College of Business Administration and Public Policy Holds Third Annual Awards Luncheon

Nearly $40,000 was raised in support of student scholarships and faculty support in the College of Business Administration and Public Policy (CBAPP) at this year’s annual awards luncheon. The event was held on November 5 and had the largest attendance ever with over 400 friends and donors participating. The luncheon featured opening remarks from university president Mildred García, a keynote address by Roberto Orci, a writer of the summer blockbuster “Star Trek,” and presentations of the Dean’s Medallion Awards to Michael Lang, an executive vice president at Fox Entertainment Group, as Executive of the Year; Michael Rouse (MBA ’83), a vice president with Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., as Alumnus of the Year; and AEG as Organization of the Year.

The CBAPP advisory board of local business leaders established the luncheon and the Dean’s Medallion Awards to publicly recognize community and business partners who have played and continue to play a role in raising the prestige of programs in the college and throughout the university. Through strong partnerships with and support from local industry, the college is able to offer it students not only the theoretical frameworks they need, but access to real-world experiences that will help them succeed, CBAPP Dean Jim Strong said.

Nancy Carlson (Class of ’94, B.S., nursing; M.P.A, ’96) was inspired to enter the nursing profession after watching how medical professionals cared for her firstborn daughter, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

“I think you can find your calling as accidentally as I did,” Carlson says. “I started watching the nurses, talking to them and taking over a lot of her care in the hospital. I realized that I needed to get my nursing degree so that I could have, frankly, more understanding of her care and what was needed.”

However, the chief executive officer at Providence Little Company of Mary Hospital (PLCM) in San Pedro found after ten years of clinical nursing experience, that she could have a larger impact on the care of patients in a leadership position.

“I really liked watching the patient I was directly caring for get better under my watch,” she recalls. “But I realized very quickly that you can make more differences in a management role for a broader number of patients and staff. I got hooked on being able to make a difference for more people and being able to do things the way I felt they should be done.”

Carlson’s eldest daughter died at age 7, on the same day she received her nursing exam results from the Board of Registered Nurses. Nevertheless, she persevered in completing her associate of arts degree in nursing at Santa Monica College and working night shifts at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood while caring for her surviving daughter, who was also diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and is now 33 years old.

“Others would call it fate,” she says. “But in spite of what a lot of people would consider some challenges to be able to focus on school, it didn’t matter. It was clearly something I had an affinity for.”

Carlson says that after her first administrative position at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Marina Del Rey, she realized she needed to upgrade her education along with her professional experience and enrolled at California State University, Dominguez Hills to earn her bachelor’s degree in nursing, and eventually, her master’s degree in public administration.

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