Dr. Mildred García, president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, has been appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

García is one of 19 individuals from the education, business, nonprofit, philanthropic and high-tech sectors nationwide appointed to the commission, which will advise the president and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on issues related to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for Hispanics. With Hispanics representing the fastest-growing minority group in the United States yet having the lowest rate of education attainment in the country, the committee’s work will play an integral part in helping the Department of Education shape its strategies to meet the president’s “2020 Goal” of the U.S. having more college graduates than anywhere else in the world.

“I am proud to nominate such impressive men and women to these important roles, and I am grateful they have agreed to lend their considerable talents to this administration. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” said President Obama in a July 5 press release regarding the announcement of several nominations and appointments, of which García was one.

President Obama established the advisory commission in October 2010 with the signing of the executive order renewing the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, which was originally established by President George H.W. Bush in 1980 and continued by each subsequent president. At the invitation of Department of Education officials, García stood alongside President Obama during that signing.

“I am honored to be appointed to this important commission,” García said.

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It Can Happen Here: CSU Dominguez Hills and Emergency Preparedness

As emergency management and preparedness coordinator of California State University, Dominguez Hills, Gary Singer (Class of ’05, B.A., political science) says that the reality of emergencies is not if they happen, but when. He says that “Operation Jump Start,” a functional exercise that took place last month, was very informative in assessing the university’s readiness for an emergency.

“If you had a drill in which you did everything perfectly, you didn’t have a good drill,” he says. “We have a laundry list of things to improve upon—that’s the good thing about these drills. Small things… that you don’t think about turn out to be very important in an actual emergency.”

With the assistance of students from the California Academy of Math and Science (CAMS) high school on campus and officials from the city of Carson, the university’s team of first responders and emergency managers role-played a scenario that included a catastrophic earthquake, an ensuing fire, and casualties from an automobile accident. CAMS students, who were in theatrical make-up to resemble injury victims, were “tended” to by doctors and staff from Student Health & Psychological Services in a triage exercise. Singer says that the participants worked at providing real-life obstacles for the responders. Firefighters from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, led by Battalion Chief William Mayfield, served as evaluators for the exercise.

“We had exercise controllers from the city of Carson to come help us out and I gave them poetic license to change their condition or ‘kill’ them later to keep it dynamic and to keep the people that were responding on their toes and always making decisions,” he says.

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CSU Dominguez Hills Named Among Nation’s Top 100 Degree Producers for Students of Color

students of color. The ranking is produced by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education using graduation data colleges and universities report to the U.S. Department of Education.

Based on data from the 2009-2010 academic year, the 2011 rankings place CSU Dominguez Hills 80th nationwide in conferring bachelor’s degrees and 63rd in conferring master’s degrees to minority students. Themagazine also breaks rankings down to specific ethnicities and disciplines, and the university was in the top 50 and even top 10 in several of those categories.

A significant highlight of the Diverse ranking is that CSU Dominguez Hills is the only public institution in California to be ranked for the total number of both bachelor’s and master’s degrees conferred to African American students. CSU Dominguez Hills has the highest percentage of African American students (23.1 percent) of any CSU campus.

Other notable rankings for the university included 9th for all minority students and 6th for Hispanic students in the area of conferring undergraduate degrees in “Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities;” 4th for Hispanics, 7th for Asian American and 10th in total minority students in the number of master’s degrees in “Engineering Technologies and Engineering-Related Fields;” and 10th for Native American and 11th for both Asian American and Hispanic students receiving master’s degrees in nursing.

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Alumni Notes

Sherwood Girion (M.P.A. '83) was recently appointed as Senior Vice President of Government Relations by Fidelity National Financial, Inc.  Mr. Girion most recently served as the California Deputy Commissioner of Rate Regulation and the Deputy Commissioner of Consumer Services and Market Conduct.

Hugo Henderson III (B.S.  '10) has been promoted to Level II Account Executive for The Enterprise Rent Car Sales Division. Promptly after graduation Mr. Henderson began his career in the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Management Training Program and since has received multiple awards for capitalizing on new and repeat business, outstanding customer service, and reaching record-breaking sales numbers.

Mary Little (M.A. '99) has been appointed to Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Redondo Beach Unified School District. Little, who had been principal of Redondo Union High School for the past eight years also was named “best high school principal” from the Association of California School Administrators Region 14, which consists of 23 school districts stretching from Malibu to Long Beach to Downey.

Candace Messer (B.S. '92) is a finalist for the 2011 Entrepreneur Mom of the Year to be named at the annual Success! Summit for entrepreneur women and moms in September. Messer is owner of Affordable Bookkeeping and Payroll Services, Inc.

David P. Reed (B.S. '94) recently accepted the President's E-Award for Amarr Garage and was recognized by the U.S. Department of Commerce. During his time with Amarr Garage he supported, trained and assisted numerous small and medium size business owners in the trade. Today, Amarr Garage exports to over 40 countries around the world.

Mark Yokoyama (M.A. '95) has been appointed as the City of Alhambra's new police chief. He is the first Asian American named to the post. Prior to Yokoyama's appointment he was the police chief for the City of Cypress for 3 years.

We’d like to hear from you! Your friends at CSU Dominguez Hills want to know what you're up to! Email the Office of Alumni Programs at alumniprograms@csudh.edu.