The opening reception for “Annual Student Art Exhibition: B.A. Graduates” exhibit on May 11 (exhibit runs through May 21 in the University Art Gallery) showcased not only the artistic talent of students at California State University, Dominguez Hills, but the high levels of community engagement and preparation for professional success the university’s art department provides.

When Clara Weston was looking for a topic to present as her senior seminar project in History 490, she was directed by her professor, Ericka Verba, to find one at the Southern California Social Studies and Research Library in South Los Angeles. While looking through several options, the 60-year-old history major at California State University, Dominguez Hills found documents that described initiatives that were established more than 20 years ago to regulate and protect Los Angeles’ growing population of street vendors.

Last month, Student Support Services, a federally funded TRiO program at California State University, Dominguez Hills, took students from both CSUDH and CSU Los Angeles on journey to explore the Civil Rights Movement in the state of Alabama. Covering many of the events which defined the modern Civil Rights Movement in America, the five-day expedition that also included staff and students from Cal State L.A. began in Birmingham on April 30 – the city where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed for nine days and wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”