Defining excellence in advanced professional education since 1964.

N e w s l e t t e r o f T h e R o l a n d T s e n g C o l l e g e o f E x t e n d e d L e a r n i n g • F a l l 2 0 0 5

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recently approved the renewal of the County’s contract with California State University, Northridge (CSUN) for the continuation and

expansion of the trailblazing educational partnership established between the county and the state in 1999.

The partnership was designed to address the county’s succession planning and workforce training needs through the creation of the Los Angeles County Training Academy – now known as the Los Angeles County Learning Academy (LACLA). According to Michael Henry, director of personnel for the county’s Department of Human Resources (DHR), the name change – official with the renewal of the contract for another five-year term – reflects a broadening of the Academy’s mission.

“The Academy has been the catalyst for learning in the county and instrumental in the implementation of our strategic plan,” said David Janssen, chief administrative officer for the County of Los Angeles. “Our partnership with the California State University system has been extraordinary, providing our employees with unique learning opportunities and enhancing our ability to improve performance throughout our organization.”

Noting that DHR is directly responsible for the development of 85,000 county employees, Henry added that LACLA provides a strategic approach not only for the design and delivery of customized curricula that link job-related certificate programs to business goals and strategies but also for the creation of a county-wide culture of continuous learning. “This culture enables us to help our employees to serve the public better,” Henry said.

From its inception, the Academy has brought DHR’s training capabilities together with those of several local public educational institutions. Participants include the six Southern California campuses of the CSU (Bakersfield, Dominguez Hills, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge and Pomona); the Los Angeles community colleges; and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Through The Tseng College, CSUN acts as prime contractor and program administrator. The Center for Management and Organizational Development (MOD) in CSUN’s College of Business Administration and Economics plays a key role in curriculum development and was instrumental in the preliminary task analysis and content planning on which the Academy’s initial offerings were based.

Bruce McDonald, the county’s principal human resources analyst noted that LACLA is built on a foundation of systematic workforce planning and evaluation. “Our instructional model is based on the identification of workforce competencies required to meet the county’s strategic goals,” McDonald said.

As of May 2005, nearly 2,400 county employees had successfully completed one or more of the 14 certificate program offerings developed and delivered through the Academy. Other Academy offerings covered under the CSUN contract have included various workshops and skill-building courses, chiefly in critical thinking and business writing. Overall, more than 4,100 county employees have been trained to date through courses provided by the county-state partnership. During the next five years, the county projects that LACLA will provide training for an additional 10,000 employees through the CSUN contract.

According to Tseng College dean Joyce Feucht-Haviar, CSUN’s Academy offerings have been evolving from custom-designed certificate programs for large groups of employees to include more intensive offerings for targeted professionals.

“We are entering a new phase in our development,” explained Lu Takeuchi, senior human resources manager for LACLA. “ While continuing to provide the outstanding programs in our current catalog, we are also designing new programs focused on topics that have been identified in the strategic needs survey completed by county staff and managers.”

As for county employee response to the Academy, Henry described it as “tremendous.” “The Academy has exceeded all expectations. I continually receive acknowledgements from employees and department heads regarding the quality of our programs and the benefits to professional development,” Henry said.

Among the positive outcomes described in a status report prepared for the Board of Supervisors in support of DHR’s proposal to continue and expand the Academy, Henry cited the networking opportunities provided for employees of the county’s 37 different departments. “As a result of Academy certificate programs being cohort-based*, graduates have formed ongoing networks and continue to share information and advice.”

*In the cohort model, students begin the program together and proceed through the coursework as a group.

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County Renews Unique Educational Partnership; CSUN Continues to Administrate Workforce Training Program

County of Los Angeles partners (inset, left to right): David Janssen, Michael Henry, Lu Takeuchi and Bruce McDonald

As I write this column, images from the Gulf Coast fill the screen and the heart. Each day, I have been amazed at how differently individuals react to the

tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Equally compelling is watching the ways in which public-sector leaders and a wide range of professionals and technical specialists are working to identify and solve problems that are both extraordinary and interconnected.

Indeed, this disaster’s aftermath makes clear that both correctly defining the problems to be faced and responding to them effectively require a remarkable level of skill and ability from many differently expert individuals.

Whether dealing with the commonplace complexities of everyday life or the more extra-ordinary challenges that fill the news, there is a growing need for highly capable individuals who possess not only broad and current knowledge in their fields and the skills and experience needed to put that knowledge to use in a variety of contexts but also sophisticated conceptual abilities, creative imaginations, and the open spirit needed to see problems afresh and craft solutions collaboratively with others.

So how do we solve complex problems like those facing the world today? From watching the news, we know that the solutions will require the best we have in all fields: healthcare, urban planning, transportation, engineering, architecture, geology, architecture, design, economics, public policy, law enforcement – to name just a few. Moreover, we need an even better “best.” We need to become a nation of visionary thinkers, creative problem-solvers, engaged and caring experts in the fields we know today and those that are emerging as pivotal for tomorrow. Given such an urgent need for talent, it follows that we cannot afford to loose a single willing mind or spirit to the many debilitating impacts of socioeconomic disadvantage or other vagaries of life.

