Recent News
Ethnic Studies Department Welcomes Three New Faculty Members In DEI-Focused Cluster Hire
Dec 2, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
In 2021, the Ethnic Studies Department welcomed Assistant Professors Dan Castilow, Lydia Heberling and Ryan Buyco as part of CLA’s 2021-22 DEI-Focused Cluster Hires. This search was designed to attract a diverse group of academics invested in inclusive teaching and dedicated to scholarly contributions in this area. All have been involved in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in their departments, our college, the university and in the community.
Dan Castilow
Dan Castilow’s areas of expertise are in Black masculinities, racism and antiblackness in leisure culture. Specifically, Castilow’s research has focused of these concepts within the middle class of Trinidad and Tobago, but he is currently in expanding it to include the same concepts within Black communities of the southern United States.
Dan Castilow
Before coming to Cal Poly, Castilow earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Tulane University and his BA in international studies from Morehouse College. Previously, Castilow was also a recipient of the Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Fellowship, and he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to complete research in Trinidad and Tobago.
According to Castilow, the interdisciplinary aspect of teaching ethnic studies is what he finds most rewarding in his classes.
“During an academic quarter, students might read historical texts, ethnographic texts, literature and poetry,” Castilow said. “The interdisciplinarity allows students with varied interests to engage in the class, and it also challenges all of us to approach key questions in Ethnic Studies from different perspectives.”
This quarter, Castilow is teaching Introduction to African American Studies (ES 254), but he hopes to later be able to offer a course on Black masculinities and possibly a future study abroad course in Trinidad and Tobago.
Lydia Heberling
Lydia Herberling’s areas of expertise are in American Indian literatures, with a focus on the literatures from Indigenous California, as well as the emerging field of critical surf studies. Her most recent work focuses on aesthetic and formal innovations in twentieth and twenty-first century California Native literatures. She is currently working on an article that examines the relationship between colonialism, catastrophic waters and surfing in three creative non-fiction works by Indigenous writers.
Lydia Heberling
Before coming to Cal Poly, Heberling earned her Pd.D. in English at the University of Washington in 2021. While working on her dissertation, Heberling taught classes on various subjects ranging from writing composition to Indigenous research methods.
Heberling was drawn to California, where she had grown up, after it became the first state in the nation to require ethnic studies in public high school curriculum. “There’s a lot of really exciting energy that is happening in ethnic studies departments across California, and especially at Cal Poly,” Heberling said. “I’m really excited as someone who grew up in California to see this more expansive, intercultural education being promoted and encouraged.”
Heberling will teach Introduction to American Indian Studies (ES 253) each quarter for her first two years at Cal Poly, and she also hopes to add in additional courses soon.
“It is really exciting to me that I get to have 130 new Cal Poly students in my classroom once a quarter for ten weeks to talk about issues in American Indian studies,” Heberling said. “This is what I look forward to –– walking students through that process of unlearning and the re-learning. It’s not their fault that they didn’t ever know this stuff.”
In a broader sense, Heberling is also looking forward to helping fill in the educational gaps that were missing in her own public-school education.
“As someone who identifies –– in all of the complex ways that this is true –– as a settler with some Mexican American and Hispanic background and some of the complicated identity formations that come out of that, we didn’t hear a lot about native culture and presence growing up here,” Heberling said. “So, that’s what my dissertation really focused on, and that’s what I'm hoping to do at Cal Poly.”
Ryan Buyco
Ryan Buyco
Buyco’s areas of expertise are in Asian American studies, with a focus on the militarized context of Okinawa, which is a small island archipelago in Southern Japan known for its large presence of American military bases. Buyco is currently researching the transpacific trajectories that brought Filipino American men to Okinawa given the large presence U.S. military bases there.
Before moving to San Luis Obispo in early September, Buyco was a post-doctoral fellow in Asian American and Global Asian studies at Colorado College. Prior to this, Buyco completed his PhD in Asian Literature, Religion and Culture at Cornell University in 2019.
