Ivor Weiner, Ph.D. CSUN. Photo credit: CSU

The California State University (CSU) will honor four faculty and one staff member for their outstanding commitment to student achievement and contributions in their fields with the Wang Family Excellence Awards. As part of their recognition, honorees will each receive a $20,000 award that is established through a gift from CSU Trustee Emeritus Stanley T. Wang and administered through the CSU Foundation.

The honorees will be recognized Tuesday, Jan. 30, at a regularly scheduled meeting of the CSU Board of Trustees.

“The combined contributions of this year’s Wang Family Excellence Award recipients are reshaping the university and global learning community,” said CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White. “Through the generosity of Trustee Emeritus Stanley T. Wang and his family, these faculty members and administrator – each of whom exemplifies the California State University mission – will receive well-deserved recognition and support for their continuing work.”

The Wang Family Excellence Award celebrates CSU faculty members who have distinguished themselves through outstanding teaching, scholarship, service and innovation in student success. The award also pays tribute to a staff member whose contributions and impact significantly exceed expectations. The awards highlight many of the ways in which CSU faculty and staff are helping students achieve their academic goals through Graduation Initiative 2025.

The five awardees include:
Outstanding Faculty Service Award: Ivor Weiner, Ph.D., Cal State Northridge: Weiner, a professor of Special Education, has established an outstanding record of accomplishment and service at Cal State Northridge. His reputation extends to the larger community through his directorship of the university’s Family Focus Resource Center, which provides support and training to more than 1,500 families that have children with disabilities. Weiner has secured more than $6 million in grants for the center and other campus and community programs that help children and adults with special needs.

Outstanding Staff Performance Award: Berenecea Johnson Eanes, Ph.D., Cal State Fullerton: Eanes has achieved transformative results in her role as a member of the President’s Cabinet and as vice president for the Division of Student Affairs at Cal State Fullerton. Eanes helped develop and implement the university’s new strategic plan and re-engineered programs through the Student Success Initiative, which has already resulted in a 30 percent improvement in six-year graduation rates and a 65 percent improvement in four-year graduation rates for first-time freshmen. Eanes also launched a number of campus initiatives to support success among the university’s diverse population of more than 40,000 students.

Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award: Merryl Goldberg, Ed.D., Cal State San Marcos: Goldberg, a professor of Music and Arts Integration, has demonstrated sustained excellence in her teaching at Cal State San Marcos, where she focuses on the role that arts play in academic success, career development and empathy. Goldberg gained international recognition for founding the university’s Center ARTES, which offers innovative programs for teaching art to young students. She also helped launch a project to train grade-school teachers to use arts to improve student reading and language skills.

Outstanding Faculty Innovator in Student Success Award: Mary Beth Love, Ph.D., San Francisco State: Love is the executive director of the award-winning Metro College Success Program at San Francisco State and serves as the university’s chair of the Department of Health Education. Love has helped secure nearly $15 million in external funding to develop, research and institutionalize the Metro program, which has been pivotal to the success of low-income, first-generation students at both San Francisco State and the sister program at City College of San Francisco.

Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award: Suzanne Phelan, Ph.D., Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: Phelan is a professor of Kinesiology and director of the STRIDE Center for Obesity Research at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Phelan has authored a respected body of scholarship on health and obesity in low-income families that has been published in several respected academic journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association. She has secured more than $12 million from the National Institutes of Health funding to support her research, and also leads a multi-disciplinary effort to improve health outcomes for low-income populations through the Cal Poly Women and Infants’ Mobile Health Unit.

The CSU Board of Trustees meeting will be held at the CSU Chancellor’s Office, 401 Golden Shore, Long Beach, CA 90802.

For more information on the Wang Family Excellence Award and the 2018 awardees, visit http://bit.ly/WangFamilyExcellenceAwards.