This pretty much defines the challenge for higher education today. How do we prepare professionals to make significant contributions to a nation and a world that is changing in largely unpredictable ways? We take this question into account daily as we strive to strengthen existing programs, create effective new offerings, incorpo-rate new approaches to teaching and learning, and find better ways to deliver programs to midcareer professionals. CSUN faculty are working together to consider how best to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s world – a world that is shaped and defined by the quality of our response to it. And that is truly a challenge for us all. Every day, each of us thinks, acts and makes choices – including the choice to invest in the cultivation of our own minds and talents – that can dramatically change the future for ourselves and others. If we doubt this, we need only look at the news and reflect on how the choices and even the simplest acts of individuals living along or directly concerned with the Gulf Coast are now rippling through the lives of so many others across the nation and the globe.

Joyce Feucht-Havair Dean, The Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning

Dean’s Message

In January, The Tseng College will launch its third online distance learning graduate degree

program – a master of arts in educational leadership. This offering is being developed in collaboration with Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) in the Michael D. Eisner College of Education.

Having been involved in initiating distance learning at another institution, ELPS chair Richard Castallo was quick to see the potential for online delivery of his department’s program. He knew that The Tseng College had been successfully using distance learning technology to deliver the Department of Communications Disorders and Sciences’ master’s degree in speech-language pathology since 1999 and the Department of Manufacturing Systems and Engineering Management’s master’s degree in engineering management since fall 2003. To explore the possibility of taking ELPS online to reach a broader student base, Castallo arranged for a presentation by Tyler Blake, director of the Tseng College’s Distance Learning Systems Group, for his faculty.

After faculty discussion and evaluation, the proposed program was approved by the faculty committee as well as College of Education dean Philip Rusche and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. “The online ELPS master’s degree is a natural extension of the College, making a tried-and-true program accessible beyond regional boundaries,” Rusche said.

For the past year, the ELPS faculty and Extended Learning (ExL) have collaborated to convert the program for distance delivery. Acting as faculty coordinator, associate professor Bronte Reynolds has taken the lead in developing the first online ELPS course, recruiting and mentoring other faculty, and serving as the academic advisor to prospective distance students.

“I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my own technological ability,” Reynolds said, “but I never had any anxiety about working with Distance Learning. It’s been a really good process. We create the course content, and they guide us in designing the interactive presentations. Even though I’ve never taught online before, I’m not anxious. But am I excited? You bet!”

As for Castallo’s expectations of working with The Tseng College, he confessed that he did not know what to expect. “We knew that ExL has to be entrepreneurial and doesn’t have the luxury of being subsidized by the state like the rest of CSUN, but on the rare occasions when differences have come up, ExL has bent over backwards to devise solutions with which we can all feel comfortable,” Castallo said. As an example, he cited the discussion of optimum class size. “Obviously, the more students in your program, the more money you make. We wanted to start with smaller classes until our faculty becomes comfortable with online delivery, and Tyler and Karena [Senchack, senior program coordinator for Distance Learning] were supportive of our program goals.”

Much of the creativity in the development of a successful online program stems from the instructional design process. “We collaborate to design distance courses that reflect the teaching style and approach of the instructor while maximizing interactivity and multimedia presentation of the course materials,” said Janice Esguerra, Distance Learning’s instructional design coordinator.

According to Blake, what makes or breaks a distance learning program is not having the latest Web server or the flashiest animation, but rather a total-systems approach, designed around the expertise of the faculty and a commitment to providing complete support for the student’s academic needs. “Our staff provide expertise in human factors, instructional design, technical support, multimedia and other specialized knowledge for designing interactive education for adults,” Blake said.

“The result,” Reynolds added, “is an online program that allows us to retain the personal nature of the classroom experience for distance students while maintaining the academic rigor.”

Senchack pointed out that the personalized learning experience is reinforced not only by interactive workshops and online discussions but also by faculty and staff providing excellent support services for distance students. These begin with the first request for information and continue when the student becomes an alumnus of the program.

“In my role as the distance learning program coordinator, I work closely with Dr. Reynolds to coordinate each aspect of the program to ensure effective communication between our two colleges, faculty, university and students,” Senchack said.

ELPS chair Castallo praised Distance Learning director Blake for his handling of the managerial and operational aspects of the program as well as Senchack and Esguerra for their expertise on the implementation end.

“The other important piece to the process – beyond the nuts and bolts of how things get done – is having leaders who share your vision,” Castallo said. He used the word “visionary” in describing both his dean, Phil Rusche, and Tseng College dean Feucht-Haviar. “Phil makes sure there are no roadblocks – which is probably the most important thing a dean can do in this kind of situation – while Joyce understands the balance between being entrepreneurial and doing things for the right reasons. She’s been nothing but positive and helpful all the way along.”

“Both colleges are here to provide educational opportunities for people who wouldn’t otherwise have them,” Castallo concluded. “If you go into a collaboration like this with a high level of mutual trust, you’ll be okay.”

For more information about the online ELPS program, contact Karena Senchack at (818) 677–6405 or visit the Web site (http://exlweb.csun.edu/elps).