Buyco said he was drawn to Cal Poly due to its ‘Learn by Doing’ educational method. “I think this is really in line with my own teaching philosophy, where I provide opportunities for students to connect the classroom to the greater world through various projects” he said.
Buyco will teach Introduction to Asian American Studies, which explores the various sub-fields that make up the larger field of Asian American studies. Buyco is able to touch on U.S. militarization along with many other topics, such as critical refugee studies and settler colonialism. For the final project of the course, students complete a social media project on Instagram (#calpolyasianamstudies) to raise awareness of Asian American studies at Cal Poly and beyond.
“One of the things that I love about teaching this class is that I get to teach students that ‘Asian American’ is not just a descriptive category, but rather, it is an idea that emerges from the Asian American movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s in order to address the history of racism in the United States and American imperialism abroad,” Buyco said.
Buyco’s goals for his time at Cal Poly include helping to grow the Ethnic Studies Department overall, and specifically helping to grow Asian American studies at Cal Poly through developing new course offerings and working with colleagues to hopefully make a new minor in Asian American studies in the near future.
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Political Science Professor R.G. Cravens Selected as Public Fellow for Public Religion Research Institute’s New Initiative
Dec 2, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
R.G. Cravens
Professor R.G. Cravens will be one of 16 public fellows to pioneer the Public Religion Research Institute’s (PRRI) new Religion and Renewing Democracy initiative.
Cravens, along with three other professors from universities across the country, will specialize in the LGBTQ Rights section of the new project. The fellowship, which began in October, will last one year, but is renewable for a second.
“What I envisioned doing, as far as this fellowship, was to make information public that fully captures the lived reality of LGBTQ people,” Cravens said. “Most popular depictions — and even scientific studies — often fail to fully capture the experience of religious LGBTQ people.”
Cravens’ research examines the intersection of LGBTQ+ politics and religion, including his work through Cal Poly’s Research, Economic Development and Graduate Education (R-EDGE) Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities (RSCA) Grant for the 2021-2022 year.
This topic also aligns with political science classes Cravens currently teaches at Cal Poly including Critical Issues in American Politics (POLS 338).
“We tend to see what I call the ‘Will and Grace paradigm’ displayed which is that popular depictions of LGBTQ people are often centered on White, cisgender, well-off male characters who live usually in urban areas, and especially who are not religious,” Cravens said. “We also know from the social scientific research that LGBTQ people are religious for the most part – that is, a majority of LGBTQ people do affiliate with some faith tradition, and so, there’s a whole gap in the social scientific literature that doesn’t pay much attention to that intersection.”
Cravens’ new role will include developing research reports and blog posts that PRRI will feature on its website and disseminate to its professional networks.
In addition to conducting new research and making that information available to the public, Cravens said he is also excited for what this opportunity could mean for his own research.
“[PRRI has] surveys going back several years that have indicators for LGBTQ people measuring attitudes and religious behaviors of LGBTQ people and then attitudes about LGBTQ people,” Cravens said. “That will really help me contextualize what I know and what I’m researching.”
Additionally, Cravens will have the opportunity to collaborate on new research with three other professors on his team who also specialize in religion and LGBTQ+ studies.
“We will share what we know with one another, and we’ll try to develop a research plan to learn more information about how religion affects LGBTQ people and policy,” Cravens said. “And it won’t just focus on religious behavior as I do, but the others contribute specializations in sociology and psychology and in the other social sciences like religious studies.”
While the new role opens up various opportunities for Cravens, some of those opportunities may also be extended to Cal Poly students and community members.
“PRRI offers briefings to the public for its new data releases,” Cravens said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to invite some Cal Poly students.”
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Ethnic Studies Department Welcomes New Assistant Professor Lydia Heberling
Nov 12, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Lydia Heberling
The Ethnic Studies Department welcomed Assistant Professor Lydia Heberling as one of CLA’s 2021-22 Ethnic Studies Cluster Hires. This search was designed to attract a group of academics invested in equitable and inclusive teaching and dedicated to scholarly contributions in this area. All have been involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in their departments, our college, the university, and the community.
