Fall 2023 Issue

Featured Stories

Oaxa New

SDSU Imperial Valley held a party for the community to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day and raise funds for scholarships. We were there to capture the fun.

Pepper

Pepper, a 3-foot-3 droid at SDSU's James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence, amuses student researchers with programmed jokes and serves as a tool for teaching them about AI.

Adela de la Torre

Adela de la Torre reflects on her first five years as president at SDSU and the role of trust in the university's achievements, including the development of SDSU Mission Valley, increased research funding, record student applications and philanthropic support.

Collage of random SDSU artifacts

When JFK visited San Diego State in 1963, he wore a black commencement gown. In the years since, it's gone missing. Can you help SDSU historian Seth Mallios find it and other missing items?

Group of Women making a circle

Impact investor Jessica Sarowitz has a "soft spot," she says, for the foster care community, and she wanted to help. A $2.5 million gift to endow the SDSU Guardian Scholars Center was her way of doing that.

A collage of all the restaurant owners featured in this article
Many well-known foodies call SDSU their alma mater. Take for instance, Ralph Rubio (’78), affectionately known to locals as the Fish Taco King, who founded Rubio’s in 1983 in Pacific Beach. Here are five more alumni in San Diego who will make you say, “I didn’t know they were an Aztec!”
Harris Image

A young Cody Harris participated in a speech study at an SDSU lab in 2012, and now, a decade later, he returns as an SDSU student researcher to analyze the data he contributed as a child.

Lilith Vasquez

The SDSU environmental engineering Ph.D. student designed a low-cost, low-maintenance, low-water toilet with help from some furry friends. We asked her about the endeavor.

Solomon

Solomon, a San Diego–based attorney and philanthropist whose gifts frequently address societal inequities by providing greater opportunities for members of historically marginalized communities, gave in support of SDSU’s Black Resource Center.

Scripps Cottage

Interested in learning more about your alma mater? These 12 new self-guided tours are for you. Plus, SDSU just added a name to its War Memorial.

Google Aztec Network

SDSU Alumni is always looking for ways to connect the SDSU community. This new digital hub brings SDSU networking to a whole new level.

photo of prebys exterior

In September, SDSU raised the curtain on the Performing Arts District. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at everything the new space has to offer students and regional arts patrons.

oaxaca

Embracing their Mexican heritage, SDSU students examine the deep culinary ties that bind the state of Oaxaca to Southern California.

Vanessa Lytle

Vanessa Lytle had seemingly lost everything by the time she was 21 years old. But with strength and resolve, the SDSU senior is just months away from earning a degree - and fulfilling her late mother's wishes.

Mission Valley's River Park

In the planning phases for SDSU Mission Valley, open space for the community was paramount to the university — and now the multiuse river park is nearing completion.