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Starting in fall 2006, The Tseng College will be offering a bachelor’s degree-completion program in liberal studies at Glendale Community College. This two-year, “general option” program is being developed in collaboration with the Department of Liberal Studies in the College of Humanities.

Also planned for launch in 2006 are two cohort-based, university (i.e., credit) certificate programs designed to help midcareer public- and private-sector professionals function more effectively. These graduate certificate programs – Communication and Conflict Management and Intercultural Communication and Social Injustice – are being developed in collaboration with the Department of Communication Studies in the College of Arts, Media and Communication.

The Tseng College continues to expand its interpretation and translation offerings. New this fall is a translation program, designed and taught by a court- and American Translation Association-certified interpreter and translator. This professional develop-ment program consists of six core courses and four electives, each of which focuses on a different area of translation practice: medical, legal, financial, and scientific/technical. Also starting this fall is an Armenian-English court-interpretation program designed to meet the needs of the Armenian community. Like the Spanish-English court- interpretation certificate program, the Armenian program is designed to prepare participants to pass the state certification examination.

In January 2006, the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences will begin offering online continuing education unit (CEU) courses through The Tseng College. These courses will assist new graduates of the department’s master’s degree program in speech-language pathology in meeting mandatory CEU requirements for licensure and certification as well as help practicing professionals keep up-to-date with current practices and research. For additional information, contact Myriam Cedeño at mc162850@csun.edu or (818) 677–7707.

Awards and HonorsThe Tseng College recently earned recognition

from Magnum Opus, a group of professional journalists and industry professionals affiliated with the Missouri School of Journalism. The college earned an honorable mention in the annual competition for best “house ad” for a campaign in the San Fernando Valley Business Journal that promoted the human resources certificate program. This year’s competition, which honors effective corporate and publications advertising, drew more than 500 entries including submissions from Coldwell Banker Commercial, Staples, Sunset Publishing Company, the University of Maryland, and Walt Disney Company. The Tseng College’s entry was designed and written by its advertising agency, Fourth Wall.

Other marketing and publications awards won so far for the 2004-2005 academic year include five from the University Continuing Education Association.

Program Developments

ExL Briefs Online Educational Leadership and PolicyStudies Offering Sets High Standard forCollaborative Program Development

“I’m not anxious. But am I excited? You bet!”Bronte Reynolds Online ELPS faculty coordinator

ELPS faculty Bronte Reynolds (left) and Rick Cavallo check out the first module of their first online course with Distance Learning senior program coordinator Karena Senchack.

On a recent visit, Ahmed Nasser Al Naimi, chairman of Al Buraimi College, Oman, presents CSUN Tseng College dean Joyce Feucht-Haviar with a crystal ornament from Oman. Three CSUN colleges, including ExL, have been collaborating in curriculum development and academic oversight for Al Buraimi College, which opened last year.

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Pat NichelsonChair, Department of Religious Studies

I’m a second-generation Californian, from Long Beach. The Catholicism in my family was on my father’s side, the Irish side, though my mother converted when they married. I went to Catholic schools all the way through getting my master’s degree – except for one semester when I had to go to a public junior high because I got busted for smoking.

I didn’t decide to go to St. John’s Seminary until the end of high school. I don’t know what got into me. I’d always admired the brothers and priests in my schools as teachers, but I’d also gone through a wild phase after my parents divorced. Then all of a sudden, I decided I wanted to be a priest.

I received my B.A. in philosophy and languages at St. John’s and also completed two years of what would have been a doctorate in theology. I was about a year from ordination as a secular diocesan priest when I left. This was at a time of great upheaval in the Catholic church, following the second Vatican Council. A number of my classmates did get ordained, but many left the priesthood within the next year or two.

I’d always known that I wanted to be a teacher. When I left St. John’s, I got a job teaching Spanish and Latin at Chaminade, which was a Catholic high school for boys only at that time. Soon after being asked to teach some religion classes, I discovered that while I didn’t want to proselytize or be a propagandist, the study of religion itself was really interesting. So I started working on a master’s in religion at Immaculate Heart College. Because IHC was pretty much the epicenter of the local revolution in Catholic higher education, the environment was very stimulating.

For my Ph.D., I entered a then-new program on religion and ethics at University of Southern California. It was there that I started studying literature. Though my degree is technically in ethics, my dissertation was on the writings of the British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

When I finished the course work in 1970, I was hired at San Fernando Valley State College [now CSUN] to teach part-time in the Religious Studies program. I came aboard full-time in 1972. This was a very exciting moment to be teaching comparative religions. Many of our students were Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to Asian religions as well as all the cross-cultural influences of the late 1960s.

Even now, the course I still most love to teach is “World Religions.” Though it’s an introductory course, I learn new things every time. Also the new textbooks and learning materials are fantastic because of the explosion of studies in this field. Half the CSU campuses now have programs, but CSUN’s was the first in the system to achieve departmental status.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t understand what Religious Studies is about. We aren’t theologians. Religious Studies does not study the gods. It studies

the peoples and cultures who give us the gods. Our methodology comes from anthropology, history and sociology. Which means that our faculty is a very diverse group. Some of us have philosophy back-grounds, while others are historians and linguists.