Herberling’s areas of expertise are in American Indian literatures, with a focus on the literatures from Indigenous California, as well as the emerging field of critical surf studies. Her most recent work focuses on aesthetic and formal innovations in twentieth and twenty-first-century California Native literatures. She is currently working on an article that examines the relationship between colonialism, catastrophic waters, and surfing in three creative non-fiction works by Indigenous writers.
Before coming to Cal Poly, Heberling earned her Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington in 2021. While working on her dissertation, Heberling taught classes on various subjects, ranging from writing composition to Indigenous research methods.
Heberling was drawn to California, where she had grown up, as it became the first state in the nation to pass a law requiring ethnic studies in public high school curriculum. The new requirement will take effect in 2025. “There’s a lot of really exciting energy that is happening in ethnic studies departments across California, and especially at Cal Poly,” Heberling said. “I’m really excited as someone who grew up in California to see this more expansive, intercultural education being promoted and encouraged.”
Heberling will teach Introduction to American Indian Studies (ES 253) each quarter for her first two years at Cal Poly, and she also hopes to add in additional courses soon. As a part of the cluster hire, the college also looks forward to any new courses she might choose to propose and create in future quarters.
“It is really exciting to me that I get to have 130 new Cal Poly students in my classroom once a quarter for ten weeks to talk about issues in American Indian studies,” Heberling said. “This is what I look forward to –– walking students through that process of unlearning and then re-learning.”
In a broader sense, Heberling is also looking forward to helping fill in the educational gaps that were missing in her own public-school education.
“As someone who identifies –– in all of the complex ways that this is true –– as a settler with some Mexican American and Hispanic background and some of the complicated identity formations that come out of that, we didn’t hear a lot about Native culture and presence growing up here,” Heberling said. “So, that’s what my dissertation focused on, and that’s what I'm hoping to do at Cal Poly.”
Read the most recent CLA News stories
Ethnic Studies Department Welcomes New Assistant Professor Lydia Heberling
Nov 12, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Lydia Heberling
In 2021, the Ethnic Studies Department welcomed Assistant Professor Lydia Heberling as one of CLA’s 2021-22 DEI-Focused Cluster Hires. This search was designed to attract a diverse group of academics invested in inclusive teaching and dedicated to scholarly contributions in this area. All have been involved in diversity and inclusion efforts in their departments, our college, the university, and in the community.
Herberling’s areas of expertise are in American Indian literatures, with a focus on the literatures from Indigenous California, as well as the emerging field of critical surf studies. Her most recent work focuses on aesthetic and formal innovations in twentieth and twenty-first century California Native literatures. She is currently working on an article that examines the relationship between colonialism, catastrophic waters and surfing in three creative non-fiction works by Indigenous writers.
Before coming to Cal Poly, Heberling earned her Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington in 2021. While working on her dissertation, Heberling taught classes on various subjects ranging from writing composition to Indigenous research methods.
Heberling was drawn to California, where she had grown up, after it became the first state in the nation to require ethnic studies in public high school curriculum. “There’s a lot of really exciting energy that is happening in ethnic studies departments across California, and especially at Cal Poly,” Heberling said. “I’m really excited as someone who grew up in California to see this more expansive, intercultural education being promoted and encouraged.”
Heberling will teach Introduction to American Indian Studies (ES 253) each quarter for her first two years at Cal Poly, and she also hopes to add in additional courses soon.
“It is really exciting to me that I get to have 130 new Cal Poly students in my classroom once a quarter for ten weeks to talk about issues in American Indian studies,” Heberling said. “This is what I look forward to –– walking students through that process of unlearning and the re-learning. It’s not their fault that they didn’t ever know this stuff.”
In a broader sense, Heberling is also looking forward to helping fill in the educational gaps that were missing in her own public-school education. “As someone who identifies –– in all of the complex ways that this is true –– as a settler with some Mexican American and Hispanic background and some of the complicated identity formations that come out of that, we didn’t hear a lot about native culture and presence growing up here,” Heberling said. “So, that’s what my dissertation really focused on, and that’s what I'm hoping to do at Cal Poly.”
