A new position is rapidly becoming an important part of the organizational landscape: chief diversity officer. Companies, nonprofits and educational institutions have become increasingly cognizant of the need to address and support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, ability, religion and socioeconomic status in a comprehensive way.

The academic, spiritual and ceremonial events celebrating the inauguration of President Lori E. Varlotta, PhD — delayed by the pandemic — were opportunities to restate her vision for the campus.

Bits of your pants, shirts, socks and fleece jackets are polluting local waters. Cal Lutheran biology students have discovered this disturbing fashion dilemma as part of a scientific research project.

As the wind exhaled, it shook the grounds of Cal Lutheran. Midday in January at Kinsgmen Park, a few students pulled up their hoodies. But Kathy Willcuts and Steven Garcia, the latter wearing traditional handcrafted American Indian attire with a headdress fashioned as an eagle’s head, welcomed the wind as a living, breathing presence.

Nearly four years after joining the Cal Lutheran faculty as an assistant professor of psychology, Amanda ElBassiouny, PhD, likes to joke that she’s a senior. But ElBassiouny is in no rush to leave campus at the end of the academic year.

When Kathie (Schaap ’89) Hale met her husband Rich 23 years ago, she was only a casual runner. “The farthest I had ever run was 3 miles,” she said. “But he was doing these 50-mile epic adventures. That was one of the things that drew me to him.”

Being at Oxford University in England, speaking at Oxford Union Hall, was a once-in-a-lifetime, out-of-body experience. Yet there I was, a member of the “Oxford Round Table,” in 2005. Very little in my life could have allowed me to imagine that I would be in England at that time and place.