Religious Studies plays a fairly substantial role in the university’s general education program. In some ways, we are as involved in teaching diversity as are the ethnic studies departments – from which we have had a lot of support – because you cannot study religions without studying diversity. When you get Religious Studies professors talking about what they want out of their students, it’s greater literacy in the normal sense of the term as well as more awareness of life’s complexity and of how other peoples view the world. We consider basic literacy about religion to be very important for anyone who expects to be an intelligent participant in a democratic society. The big challenge – not only for students but colleagues and ourselves – is getting out of our own skins and trying to imagine alternative ways of being a person. This is more difficult today than it was 40 years ago because we are living in a more conservative time. Then again, we are ideally situated for making this effort since Los Angeles is the most religiously diverse community in the modern world.

One of the things we’ve been talking about as a department is that we need to work more with Extended Learning to bring religious literacy to the community – whether in programs for teachers who deal with religious diversity in the classroom or busi-ness executives and managers who deal with diver-sity in the workplace. Medical ethics and religion is another area on which we are often consulted, but we could do more. I’ve seen what a difference religious literacy can make in the workplace through the “Ethics and Professionalism” class that I teach in the Master of Public Administration program. I use a very good social policy and ethics textbook that covers codes of ethics and so forth, but when I launch off into religion and morality, the students – who are mostly professionals working in government agencies – really like it. Even police officers will come up to me after class and say, “This is so useful! Now when I go into people’s homes and they have different religious backgrounds, I have a way of understanding them that I didn’t have before.” And that’s exactly what we’re about.

Jody MyersProfessor of Religious Studies and Coordinator, Jewish Studies Program

I’m from Minneapolis and a very family-centered Jewish background. My mother’s parents were immigrants from Romania. My father’s parents were immigrants from Russia. Both of my parents were college-educated, and education was very important in our community. I was an enthusiastic student (and

still am), so it always shocks people when I tell them I was high school drop-out.

That came about because I had a wonderful history teacher when I was in the 11th grade. I loved history, and I wanted to be a teacher like her – but at the college level. I was so enthusiastic that I left high school a year early to go right into the University of Minnesota as a freshman. I had a double major in history and Hebrew, in which I also did well because I had attended Hebrew afternoon school as I was growing up.

In my junior year, I transferred to Brandeis University as a history major. I came to UCLA for graduate school because all the subjects I wanted were offered there. My doctorate is in Jewish history. I also studied Hebrew literature and European and Russian history. I still occasionally have nightmares in which I’m told I have to go back and complete 12th grade.

At UCLA, they warned us that we would never find jobs in our fields – because there were very few history positions at that time – but soon after I received my Ph.D., I interviewed for a part-time position here at CSUN teaching Jewish Studies in the Department of Religious Studies. I didn’t expect to be hired because I was an historian, and I didn’t know anything about “religious studies.” I left the interview thinking I’d done badly, but I realized that other jobs in this field might turn up, so I went to the bookstore and bought an introductory textbook in religious studies. A couple of days later, the department called to tell me that I was being hired to teach the course, “Introduction to Religious Studies”! The next semester, the department chair, Pat Nichelson, prevailed on the acting dean to do a search for a permanent position in Jewish Studies in the department, and I got it. This was in 1985. When I was hired, I became coordinator of the Jewish Studies program, which has been at CSUN since 1969.

Jewish Studies is not part of Religious Studies. It’s a College of Humanities program that stands outside any department and draws together university courses dealing with Jewish themes. Many of the program’s 21 courses are in other academic departments, though Religious Studies has the most. Because the religions that we teach about are situated in various cultures, we collaborate with other departments a lot.

One way that Jewish Studies collaborates is through our public lecture programs.* For example, this past year I arranged talks that were co-sponsored with Anthropology because they dealt with issues that were both anthropological and religious. The first focused on a collection of folk tales from a Sephardic Jewish community near the Greek-Turkish border that was destroyed during World War II. The analysis of how the folk tales served that community was anthropological, but the fact that the community was Jewish made this program a Jewish Studies subject, too. For the second program, a visiting anthropologist talked about religious healing in America. These joint programs enrich us all because our disciplines are interconnected even though our methods are different.

Also very exciting is the B.A. in Modern Jewish Studies that CSUN is launching this fall. This degree was planned in concert with a number of other CSU campuses. Because the framework of the major is identical, faculty can share resources and students can transfer between campuses more easily. While the addition of this major has not changed the status of the Jewish Studies program, it will draw more attention to CSUN. Most people don’t realize that our campus offers more Jewish Studies courses than any other in the CSU or UC systems.