Read the most recent CLA News stories
Cal Poly Music Department Releases Fall 2021 Events Calendar
Oct 18, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Cal Poly Marching Band
After more than a year without in-person concerts and performances, Cal Poly’s Music Department is back with live events starting in October.
According to Music Department Chair India D’Avignon, while most classes and rehearsals were still in person for much of last year, performances lacked in-person audiences, something the department is eager to bring back.
“There was just music everywhere,” D’Avignon said of the first few weeks of this fall quarter. “Students were practicing for their auditions, and everyone just seemed so excited.”
There will be five main concerts this fall – one for each of Music Department’s ensembles. First, on October 30, nearly 300 students from Cal Poly Bands will perform at the university’s “Bandfest Returns!” concert, including the Mustang Band, the University Jazz Bands and the Wind Bands.
On November 6, the Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble and guest artists will perform a program of music and dance from the Eastern Mediterranean and larger region. According to Arab Music Ensemble Director Ken Habib, the ensembles will perform “a wide range of Arab art and popular music, as well as seminal selections from historically related cultures.” The concert will feature both a choir and an orchestra. “It’s been a bit surreal, but I quickly felt at home again teaching the ensemble and my other classes in person,” Habib said.
The following week, on November 12, the Cal Poly Fall Jazz Concert will feature the Jazz Ensemble and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble. The two groups will perform music from the album they recorded during the pandemic last year, “another time, another place,” along with music from classic and contemporary writers alike.
Last but not least are the Cal Poly Symphony and Cal Poly Choirs end-of-year concerts. On December 3, guest soloist Tanya Gabrielian will join the Cal Poly Symphony to play classical music with a special underlying theme. According to Cal Poly Symphony Director David Arrivée, all of the songs being performed at the concert were composed by or famously performed by artists who lived with mental illness. Arrivée said this theme was inspired by Gabrielian’s own work and advocacy for mental health awareness.
“I’ve been working with mental health awareness for a decade now,” Gabrielian said. “For me personally, music has never been the purpose of what I do, it’s just the connective tool to bring people together in a community and have a safe space where people can be with each other and experience something together.”
In addition, visual artwork created by people in the local community who live with mental illness will be for sale at the show to raise funds for the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think the reason why classical music has been so lasting is because it expresses emotions that [many people] feel,” Gabrielian said, adding that music can bridge different experiences and offer a common emotional language to bring people together. According to Arrivée, the Cal Poly Symphony has become a safe place for many students, and for some, playing music can be therapeutica form of therapy. “I’ve had people come because they have a lot of stuff going on in their life,” Arrivée said.
The final performance of the quarter will take place on December 4, where the Cal Poly Choirs will perform for the fifth annual Holiday Kaleidoscope concert. All performers and audience members will be masked at the indoor performances, according to Music Department Chair India D’Avignon, and for those held at the Performing Arts Center, proof of either vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test will be required upon entry.
More information and a full events calendar is available on the Music Department’s website.
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Journalism Senior Roselyn Romero Breaks National News with Reporting on Fake Vaccination Cards
Sep 20, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Roselyn Romero
In August, headlines began emerging across the country about college students purchasing fake COVID-19 vaccination cards to meet their schools’ vaccination requirements. Roselyn Romero, a Cal Poly journalism senior, broke the story during her investigative journalism internship at The Associated Press (AP).
Romero had only been working at AP for a few weeks as the Inaugural Intern for the Global Investigations Team when her story began gaining national attention. In addition to being republished by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and ABC News (among many news organizations) Romero was invited to discuss her piece with multiple broadcast outlets, including an appearance on an episode of NPR’s All Things Considered.
Romero began investigating fake vaccination cards after hearing about vaccination requirements within schools and organizations, following her natural curiosity about how verification and enforcement would be handled on such a large scale. Through tireless research, Romero discovered multiple social media accounts selling fake vaccination cards to college students and reported the story that would reach a national audience.
