stevenson
- Jason Stoll
- Paulette Theresa
- Nate Thomas
- Carla Mary Valdez
- Maria Valiton
- Care Vogt
Final Notes
Looking ahead: we hope to issue the call for CSUN Champions again in spring 2021. All students and alumni were eligible to nominate a champion this time, and we expect that to be true in spring 2021 as well.
We set one rule to avoid possible conflicts of interest: faculty champions could not be nominated by a student currently enrolled in their class. So if you nominated a faculty champion but are currently taking a class from that person--try again in the future when you are no longer enrolled in that person's class.
Questions? contact Dr. Cheryl Spector at CSUN by email.