The Jewish Studies and Religious Studies parts of me overlap, so it’s hard sometimes to sort them out. I think we all benefit from this. I see this most with my current book project, which looks at contemporary mysticism and religious syncretism – that is, how elements of different religions are being combined or incorporated into mainstream religions or into new constructs entirely. My focus is on the Kabbalah

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E x L R e p o r t • F a l l 2 0 0 5 Page 3

ExL Salutes – CSUN’s Department of Religious Studies Promoting religious literacy in the modern world’s most religiously diverse community since 1968

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As the center for higher education in this region, CSUN is committed to creating lifetime learning opportunities for members of the community through its intellectual resources. “ExL Salutes,” a regular ExL Report feature, spotlights noteworthy University educators whose careers exemplify this commitment.

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(continued from page 3)

Centre. This is a new and very international religious group. It takes from Judaism, but the practitioners claim they are presenting “wisdom,” not religion, and they are appealing to people of all religious backgrounds. For my own research and understanding, I can turn to a colleague who is a Hindu specialist and say, “Is what the Kabbalah people are saying about karma really Hinduism?” Or when I look at what they are doing with meditation, I can ask my colleagues, “How similar is this to the Catholic monastic tradition?” It’s great being in this department and doing this kind of research!

*To learn about Jewish Studies speakers scheduled for this fall, please visit www.csun.edu/jewish.studies/calendar.html.

Amir HussainAssociate Professor, Islam

I was born in Pakistan, but my family moved to Toronto, Canada, when I was four. I was the first kid to go to college. I went to the University of Toronto and majored in psychology. While I was there, I realized that I wanted to be a professor. I also realized that my real interest was religion. That is, while psychology is about how people behave, I was most interested in why people do the kinds of religious things they do. So my doctorate is in religion. My dissertation was on Muslim communities in Toronto, with which I did a lot of community service during my years at the university.

Before coming to California, I taught courses in religious studies at several universities in Canada. I was also the first male to serve as dean of women at University College at the University of Toronto. I was still working on my dissertation when I came to CSUN in 1997. Aside from the typical Canadian fascination with Los Angeles, the fact that there are more Muslims within an hour’s drive of campus than in all of Canada was very appealing, given my research on Muslim communities.

I was originally here as a full-time lecturer on a series of one-year appointments. When I finished my Ph.D. in 2001, I was converted over to my present tenure-track position. That was also the year of 9/11. Before that, not very many people in this area were aware that Islam is the second largest religious tradition in the world. Suddenly, Islam became a hot topic, and I received all sorts of invitations to speak on the subject.

One of these was from Extended Learning, which put together the free seminar series, “Understanding Our Complex World.” Several CSUN departments participated. I taught the programs on understanding Islam and the Qu’ran. This event provided a perfect opportunity for the university to show the community that we have experts in many areas. The free “Breakfast at CSUN” series that Extended Learning started last year for local business people is the same idea.*

*The Tseng College invites CSUN professors to submit their ideas for seminar topics of interest to local business executives for the 2006-2007 academic year to Caroline Miranda at ext. 4852 or Caroline.miranda@csun.edu.

Another way of broadening understanding about religion is through courses in religion and film, which enable people who may be curious about other religions to see the roles that various religious beliefs play in dramatic contexts. I am co-chair of the Religion, Film and Visual Culture group of the American Academy of Religion, and I’ve been teaching “Religion and Film” here at CSUN for years. In 2001, I taught a course in “Religion and Contemporary Film” for Extended Learning. My examples included not only explicitly religious films like The Apostle but also Fight Club and The Matrix.

Starting in 2007, I will be teaching ethics in ExL’s Public Sector Management bachelor’s degree-completion program. This will be a new course, but it is similar to the one that Pat [Nichelson] teaches for MPA. It relates to religious studies because what is seen as appropriate and ethical behavior can differ from one religious culture to another. Today, it’s not unusual for organizations to have employees from more than a dozen different traditions, so it’s essential to understand the religious component of ethnic differences. Out in the community, I’ve done some work along these lines with Northridge Hospital, helping physicians in their dealings with Muslim patients.

I think we all realize that interacting with the community is as much a part of being good scholars as our teaching and scholarly activities. In a sense, the Religious Studies department is a model for the kinds of things the university is asking all of us to do in this regard. We all do service with different organizations. We give talks all over the place. We write not only scholarly papers for peer review journals but also Op/Ed pieces that get published in the Los Angeles Times.

Some of us are also working on books. I am writing a textbook, Muslims: Islam in the 21st Century. One of the themes is the diversity within Islam. We often speak of Muslims as if they are a cohesive group, but there is a whole spectrum of belief, just as there is in Christianity. In America, 30 percent of Muslims are African-American, 33 percent are Middle Eastern and 35 percent are South Asians. There are also different linguistic groups within Islam and a wide range of ideologies, from quite liberal to very conservative. So when we talk about Muslims, which are we talking about? By not only showing the differences but also pointing out the commonalities, we are at least getting the dialogue started.

[Editor’s note: For the academic year 2003-04, Hussain was selected as CSUN’s Jerome Richfield Memorial Scholar or top researcher in the arts, sciences and humanities.]

Mutombo Nkulu-N’SenghaAssistant Professor, Indigenous Religions

I was born in a village in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My father was a chief in the Luba tribal tradition. Up to the age of 12, I learned Luba wisdom and religious worldview through folktales, proverbs and culture. A Catholic priest from Poland came to my village when I was very small. His visit inspired me to think that if I became a priest, I would be good, help other people, and go to heaven.