She was initially surprised by the amount of recognition her article received. “I started receiving text messages from my family and friends who saw my story, or they saw my name in say, the Ventura County Star newspaper that I grew up reading,” Romero said.
As successful as her reporting was, though, Romero had overcome feelings of self-doubt to pursue her ambitions. “After all of this, it's reassuring to know that even though odds were stacked against me, I was able to conquer my fears and my doubts,” she said. “When I was applying to internships, I thought ‘I’m just going to apply everywhere and see if they will take me.’ But now, after those 10 weeks of my internship, I’m thinking ‘oh wow. I actually really like this, and I think I want to pursue investigative reporting in the future.’ I hope people can learn from my story that it’s possible for someone who is a woman and a person of color to have success.”
Out of all her recognition, Romero was most gratified by the positive changes universities made in response to the issues identified in her reporting. According to Romero, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released a statement soon after the story broke, stating that they had examined their records and were happy to report that no fraudulent vaccination cards were discovered among their students and staff.
Before her internship at AP, Romero spent two years working as a producer at KSBY while pursuing her journalism degree at Cal Poly. While most of her background is in broadcast journalism, her internship with the AP has caused her to heavily consider a career in investigative print journalism.
Already, Romero has received multiple potential job opportunities. According to Romero, editors from AP, the Ventura County Star, and other news organizations have reached out to her, encouraging her to stay in touch and apply for future job openings post graduation.
In addition to finishing up her journalism degree at Cal Poly this year, Romero is pursuing minors in Spanish, ethnic studies, and women and gender studies. She is also a member of the university’s Honors Program, and will serve as the incoming Political Affairs Coordinator for the Pilipino Cultural Exchange and as a student researcher for the Communications Department.
For the time being, though, Romero does not have any immediate plans to start another position in news reporting. “It was so bittersweet leaving, but I don’t have any journalism-related internships or jobs or goals in the near future. It’s my senior year, and I want to enjoy it for at least fall quarter.”
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Meet Cal Poly Arts’ New Director, Molly Clark
Jul 22, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Molly Clark
This fall, Cal Poly Arts’ new director, Molly Clark, will begin curating a new series of performances to host for the 2022-23 academic year.
Clark previously held a similar position as the artistic director at University of California San Diego’s ArtPower performing arts center. While Clark enjoyed her time at ArtPower, she said she is excited to start working at Cal Poly Arts and utilizing the Performing Arts Center.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful facility that you all have there, and I feel so fortunate to be able to bring artists to that sort of space, where they are really able to perform at their highest level and have the space aid them with that,” Clark said.
In addition to curating the new series, Clark said she hopes to diversify the arts program here.
“I am really passionate about reflecting the diversity of a community with the artists that we bring, and also exposing audiences to cultures and identities that they may not have had experience with before,” Clark said. “And I think the performing arts, specifically, are a really powerful medium to do that.”
Clark also looks forward to participating in collaborations, both with Cal Poly and the local community, including workshops with Cal Poly art classes, master classes and more. Clark will manage the Cal Poly Arts staff, organize community outreach and communicate with current and potential supporters for the program.
“I think that it’s also going to be exciting to see what kinds of new community partnerships we can make,” Clark said.
Previous Cal Poly Arts Director Steve Lerian
Clark will replace Steve Lerian, who is retiring from the director for Cal Poly Arts position after 13 years. The fall 2021 performing arts season was programmed by Lerian, which Clark said she plans to learn from and potentially use as a model for future seasons.
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College of Liberal Arts Recognized at This Year’s President’s Diversity Awards Ceremony
Jul 20, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
President's Diversity Awards Ceremony 2021
In May, several members of the campus community were honored during the annual President’s Diversity Awards Ceremony, celebrating achievements in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
The event was hosted by the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion (OUDI) and featured six awards, including a faculty award, a staff award, a student award, a campus organization award, a student group award and the new Dolores Huerta Sí Se Puede Award for Transformational Leadership.
