Last summer, Cal State Fullerton received a historic $40 million gift from MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett to provide one-time funding for proposals focused on student success and innovation through the lens of social justice. . A total of 131 proposals were submitted, and of these, 11 were selected for funding this year through the Scott-Jewett Fund for Student Success and Innovation.
Proposals selected for first-year funding
A conference on popular education
College of Education
$46,500
Applicant: Carolina Valdez
K-12 teachers are overwhelmingly white, and many teachers need additional development to challenge their biases. Additionally, teachers for social justice often feel estranged from their colleagues and need a collective space to build community. Funding is requested to continue to organize the “Conference on Popular Education”.
To advance the CSUF dance program towards equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice
Department of Theater and Dance
$103,400
Claimant: Alvin Rangel-Alvarado
The Scott-Jewett Fund for Student Success and Innovation will enable the implementation of the CSUF Dance Program’s research-based policies and initiatives in support of anti-racism, diversity, equity and justice. inclusion, developed in fall 2020. By implementing these policies and initiatives, we will build a long-term learning community where all students succeed and thrive, especially our students from underrepresented communities.
AMIELA: Multilingual teacher-student partnerships
Department of Literacy and Reading Education
$67,000
Applicant: Julian Jefferies
This proposal aims to extend and perpetuate AMIELA, an interdisciplinary project aimed at fostering plurilingualism in the student body of the CSUF by associating bilingual professors with bilingual students in their discipline to collaborate on a lesson plan delivered in a language other than the French language. ‘English.
Black Teachers Matter: Creating and Sustaining a Pipeline in Teacher Education
Department of Primary and Bilingual Education
$77,240
Claimant: Abigail A. Amoako Kayser
This project recognizes and seeks to change the under-representation of pre-service Black teachers in teacher education programs at CSUF. By working with pre-service teachers currently enrolled in CSUF, we will establish a pipeline to CSUF with local high schools and community colleges to increase enrollment of Black pre-service teachers.
Connecting K-16 students to the diversity of Orange County history and each other
Department of American Studies
$48,845
Applicant: Elaine Margaret Lewinnek
In this three-part program, CSUF and local K-12 students will learn about the extraordinarily diverse stories embedded in our landscape and share their connections to those stories with each other and with the community. This will build students’ confidence, self-awareness and empathy, and foster their social awareness and civic engagement.
Ujimaa Mentorship Program
Department of Special Education
$149,950
Applicant: Benikia Kressler
This collaborative mentorship program will provide cross-generational mentorship to Black CSUF students by connecting Black undergraduate and graduate students with Black CSUF alumni, faculty, and staff. Black students will build community with CSUF alumni, faculty, and staff, and persist in their education, experience transformative learning, and gain confidence in their future.
Cultivating Success in STEM Internships: Training Future Engineers and Computer Scientists
College of Engineering and Computer Science
$150,000
Applicant: Elizabeth Gomez
The proposed project will help increase the number of underrepresented and first-generation students in STEM careers through a formal career exploration process. The intended goal is to educate, inform, and help students apply for summer internships to build and expand their portfolios for future careers in STEM.
Social Justice Engineering: A Design Challenge
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
$60,600
Applicant: Garrett Struckhoff
There are many examples of social injustice that could be avoided by better engineering decisions. This project will create a design challenge to engage engineering and computer science students with community partners to fight social injustice. Top teams will receive seed funding to take this idea to the next level.
Future Black Communications Professionals
Communications Department
$98,000
Applicant: Jasmine Phillips Meertins
This program aims to create a strong sense of inclusion among Black students within the Department of Communications and to prepare students for the internships required for communications majors. Through formal events, conference attendance, and mentorship, this program will encourage students to build community and professional networks.
Partnerships for Student Success
Center for Educational Partnerships
$45,000
Applicant: Julianna Hernandez
CSUF’s cross-segmental partnerships through the Anaheim Pledge, Santa Ana Partnership, and Fullerton Partnership provide significant support for Latinx students at local high schools and community colleges. The funding requested in this proposal will be used to create programs that support the achievement, integration and retention of students enrolled from these partnerships.
Hispanic Heritage Month Theater Festival and Shows
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
$122,800
Applicant: Grupo de Teatro en Espanol
This grant would be used to fund a Spanish-language theater festival during Hispanic Heritage Month and to augment Grupo de Teatro theater performances on the CSUF campus that will be open to the public, students, and all members of the community. .
How the selection was made
“When Cal State Fullerton received this $40 million validation and historic gift, the president and his cabinet sought guidance from faculty, staff, students, alumni, board members and donors. to determine how this legacy gift could have an immediate impact and continue to provide funding for critical and needed programs in the future,” said Greg Saks, Vice President for University Advancement.
In response, the Scott-Jewett Fund for Student Success and Innovation was created to provide approximately $1 million in funding each year for the next three years. The outcome of this consultation was revealed at the 2021 Convocation by President Fram Virjee. Some of these initial funds were made available for innovative, student-centered programs that focused on CSUF’s Guiding Principles for Social Justice.
This spring, an inclusive committee of students, staff, and faculty met to develop criteria and facilitate distributions of the first million dollars. The goal is to transfer all freshman funds to these recipients by the start of the fall 2022 semester.
The committee
The extensive work of staffing this selection committee was done by Andrea Kelligrew of University Advancement and was co-chaired by Greg Saks and Josh Mitchell, the 2021-22 ASI President.
The committee was made up of:
- Mary Chammas, Student Associates Inc.
- Martha Enciso, Student Affairs
- Isabella Galvan, Associated Students Inc.
- Danielle Garcia, Office of the President
- Rommel Hidalgo, Information Technology
- Stefanie Light, University Advancement
- Irene Matz, Academic Senate
- Steve Reyes, Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion
- Stephen Stamboough, Academic Senate
- Evajoy Tito, administration and finance
- Estela Zarate, Academic Affairs
