Provost's Newsletter

Provost’s Message

Hello Colleagues,

I want to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your efforts in supporting our students in their success. I hope you had a successful semester despite the ups and downs of the pandemic. As California and the nation continues to open, and we begin to re-enter our public lives, I am so excited that we will see a return to campus life. As you know, our Fall 2021 course sections will be offered online, hybrid, and fully face-to-face, with over 50% of sections having some type of on-campus meetings. The decision to repopulate at this level comes with the California State University announcement that all CSU and UC campuses will require students and employees to be immunized against COVID-19. Vaccinations are now available for all adults 12 and over. LACDPH is optimistic that by the end of July, as many as 80% of all adults in Los Angeles County will be vaccinated. For more information, visit our Fall 2021 Planning Gateway, where you can find the most up-to-date information.

Mary Beth Walker, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Latest Academic News

Advancing Faculty Diversity

As you know, both President Beck and I are fully committed to advancing faculty diversity. As a central component of this, I have asked Faculty Equity Advocates Elena Miranda (Geology) and Sylvia Macauley (History) to take lead in recommending best practices for revising recruitment processes.

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Shiva Parsa Receives Polished Apple Award

Every year, University Ambassadors host their annual Polished Apple ceremony. They honor faculty and staff members who have made a difference in a university ambassador's academic career and who have profoundly impacted students during their educational journey. This year, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) Director Shiva Parsa was selected by a University Ambassador to be a recipient of a Polished Apple Award. Shiva has been working with EOP for 28 years.

CSUN President Beck in Convocation Ceremony

Matador SUCCESS Series

The Matador SUCCESS Series concluded with two campus-wide events this spring. On March 30th, Dr. Frank Harris III asked us to consider the important role institutional, college and departmental culture play in advancing equity. To fully realize CSUN's GI 2025 goals, our collective focus must be on student groups experiencing disproportionate impact to address disparities in their experiences and educational outcomes.

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Student Success at a Glance

CSUN Mentor Connect Supports Incoming Students

In Fall 2020, the Office of Student Success launched CSUN Mentor Connect, a completely virtual mentoring platform. The intent of this initiative was to increase CSUN's connection with our incoming students using peer mentoring as a model.

We recruited, trained and matched 630 volunteer mentors with 2,600 first-time transfer and freshmen students. The most common conversation topics between mentors and mentees focused on academics and staying balanced.

If mentors felt they needed additional support for a mentee, they could alert the Office of Student Success (OSS) using the "insight flag feature." The most common insight flags OSS received had to do with academic struggles; however, it should be noted that the resulting academic struggles were often caused by other serious concerns (COVID, depression, financial struggles) in the students' lives as a result of the pandemic. We will continue to use the software and look at the effects this platform has on students who opt in to the service in their first year.