Among the award recipients was the College of Liberal Arts Student Diversity Committee, a student standing committee that is advisory to the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) dean and associate deans in areas related to increasing and enhancing efforts and initiatives related to DEI in the college. The group was awarded the Student Group Diversity Award.
Recent graduates Solena Aguilar, 2020-21 (Art and Design), and Miaya May, 2020-21 (Ethnic Studies), co-chairs of the College of Liberal Arts Student Diversity Committee, said the student group has worked hard over the past year to create two webpages with resources for first-generation students – one on the CLA website and one on the OUDI website.
“After we launched this first site for CLA, OUDI heard about it and took it on also, so it became a university-wide website,” Aguilar said. “I think we were also recognized because we went above our first audience base.”
Both sites offer a “one-stop shop” with resources relating to academic services, financial information, jobs, housing and more. The sites also link to a faculty page that the student group created, which students can use to contact various first-generation faculty and staff for support.
“We wanted to create one place where people could find what they’re looking for,” Aguilar said. “Then, they could also find all of these other things that they might not have otherwise known existed.”
2021 Student Group Diversity Award
“As I was compiling the information, I couldn’t help but recall moments when I didn’t really know what resources existed for first gen students on campus or where to find other first-generation folks outside of EOP, another program I’m a part of,” May said. “It encouraged me to get the page up and running, so other first gen students could have one organized source for resources that are at their disposal.”
Both alumnae said the awards ceremony was a positive experience and it was nice to be recognized. May said, “I felt honored when I found out that the student diversity committee had won the Presidents Diversity Award. It felt like our hard work was being recognized, which is something that doesn’t always happen. I’m just so proud of everyone on the committee and it felt so validating to be recognized”
“It was so empowering to be surrounded by so many people that are doing similar work as we are,” Aguilar added. “It really made me feel like I wanted to continue this work.”
Psychology and Child Development Professor Amber Williams received the Faculty Diversity Award at the ceremony. Williams is involved in several organizations that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, including the CLA’s Faculty Diversity Committee, the Academic Senate’s Diversity Committee and the university committee on Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Faculty, Staff and Students, as part of Cal Poly’s current reaffirmation process with their accrediting body.
Williams is also a member of the OUDI Advisory Board, and she co-led a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) assessment of Campus Health and Wellbeing over the last two quarters. Other work that Williams has done over the past year to promote diversity include her co-authoring two publications on racism and diversity in workplaces. She is also one of the College of Liberal Arts’ original 2017 cluster hire focused on DEI curricular coverage.
Similarly to Aguilar, Williams said the environment of community at the ceremony was inspiring. “I just feel really honored and fortunate to work with people who value this work, because that is not the case everywhere,” Williams said.
Williams also said she is looking forward to continuing her work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. “My teaching is constantly evolving to take into consideration current events and issues that are affecting marginalized folks today,” Williams said.
The other President’s Diversity Awards recipients include Multicultural Initiatives Coordinator Lilianne Tang, and Womxn and Gender Equity Initiatives Coordinator Olivia Tran (both lecturers in the Department of Ethnic Studies) who won the staff award together, graduate student Ashlee Hernandez (Sociology ’19), the Asian Pacific Desi American Islander Faculty and Staff Association (APIDA FSA). Director of Student Diversity and Belonging, Beya Makekau, won the inaugural Dolores Huerta award.
A full list of the awards and recipients is available in the June 9, 2021 Cal Poly Report.
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Journalism Alumna Publishes Book, Is Shortlisted for International Award
Jul 14, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Face, A Memoir
Since graduating from Cal Poly in 1978 with a degree in journalism, Marcia Meier has led a successful life as a journalist, author and writing coach.
Her latest book, Face, A Memoir, was published in January this year by Saddle Road Press, and quickly gained positive recognition. Along with being shortlisted for the 2021 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize, Face also received an honorable mention for in the memoir category of the awards.
Meier’s success, however, is notwithstanding a very challenging start in life. At age five, Meier was hit by a car, causing severe facial disfigurement and a chain of effects that impacted her childhood and even midlife.