When I was 13, I went to the minor seminary in the industrial city of Kolwezi-Kanzenze. This was basically a high school, but you lived there. Besides studying literature, history, Latin, French, mathematics and physics, you got a good dose of religion – both doctrine and practice. Eighty percent of the professors were Europeans and many of the students were of different ethnicities, so I was having my first experience of the world as a global village. After finishing high school, I went to major seminary in the industrial city of Lubumbashi and later joined the Jesuit fathers in Kinshasa. I studied philosophy for four years in both places. I was the first in my family to go to college. I am also the only one in my family who studied religion and wanted to be a priest.

After studies at the Jesuit Institut de Philosophie Saint Pierre Canisius in Kinshasa, I went to Rome where I studied at the Jesuit Gregorian University and the Biblicum. At the same time I worked as broadcaster at the Vatican Radio. I also took courses in political science at an institute attached to the diocese of Rome that was dedicated to the study of the social doctrine of the Church on modern economic, political and social issues. This interested me very much. I finished my training for the priesthood while I was there, but I left before ordination and came to the United States.

I arrived at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1993 and earned my doctorate in the Religious Studies department. My dissertation was on the theology and philosophy of human rights. While I was in the eastern United States, I taught courses in philosophy, religion and history at Haverford College and Montclair State University as well as at Temple, where I taught “African Philosophy,” “African Religions,” “Asian Religions,” “Intellectual Heritage of the West” and “World Religions” for several semesters. I enjoyed this very much, but I wanted a tenure-track position. I applied for two jobs and was offered both. One was in Pennsylvania. The other was at CSUN. I chose California and came here in 2003.

I like the weather, of course, but I also like the campus environment. I find the palm trees very beautiful. I was hired to teach indigenous religions and global Christianity. Other courses I have taught here – “Contemporary Religious Thought,” “Introduction to the Study of Religion” and “World Religions” – are the same ones all of us in the department teach. We are now planning a course on religion and globalization. I am excited about this course because my global perspective is what I think I have to contribute to this university. Globalization is here to stay, and it’s raising religious and ethical issues, such as where economic justice fits in with foreign policy. It is important that religion address the issues of world peace and the global market.

For me, teaching critical thinking in terms of religion has been part of my mission all along. This is not always easy. When I raise the questions “Why be religious?” and “What does it mean to be religious?” with my students, they think I’m an atheist. But faith is a very important element of cultural identity, and 90 percent of the world’s people believe in something. Communist Russia tried atheism and failed to show that an atheistic society could be better, so I don’t think that’s the solution.

I do think we need to have more inter- and intra-religious dialogue. I would like to make a bridge with the community in these areas, and I would be more than happy to work with Extended Learning on addressing this need. This fall I am organizing a conference on inter-religious dialogue that will include people from different religious communities. Ideally, we would offer something like this every year.

We also have something called “Global Village Forum,” which I created here with Peri Klemm from art history and Florence Kyomuigisha of Women’s Studies in the aftermath of 9/11. This is a series of monthly meetings for CSUN students. Each meeting focuses on a single topic. Topics can be proposed by anyone, and anyone can make a presentation. Every point of view needs to be heard. These days, we all say that we live in a global village, but we still function with a tribal mentality. My goal is to promote global consciousness and global citizenship.

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July 22, 2005 – 10:15 a.m.

A certain edginess fills the computer lab in Sierra Hall 392 this sticky July morning. The students – 25 senior citizens – have passed the halfway point in the six-week

“Introduction to Senior Computers” course and know that they must complete their basic training in Word today so they can learn to use e-mail next week and start surfing the Internet in the final class.

Even so, a few students can’t recall how to get from drive C to their floppies, where the sample letter on which they’ll be working is stored. Others have the letter on their screens but are unable to locate the toolbar control that will let them change the size of the text as lead instructor and Senior Computers co-founder Morrie Cutler now asks them to do.

No one is lost for long, though, because help is literally right over their shoulders. As Cutler directs attention to a wall projection of the letter with a metal pointer, 12 assistants work the aisles, stopping at the slightest sign of student confusion. While their backgrounds range from aerospace engineering to law to teaching, each is a long-time member of The SAGE Society – CSUN’s learning-in-retirement program – who enjoys sharing computer knowledge with fellow retirees.

Leon Bush, for example, is a retired aerospace engineer who teaches courses in Internet research at two local libraries and serves as lead instructor for the final class in the SAGE series. “I’ve been with Senior Computers for at least 10 years, and I’m not tired of it yet,” he confides.

Senior Computers celebrated its 15th anniversary this spring. Cutler, who founded SAGE in 1987, launched the introductory computer course for senior citizens in spring 1990 with only eight participants and one helper, Jerry Eisen. Since then, approximately 600 seniors have attended the classes. The 12-hour course is offered in weekly two-hour segments in January and July, when regular university classes are not in session.

