CSUSB College of Arts and Letters announces its outstanding graduating students

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - Students Ryan A. Goble and Jessica Williams will be honored for their academic achievements in the College of Arts and Letters at Cal State San Bernardino during commencement ceremonies on June 13 and 14 at the university’s Coussoulis Arena.

Goble, who will receive a master’s in English composition, with a concentration in applied linguistics and teaching English as a second language, will be honored as the Outstanding Graduate at the graduate commencement on Friday, June 13, at 6:45 p.m. Williams will be recognized at the College of Arts and Letters undergraduate ceremony on Saturday, June 14, at 11:45 a.m.

A resident of Fontana, Goble cites Caroline Vickers, professor of linguistics in CSUSB’s English department, as his inspiration for pursuing a master’s degree in the field, showing him how powerful language is and why it is important to study.

“Language is a window into the human experience, used to perform our different identities such as mother, friend, teacher, to give meaning to our life experiences and to shape reality as we know it,” said Goble.

As Vickers’ research assistant, he gained valuable hands-on experience investigating how medical providers communicate with patients who only speak Spanish that will help improve health outcomes for this population in the Inland Empire.

Their findings have been presented at national and international conferences and have been published in three scholarly journals: Canadian Modern Language Review, the Journal of Communication and Medicine, and the Journal of Health Communication.

The focus of his thesis research was to understand how Spanish is maintained into, and beyond, the third-generation of Mexican American families.  The 28-year-old presented these findings at the American Association for Applied Linguistics conference this spring, where he was also honored with the highly competitive Graduate Student Award.

Goble’s thesis has been nominated for the English department’s “Outstanding Thesis Award,” and is in the process of being produced as two separate manuscripts for publication.

A CSUSB alum who earned a bachelor’s in 2010, Goble plans to teach English abroad for a year to acquire further teaching experience. During that time, he will apply to doctoral programs and plans to resume his graduate studies in fall 2015, with a long- term plan of becoming a professor and researcher of linguistics.

Williams, also an English major, linguistics track, was named Outstanding Undergraduate Student for the College of Arts and Letters. Described by one of her English professors as “intelligent, sharp, energetic, mature and modest despite her many achievements,” she plans to enroll at Cal State Fullerton in the post-baccalaureate program in communicative disorders.

Williams combined her passion for writing, politics, history and culture through studying the different aspects of language. As a result, the 21-year-old enjoys writing about language relating to sociopolitical and historical issues.

For her honors project, she analyzed commentary surrounding the testimony of prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel during the Trayvon Martin trial.

“Through this project, I hope to raise awareness of how language is used to express racism and racist ideologies covertly and overtly in the media and on the Internet in the 21st century,” said Williams.

She hopes to become a speech therapist after completing her master’s degree and wants to work with people from different linguistic backgrounds in underserved communities. Because Williams also likes research, she is considering pursuing a Ph.D.

Being named Outstanding Undergraduate Student in the college is her greatest accomplishment, Williams said.

“Not only is it an honor, but it’s a great way to sum up my undergraduate career, and the best way to begin the next phase of my journey,” she said.

Cal State San Bernardino will bestow Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters to Hardy Brown, philanthropist and Inland Empire publisher of The Black Voice newspaper, during the College of Arts and Letters commencement ceremony; and to entrepreneurs Jesus (posthumously) and Luz Cardenas, founders of Cardenas Markets, at the College of Business and Public Administration’s ceremony.

Other commencement exercises on June 14 include the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at 7:45 a.m.; the College of Business and Public Administration at 3:45 p.m.; and the College of Natural Sciences at 7:45 p.m.

The Palm Desert Campus will hold its commencement exercises on Thursday, June 12, at 6 p.m. at The Show at Agua Caliente Casino Resort in Rancho Mirage.

All of the ceremonies at Cal State San Bernardino’s Coussoulis Arena will be streamed online on the Creative Media Services live webcast page.

For more information about the June 2014 graduations, visit the CSUSB Commencement website.

For more information or a digital photo of the outstanding students, contact the university’s Office of Public Affairs at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.