She began writing Face, which analyzes this life-changing incident and its effects, fifteen years before it was published, when aspects of Meier’s life and marriage began “falling apart,” Meier said.
“I realized I had to go back in time and revisit the accident that nearly killed me,” Meier said.
After surviving the crash as a young child, Meier’s trauma continued, undergoing twenty surgeries, facing abuse at school, and being blamed and rejected by her mother. By the time she started college at Cal Poly, Meier had “pushed all those experiences down into a deep place and [she] tried not to think about them again,” she wrote in a summary on her website. As she confronted her trauma in midlife, Meier was finally able to begin in the healing process. “It was the beginning of my coming back to myself,” Meier wrote in the summary.
Meier said it felt “amazing” to receive such positive recognition for her story.
“I have written other books, but nothing this personal or with such vulnerability… It’s my hope that this story will encourage others who have experienced childhood trauma and lead to their own understanding and acceptance.”
Meier has published six books, along with poetry and essays. She also spent 18 years working at four daily newspapers in the Santa Barbara area, and she served on Cal Poly’s Journalism Advisory Board for many years.
In addition to being an author, she now works as a book editor and writing coach and owns her publishing company, Weeping Willow Books, to publish clients’ books.
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Graphic Communication Alumna Starts Reusable Fabric Gift Wrap Business
Jul 14, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Cindy Estes
Since graduating from Cal Poly in 1989 with a degree in graphic communication, Cindy Estes has worked as a freelance graphic designer, a children’s clothing designer and an entrepreneur.
While she enjoyed her work designing clothes for her children’s clothing line, Seam, a few years ago, Estes was ready for something new. Around that same time, Estes’ longtime friend Monica O’Neil came up with a business idea while Christmas shopping.
“I’m at the register with a lot of giftwrap, about to spend a ton of money and I looked at the cashier, looked at my cart, looked at the cashier and I said, ‘this is such a waste’,” O’Neil said. “I said, ‘do you sell reusable gift bags?’ and it was a store that sold a lot of giftwrap. [The cashier] said ‘no, that’s a really good idea’ and I literally got in my car, and I was like ‘this is a really good idea. I’m going to do this.’”
In need of a creative partner, O’Neil called Estes to tell her about the idea.
“Monica called and I had all of the contacts,” Estes said. “So, we used all those contacts and a lot of those fabric sources to reach out to a lot of people, and then, we actually took some of the old Seam fabrics we hadn’t used, and we put them into Rapt.”
Estes’ and O’Neil’s business, Rapt, offers sustainable, reusable giftwrapping fabric. It is based off of the Japanese art of gift wrapping, called Furoshiki, which uses a simple folding technique to wrap gifts.
“The more Monica and I played with snap tape and extra stuff and elastic, we realized that the easiest way was just to build a square and then place the gift on a diagonal in the center, which is part of the history of Furoshiki in Japan,” Estes said.
Rapt Gift Wrap
During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Estes began creating additional ‘accents’ to purchase with the fabrics, including pom poms made out of yarn and remainder ribbons and fabrics.
While her role at Rapt involves less design and creativity than some of her previous jobs, Estes says she is still able to utilize her graphic communication education.
“It came out in designing clothes [for Seam], and now, it’s coming out in designing the [Rapt] website, designing all of the printed materials and in photography,” Estes said.
Estes said that her main objective with Rapt is environmental.
“I feel like we really got into this from the standpoint of saving waste,” Estes said. “It feels kind of good all around, actually.”
Estes also said that the environmental priorities of younger generations makes her proud of Rapt.
“The other thing that’s been wonderful for us is that people in their teens and twenties are some of the people reaching out to ask about what we’re doing,” Estes said. “That is wonderful for us, as parents, to be able to know that we are doing something that means something to our children’s generation.”
Rapt offers three classic ensembles in red, navy and neutral, as well as seasonal ensembles, limited edition sheets, individual accents, gift tags and ribbon spools.