Cutler, a retired elementary school teacher, and Eisen, a retired engineer, met while attending an Elderhostel program in Idyllwild, where they discovered that they lived near each other and shared an interest in learning about computers. Cutler confesses that he was only about one class ahead of his students when Senior Computers started. “In 1992, I sharpened my game by attending computer

training classes for CSUN staff. I shared what I learned with Jerry, and we were off to the races.”

Cutler began advertising the program in local newspapers, a strategy that continues to draw new students. However, an article about the program in the Los Angeles Times in December 1991 gave Senior Computers its biggest boost. More than 200 applications were received following the story’s appearance.

It was at this point that assistant Eisen became Cutler’s co-instructor and eight SAGE members who had either taken the course or possessed previous computer experience became volunteer “monitors.” After subsequent training to upgrade their skills, the monitors were promoted to “technicians.” In honor of their long-term dedication to the project, Cutler now refers to the assistants as “Stalwarts.”

“We’ve also benefited from the ongoing support of the university,” Cutler says. CSUN donates the lab space, with Oviatt Library systems administrator Eric Willis acting as landlord. The computer projector and temporary parking passes for the instructors and Stalwarts are provided by Extended Learning, which has sponsored SAGE from its inception.

August 5, 2005 – 10:30 a.m.Outdoors it’s muggier than ever this morning,

but here in the lab, the 20 seniors who have stayed the course are noticeably cooler and calmer than they were in Week #4 – with good reason. They’ve mastered basic Word and had fun with Yahoo e-mail. They are ready to take on the Web.

Bush is at the front of the room today, using a projection of the Oviatt Library’s home page to explain the basic architecture of the Internet Express browser. He points to the title bar, the pull-down menu bar, and “favorites” before instructing everyone to type www.cnn.com on the address bar. In this moment of truth, some are unable to find the bar. Others pause after keying in the URL, perhaps awaiting permission to proceed. Then, almost in unison, CNN’s breaking news banner blazes red across all the screens.

“Isn’t this exciting!” retired dental hygienist Joan Riley exclaims, even though this is not her first visit to the Internet. “I’ve been going to my brokerage’s Web site to review my accounts,” she explains, “but I’ve never gone anywhere else. I didn’t know how.”

Next stop: www.time.gov. Instructor Bush uses this site to illustrate the difference between suffixes

such as .com (which would have taken the class to the magazine’s Web site) and .gov (where they can check the time of day anywhere in the world).

On a roll now, the students use .edu to visit their alma maters – UCLA. USC. Cornell. Someone starts singing his school’s song in a mellow baritone. A soprano across the room ventures a few lines from a rival’s hymn. Laughter and more singing ensue. Bush restores order by starting a Google search for information on “arthritis drugs.” It works. Everyone becomes quite serious – for all of three minutes. Playfulness returns as he shares favorite sites for finding recipes, getting updates on traffic information, reading about movies, and obtaining directions.

By the time Cutler and Bush ask everyone to log-off, the students comply very reluctantly. After all, it’s only 11:45 and that recipe for white nectarine pie looked awfully good. At this point, Stalwart Baxter Scrugg, a retired teacher and realtor looking dapper in dress shirt and tie, takes the floor.

“As you know, all of us in this room have lived most of our lives in the 20th century,” he says, “but with your computer skills and access to the Internet, you are now fully in the 21st century! The only trouble is that some of your friends may not know what you’re talking about when you go home, so we’ve created a little conversation piece for you.”

Scruggs holds a framed document above his head. It is one of the “Certificates of Achievement” designed and produced by Scrugg for each of the Senior Computers participants. Each document is not only framed but also personalized with the student’s name and photograph. As the graduates receive these awards, they express their appreciation to the SAGE team and smile proudly for the ExL Report photographer. But the biggest smiles in the room belong to Cutler, Eisen and the Stalwarts who, like Bush, obviously aren’t tired of “Senior Computers” yet.

For more information, visit http://exlweb.csun.edu/sage.

Dropping in on “Senior Computers” – The SAGE Society’sBridge to the 21st Century Celebrates 15th Anniversary

EXL REPORT

Joyce Feucht-Haviar, dean

Marcella Tyler, executive director, public relations, marketing and communications

Victoria Branch, editor

Rika Toyama-Gaines, art director

Hildamerie Reyes, graphic designer

Editorial comments, suggestions and contributions are welcome.

Phone: (818) 677–3129 Fax: (818) 677–7639

E-mail: victoria.branch@csun.edu

Mailing address: The Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, California 91330–8383

The ExL Report is published twice yearly for the faculty and constituents of The Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning, California State University, Northridge, by the ExL Public Relations, Marketing and Communications department.

Shirley and Melvin Hendricks proudly display their graduation certificates. “My wife made me come,” he said.

Online at last! Senior Computer students pay rapt attention as the first Web site they visit appears on their screens.

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Morrie Cutler, founder of the SAGE Society

Retired aerospace engineer Fred Kahn

enjoys being a “Stalwart.”

E x L R e p o r t • F a l l 2 0 0 5Page 6

18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, California 91330–8343

Statement of Nondiscrimination and Disability Services InformationCal State Northridge does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status, as monitored by the Department of Labor (Office of Federal Contract Compliance) and the Department of Education, or in violation of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the regulations adopted thereunder.

