Emeriti Fellowships awarded
at the Fall 2010 Emeriti Luncheon
The Emeriti Fellowship Fund Committee recommended awarding fellowships to eight students for the 2010-11 year: seven graduates and one undergraduate. The top Emeriti Fellowship Award will be designated as the Smallenburg Family Award in honor of their generous financial contributions to the Emeriti Association Fellowships. For the first time, an award will be made for the Mary Gormly Memorial Fellowship. This year, through the generosity of emeriti and other donors we can provide an award of $1,300 for each fellowship, the largest awards we have been able to make and which are greatly needed by our students.
Recipients of Emeriti Fellowships are Erin Thomason (Anthropology), Antonio Morehead (Communications) and Joshua Truett (TV/Film/Theater). The recipients of the Jane Matson Memorial Fellowship for students in Counselor Education are Meghan Thompson and Cindy Benavides . Victor Morales , a student in Philosophy/Political Science, will receive the John L. Houk Memorial Fellowship. Jennifer Coats , an anthropology major, is the first recipient of a Mary Gormly Memorial Fellowship. Kathleen Carlos (Biology undergraduate) is the recipient of the undergraduate emeriti fellowship, established in the memory of David Cameron Fisher, son of Janet Fisher-Hoult.
Emeriti Fellowship recipient (Smallenburg Family Award) Erin Thomason , is an Anthropology major with a concentration in SocioCultural studies, who has an extensive international background in China, The Philippines, India and Egypt. Currently the Judy YT Chang Fellow and Research Associate in the Asian and Asian American Studies Department, Erin is also a Domestic Violence Counselor Intern at the Center for the Pacific Asian Family. She is planning to continue her studies for a Ph.D. in Anthropology in order to use its "power to realize justice in at-risk communities" and achieve her goal of becoming a 'true public intellectual committed to actively engaging issues of injustice and inequality with academically rigorous theory.'
When he completes his M.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Political Rhetoric, Emeriti Fellowship recipient Antonio Morehead is planning to pursue a Ph.D. in Social Science after a few years of teaching at a community college. Although his undergraduate degree is in Industrial Engineering and he presented his honors thesis in 2005 at the annual IEEE conference in Ireland , he has continued to win honors in competitive forensics. Antonio's collegiate forensics career was one of the most decorated in the history of the activity. While pursuing his studies at Cal State L.A., Antonio has served as a speech and debate coach. He plans to continue "swinging from the quantitative world of engineering to the qualitative world of rhetoric and communication" and hopes 'to be of some use to the socio-economic problem solvers of modern politics."
Emeriti Fellowship recipient Joshua Truett's career objective is to be a teacher and professional writer. His area of concentration for his MFA in Television, Film and Theatre is dramatic writing and he approaches his work as an artist, performer and writer as a mission "to create performances that expand social discourse and instigate introspection." He has founded experimental theatre groups, written plays about social justice and oppressed communities and produced such plays as Wine Blue Water and Dispossessed (funded by the European Union and the American Embassy in Israel). Joshua was Associate Producer for the Theatre Arts Department's 12 th John Lion New Plays Festival which presented 4 new plays by student playwrights during the 2010 spring quarter.
The recipients of Jane Matson Memorial Fellowships in Counseling are Meghan Thompson and Cindy Benavides. Meghan began her career in Special Education in large part because her younger brother had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She ran a volunteer organization that recruited and trained individuals to help children with disabilities and has worked as a behavioral interventionist. When she completes her M.A. in Applied Behavior Analysis, she will sit for the Board Certified Behavior Analyst exam and begin work for her Ph.D. in Clinical or Developmental Psychology. Cindy Benavides' major is School-Based Family Counseling. Her objective is to become a marriage and family therapist after obtaining her M.F.C.C. and P.P.S. A series of family health crises caused her to shift from her original plan to pursue graduate studies in vocational education. Through dealing with her own difficulties, she has learned how to effectively provide counseling for clients in the Cal State L.A. Clinic. Dr. Michael Carter, her supervisor, noted that she has "done a wonderful job with these clients, many of whom would not be able to receive these services if not for her dedication."
When Victor Morales, recipient of the John L. Houk Memorial Fellowship, completes his M.A. at Cal State L.A., he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science specializing in public policy, political/economic theory, and American politics. Born in El Salvador during the civil war, he was left with his grandmother and sister when his parents migrated to the U.S. a year after he was born. Victor did not meet his parents until he was 8 years old and is the first in his family to graduate from college. His experiences have inspired him to take charge of his life which has led him to work, volunteer and organize in local community organizations and become a participant in public policy debate. His current studies are concentrated on political and continental philosophy as part of his plan for a career in public service and public policy.
The first recipient of the Gormly Memorial Fellowship is Anthropology major, Jennifer Coats whose area of concentration is Mesoamerican cave archaeology. After graduating summa cum laude from Humboldt State University , she came to Cal State L.A. to work with Dr. James Brady in the Maya Cave Archaeology Program, the only one of its kind in the U.S. Jennifer was one of four students invited to Belize to participate in the Mesoamerican Cave Archaeology Program. She has also participated in the China Lake Field School program as an assistant, instructing fellow students who were new to archaeology. With becoming a university professor as her career objective, she has already begun the process by presenting her research in a professional paper at the Society for American Archaeology in April 2010 and her paper, The Stone House in the Cave: Analysis of a Speleothem Structure of Actun Yaxteel Ahau , will be included in an edited monograph.
Kathleen Carlos , the recipient of the David Cameron Fisher Memorial Fellowship for Biology majors will be the first member of her family to graduate from college. Kathleen, a transfer student from Fresno State and Pasadena City College , is planning to become a forensic pathologist with a background in medical research. Since she eventually hopes to work in a forensics laboratory, she was attracted to Cal State L.A. because of its excellent Forensics Department. Upon completing her B.S., she will be applying to medical school. Kathleen has been an active community volunteer and has received academic honors at both F.S.U. and P.C.C. Last year she was named a Distinguished Member of the Caduceus Medical Club at P.C.C.