Student Achievements

Stephanie Rivas (M.A. Communication) had her paper proposal titled “Ableism in Higher Education: Platicas Framing Faculty Perception of Student Accommodations and a Call to Action” accepted for presentation at The International Conference on Arts & Humanities organized by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) January 3-7 in Hawaii. She has also been selected to receive the Grace Laveryn Schultz Scholarship in Journalism.

At the 13th annual “Meeting of the Minds” symposium in April 2024, Alberto Rendon won best oral presentation in session 3 with his paper titled “The Social and Educational Impacts of Anime on Fans” (mentor, Dr. Mihaela Popescu). And Stepfanie Alfonso won best oral presentation in session 13 with her paper titled “Community Media Coalitions: Best Practices to Support a Healthy Local News Ecosystem” (mentor, Dr. Thomas Corrigan).

Ramtin Ranjpour was voted the Departments and College’s Outstanding Graduate Student for AY 2023-24.

This is the third year in a row that our outstanding graduate student wins the college award as well: Naim Aburaddi, Dia Poole, and Ramtin Ranjpour. In the past, other former graduate students also won the college award like our own lecturer Professor Loydie Burmah and Professor Luis Esparaza (Lecturer at Central New Mexico Community College and graduate assistant at the University of New Mexico) who is finishing his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico and walking next month.

Stepfanie Alfonso and Dr. Thomas 'T.C.' Corrigan were invited to present at the Local Journalism Researchers Workshop in March at Duke University. The workshop was organized by The DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy at Duke University and the Center for Sustainability and Innovation in Local Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was funded by The Knight Foundation. Stepfanie and Dr. Corrigan's presentation was titled, “Building a Regional Coalition to Address the News Mirage in California’s Inland Empire.”

Fernando Martinez had a paper titled "Punk's Not Dead, You Are" accepted to the 2024 PunkCon Conference, “Do They Owe Us A Living?: Punk, Nihilism, and Going Analog in the End of Times,” at CSUF, May 4th, 2024.

Cherae Hunt, has an In-Person Individual Poster Submission accepted to the 74th International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference, to be held 20th - 24th  June, 2024, in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia. Cherae's presentation is titled "Taking Control of My Journey: The Impact of Structural Racism in the American Healthcare System on Black Women’s Mistrust in Terms of Perinatal Decisions". Her paper was developed in Dr. Muhtseb’s Qualitative Research Methods class.

Stepfanie Alfonso has been selected to represent California State University, San Bernardino, at the 38th Annual CSU Student Research Competition, taking place at California State University San Luis Obispo on April 26-27, 2024.

Stepfanie Alfonso represented our college at the 38th CSU Student Research Competition that took place at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo April 26-27.  Stepfanie’s paper is titled: “Community Media Coalitions: How CMCs Can Bolster Democracy in the I.E. Communities.” Her mentor is Dr. Corrigan.

Ranjpour presented his paper “Achieving Communication Excellence: Applying the Excellence Theory to Small E-Commerce Businesses” at the 76th Annual Public Relations Society of America Conference in Nashville, TN last October. It won the Betsy Plank top graduate student paper award.

Amanda Reigle's (working with Dr. Robert 'Bob' Leo, Comm Studies Lecturer at PDC) project "Sages and Seekers" has expanded its reach connecting seniors in the Osher Lifelong learning Institute at the PDC with CSUSB communication studies students to develop intergenerational learning opportunities. The project was featured in CSUSB's Daily News.  Amanda is the Sages & Seekers student program coordinator and lead researcher.

Stepfanie Alfonso and Jocelin Monge (our almuna) presented their respective papers at the Union for Democratic Communication annual conference in Philadelphia.