For information concerning special services to accommodate a physical, perceptual or learning disability, please contact Students with Disabilities Resources on campus at (818) 677-2869 or (818) 677-2578 (VTTY/Message).

Statement of Purpose and Vision

Purpose: The Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning (ExL) exists to expand access to and strengthen the influence of the scholarship and teaching of the University and its faculty. ExL develops and offers exemplary study opportunities, credit and noncredit, which are rooted in the University's scholarship and teaching and are designed to ensure that the individuals, communities and organizations served by the University achieve their lifelong learning goals.

Vision: ExL will use its full capabilities and resources with integrity, versatility and imagination to make a positive difference both within the University and in the larger community through the power of lifelong learning.

The highest of these was a “best of show” award for the Business Journal ad campaign noted above, which also won a gold award in this competition. The other UCEA prizes were a gold award in the outdoor billboard category, a bronze award in the booklet category (for the Compendium of Programs for Advanced Professional Development) and another bronze in the “special report” category for California State University Extended University: An Essential Resource for the Future of California’s Economy.

The Compendium also earned the Tseng College a “crystal award for excellence” in the international Communicator awards competition. “Awards of distinc-tion” were given for the CSU Extended University report and the H.R. certificate print ad campaign. The ExL Report received an honorable mention in this competition. In the annual Admissions Marketing Report competition, merit awards were earned by the H.R. ad campaign and a direct mail piece (“We’ve changed”) while the ExL Report received a gold award in the newsletter category. Finally, just before press-time, The Tseng College received notification of two awards won in Graphic Design USA’s “American Graphic Design 2005” competition: one for the H.R. ad series and the other for the Fall 2004 ExL Report.

As for individual honors, Marcella Tyler, executive director of public relations, marketing and communica-tions for The Tseng College, was recently installed in the Omega Chapter of Phi Beta Delta, an honor society for those who promote international scholarship.

AppointmentsMyriam Cedeño-Knepper has joined The Tseng College as senior program coordinator for the Distance Learning Systems Group. Prior to this assignment, Cedeño worked as SOLAR coordinator for CSUN’s College of Social and Behavioral Studies. Her previous

experience with The Tseng College includes two and a half years as administrative support assistant to the Interpretation and Translation program. Cedeño was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She earned her bachelor’s degree in international business management from Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil and expects to complete her CSUN Master of Public Administration graduate project this fall.

Additional benefits produced by the Academy were recently noted by Edward McAleer, CSU dean of Extended Education. “First, and most importantly, the partnership model between higher education and community government is now being explored in several other locations including San Diego’s North County.” said McAleer. “Additionally, the courses, program design and other learning services provided to L.A. County have been implemented by a number of our extended/continuing education units.”

The Academy has also been honored with several local and national awards, including the Golden Eagle, the highest award of the county’s Quality and Productivity Commission (2001), and an achievement award from the National Association of Counties (2002). The Academy received academic recognition when it became the recipient of the 2002-2003 outstanding noncredit program award from the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA).

“CSUN takes great pride in the role we have played in helping the Academy surpass its goals during its first five years,” CSUN president Jolene Koester said. “We stand ready to help achieve significantly more in the coming years.”

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ExL Briefs Henrik Minassians has joined The Tseng College in the newly created position of director, public sector programs. Prior to this appoint-ment, he served as a special consultant to ExL on the start up of the Master of Public Administration cohort programs in Santa Barbara, Santa

Clarita and the City of Industry. Minassians has also taught in the MPA program and for CSUN’s Department of Political Science, through which he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He received his doctorate in political science from and taught at State University of New York, Albany. While in New York, Minaissians also served as a senior research associate at the Rockefeller Institute.

Evan Scheffel has joined The Tseng College as program development director for the Master of Knowledge Management, Master of Library Management, and Executive MBA programs. Before deciding that his heart was with higher education, Scheffel worked for Fox Television

and several law firms. He came to CSUN in 2001 as a lecturer in business law and management for the College of Business and Economics, where he has taught for the last five years. Scheffel has also taught in the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Irvine. He holds a B.A. in criminology from the University of South Florida, an MBA from Nova University, a J.D. from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center.

[Editor’s Note: The new Master of Knowledge Management program will start in December. For infor-mation, please visit the Web site (http://tsengcollege.csun.edu/km) or call (818) 677–7714.]

Service AnniversariesThe ExL Report congratulates the following Tseng

College staffers on their long-term service to CSUN: Five years – Liz Barrett (L.A. County Learning Academy), Tasia Erickson (Client Services), Jo Lynn Feinstein (Business Development), Barbra Frye (Distance Learning), Kiran Kalra (Business Development), Bessie Karras-Lazaris (International and Intensive English Program), Jim Moran (Technology, Design and Production), Hildamerie Reyes (Public Relations, Marketing and Communications), and Michael Weaver (Finance and Human Resources). Fifteen years – Richard Barrett (Finance and Human Resources) and Joyce Mikus (Academic Support and Noncredit Programs).

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County Renews

Fal l 2005