University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

NEWS RELEASE

CSUN Faculty Receive Fellowships to Study Issues
that Affect Los Angeles Residents

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., July 27, 2007) — Three Cal State Northridge faculty members each have received a $12,000 fellowship from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to support their research of issues that impact the lives of Los Angelenos.

The fellowship recipients are women’s studies and Chicana/o studies professor Marta Lopez-Garza, who is taking a look at what happens to Los Angeles-area women when they are released from prison and attempt to rebuild their lives; history professor Josh Sides, who is evaluating the impact of corporate retailers on South Los Angeles; and urban studies professor Ward Thomas, who is examining the impact of air quality regulations on the fabricated metal products industry in Los Angeles.

"While the research of the three professors covers a broad spectrum of issues, the issues that each of them are looking at are real issues of concern in greater Los Angeles," said Elizabeth Say, dean of CSUN’s College of Humanities, which includes the departments of women’s studies and Chicana/o studies. "This is just another demonstration that our faculty are conducting research that is connected to real-world issues. What they learn can have a true impact on the lives of people who live in Los Angeles."

Established in 1926 by a prominent, reform-minded physician and his suffragist wife, the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation is a leading supporter of social science research for Los Angeles. It is also the oldest private foundation in the city.

Each year, the foundation distributes up to $3 million in grants and scholarships to various institutions—most of them local. The funds, in turn, are used to encourage study and research into the underlying social problems in Los Angeles and to recommend ways of addressing them.

Lopez-Garza is working on a documentary examining what happens to women when they are released from prison, return to their communities and attempt to rebuild their lives.

"There is surprisingly very little data on what happens to women when they return to their communities after prison," Lopez-Garza said. "Among the issues we are looking at are the types of support services available to help them find jobs, deal with the impact that being in prison has had on them and their families, especially their children, and what resources there are out there to help them stay clean (of drugs) now that they are out of prison."

Lopez-Garza said the women themselves pressed her into creating the documentary after she conducted earlier research on the subject.

"They correctly felt we would reach more people through a documentary than with academic publications," she said.

Sides is taking a quantitative look at the impact of the relatively recent introduction of large-scale corporate retailers in communities in South Los Angeles.

"The corporate retailers argue that their investment in South Central neighborhoods is a recipe for renewal of those neighborhoods," Sides said. "On the other side, neighborhood opponents argue that the retailers are practicing ‘ghetto colonialism,’ taking advantage of their poverty and lack of options and exploiting the neighborhoods.

"Right now, the debate is based on anecdotal evidence and theory," Sides said. "I want to do a quantitative analysis of the impact of large-scale corporate investment in South Los Angeles in the last ten to 20 years to see what is really happening."

Thomas said he is examining how the South Coast Air Quality Resources Board’s tough regulations for the fabricated metal products industry have economically impacted the fabricated metal products industry in the area. He wants to find out if the regulations have led to environmentally friendly innovations in the industry as businesses attempt to comply with the rules.

"I am just at the beginning of my research," he said. "It will be interesting to see what economic impact the regulations have had on the industry, and how the industry has responded."

Thomas said he hopes his research will contribute to the dialogue on how to deal with air pollution.

California State University, Northridge has 34,500 full- and part-time students and offers 62 bachelor’s and 50 master’s degrees as well as 28 teaching credential programs. Founded in 1958, CSUN is among the largest single-campus universities in the nation and the only four-year public university in the San Fernando Valley. The university serves as the intellectual, economic and cultural heart of the Valley and beyond.