Hornets Policy & Politics Alumni

Hello fellow alum and happy Monday! As we inch closer and closer to our event, we want to introduce all of our participants. So without further ado... Meet Our Panelists, pt. 3 ; Dr. Viridiana Diaz Dr. Viridiana Diaz has been in the field of higher education for the past 20 years. She serves as the Associate Vice President of Strategic Student Support Programs at Sacramento State.... She has dedicated her professional career to creating a more inclusive campus for first-generation, Pell eligible, migrant, immigrant, undocumented, LGBTQIA+ and out of school youth. She provides primary oversight to equity programs offering academic advising, personal counseling, tutoring, mentoring, peer-based support and population specific interventions including the College Assistance Migrant Program, High School Equivalency Migrant Program, Serna Center, Dreamer Resource Center, Multi-Cultural Center, Pride Center, Women’s Resource Center and Career Center. In 2012, she completed a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy. She is also a graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s Executive Leadership Academy, Stanford’s Executive Leadership Management Institute, the Harvard Institute for Higher Education and is currently a 2020-2021 fellow in the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Leadership Academy.

Good afternoon! As the weekend winds down, we want to continue to introduce you all to our panelists for our What’s Possible Speaker Series. Read on to see who we have in store! Meet Our Panelists, pt. 2 ; Linda Vazquez Linda has fifteen years of experience working in higher education and advocacy, which includes working for Rio Hondo College, California State University, Fullerton and ACT, Inc.... Prior to joining the Chancellor’s Office, Linda served as Senior Public Affairs Director for the Campaign for College Opportunity, a non-profit advocacy organization focused on increasing the number of college graduates through research, policy advocacy and reform. In her nearly five years at the Campaign, Linda has led cross-sector coalitions and efforts for the successful passage and implementation of community college student success policies, including the Associate Degree for Transfer, Student-Centered Funding Formula, AB 705 (Irwin) and AB 1895 (Calderon). She has testified in front of higher education governing bodies, led meetings with legislative champions, and spearheaded statewide advocacy campaigns in support of student success reforms, making her a strong addition to the Government Relations team. She completed the California Education Policy Fellowship program and the Hispanas Organized for Political Equality Leadership Institute and in 2020, was named one of Orange County LULAC’s Women of the Year. We look forward to seeing you this Thursday, Nov. 12th at 5:30 p.m for our Fall 2020 What's Possible Speaker Series. Click the link in our Facebook Event to RSVP.

Meet Our Panelists, pt. 1 ; Kevin Cook Kevin Cook is the associate center director of the PPIC Higher Education Center. His research interests include education finance and policy for both K12 and higher education, and his current work focuses on performance-based funding, online learning, and public pensions. Before joining PPIC, he worked as a research assistant in the investments division of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, where he conducted sustainability risk analysis. He holds an MPPA from Sacramento State University and a BA in history from Occidental College. We look forward to seeing you this Thursday, Nov. 12th at 5:30 p.m for our Fall 2020 What's Possible Speaker Series. Click the link in our Facebook Event to RSVP.

Welcome to the weekend, fellow hornets! As you know, our What’s Possible Speaker Series is coming up just next week!! Swipe to Meet Our Moderator, Sawsan Morrar. Sawsan Morrar is a multimedia journalist, and is the school accountability and culture reporter at The Sacramento Bee. She covers K-12 and college education. She earned her masters at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She earned her undergraduate degree at UC Davis, where she majored in International ...Relations, and earned minors in Middle East South Asia Studies and Communication. She was an associate producer at Capital Public Radio. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, Vice, KQED. She reports on a wide range of issues including climate change, police shootings and legislation. She is a grantee for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner as a scholarship recipient. We look forward to seeing you next Thursday, Nov. 12th at 5:30 p.m for our Fall 2020 What's Possible Speaker Series. Click the link in our Facebook Event to RSVP.

Happy Friday fellow Hornets! Have you been wanting to get on our email list? Or suddenly realizing that you aren't getting any more of our Chapter Newsletters? No worries - we have noticed this ourselves. All you will need to do to get re-subscribed is to 'claim your membership' with the Sac State Alumni Association at this website here: ... http://csus.imodules.com/s/1894/19/home.aspx If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us!!

Even though we had to change the date, we're looking forward to seeing everyone at the What's Possible Panel on November 12th. Until then, our eyes are glued to the Presidential Debate. In the meantime, make sure to click the link in our Facebook Event to RSVP!

Hello fellow hornets! As an Update to our October 2020 What’s Possible Speaker Series, we have changed the date from October 22nd to November 12th! To specify our topic we will be hosting a discussion on increasing equity in education! We are so excited to have you all attend via Zoom Webinar! So don’t forget to update your calendars with our new date - November 12th! Stay tuned to see snapshots of our panelists. As always, please Message us with any questions you may have.

Hello everyone, we made it to Friday! Today we are going to have a #FlashbackFriday to one of our #FeaturedAlumni, Eric Dowdy! Keep reading for a short bio. Eric has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 25 years including charitable organizations and trade associations. He has been a registered lobbyist for many years and works to shape public policy by working with the state Legislature and agencies. Currently, he is focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic on behalf of nonprofit nursing homes and senior living and care providers. Thank you, Eric, for being our #FeaturedAlum! If you are interested or know someone who would be a great spotlight, please DM us for the quick application. We love connecting with our fellow hornets!

Check out these pictures from our Annual Crab Feed 2020! It is some of our current board members that you will get to see highlighted in the near future. We can’t wait to host more events, but in the meantime be sure to practice #SocialDistancing and #WearAMask to help #StopTheSpread. We will get through this together and be back to enjoying some delicious crab as usual!

We're excited to hold our What's Possible Speaker Series online this fall. Join @hppa_alum and Sacramento ASPA as we host the forum on Oct. 22.

Happy Monday, everyone! As promised, we have secured a date and time as you can see in the photo. So please join us on October 22nd at 6 p.m. Via Zoom. The RSVP link and panel members will be announced soon as well, so stay tuned!

We are so excited to announce that we are holding our What's Possible Speaker Series online! If you are new or unfamiliar, we choose a policy topic we think would provide a nuanced discussion and get subject matter experts from our community, fellow alum, and even some of our very own Sac State staff to come and chat with us about a particular topic. The topic we are kicking off this 2020-2021 year with is Prop. 16 Equal Opportunities for All.... Stay tuned for more information as the day gets closer!

Celebrate Suzi Byrd with PPA this Friday at 5. Email [email protected] for the Zoom link and to share any photos. "After a Quarter-Century of Service to the Students, Alumni, and Faculty of Sacramento State’s Master in Public Policy and Administration Program and Master of Science in Urban Land Development Program, Suzi Byrd has Accepted a Promotion to Senior Program Coordinator at our University’s College of Continuing Education."