Ricco Reynolds and Jane Lopez announced Outstanding Graduate and Undergraduate Students

CSUB president awards medals at May 17 event

By California State University, Bakersfield

May 18^th, 2022

When Ricco Reynolds got the call from California State University, Bakersfield President Lynnette Zelezny informing him that he was the 2022 recipient of the President’s Medal for Outstanding Graduate Student, he was where he usually is, he said: in the Emergency Department at Kern Medical, serving patients, holding hands and comforting family members on what is often the worst day of anyone’s life.

“I was able to go outside, and I remember President Zelezny was telling me how proud she is that I’m out there saving lives — quote, unquote,” said Reynolds, 33. “I was thrilled, of course. To be completely honest, I wasn’t even sure that I was going to win the top graduate from the School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering, much less the President’s Medal. In fact, when I took my mom to the NSME ceremony, she audibly gasped when they said my name — which was super-cute.”

There were no gasps from mom on Tuesday, when Reynolds joined Jane Lopez, CSUB’s top undergraduate of the year, at the university’s Walter Stiern Library to collect their medals — and some kind words — from Zelezny.

“Even with such a high bar for achievement, the students we are here to celebrate today manage to stand out,” Zelezny said. “Selecting the President’s Medal recipients is a high honor, but the process is tough. We simply have so many extraordinary graduates to consider every year. Examining their achievements, service and the challenges they have overcome is extremely humbling and fills me with pride.”

Joining the students, their families and Zelezny were CSUB faculty members, staff and administrators. Reynolds’ professors from the Family Nurse Practitioner program were out in force, as were the professors cheering on Lopez, who will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology on Saturday morning.

“Every class at CSUB has taught me something that has helped me improve in some way, as a student or person, even if those classes weren’t in my major,” said Lopez, 22. “I didn’t expect to love the school as much as I do, but it was just such a positive experience.”

Lopez, who grew up in Palmdale, is graduating with her degree in four years despite a full plate that included leading several clubs and organizations and participating in research with her psychology professors, Kyle Susa and Isabel Sumaya. The professors who nominated Lopez for the award called Lopez “a dedicated and steadfast supporter of the department and university.”

Next up for Lopez is graduate school at Pacific University near Portland, Ore. Ultimately, she intends to earn her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and work as a researcher and in a clinical setting, with a focus on helping underserved communities.

“I have personal experience with the way mental health care is treated and viewed within the Hispanic community,” Lopez said. “There’s a stigma. I feel like my two ethnic identities — half-white and half-Hispanic — growing up, it was very apparent how both sides of my family deal with mental health.”

Reynolds also is answering the call to help the underserved, as an RN at the county hospital.

Ricco Reynolds and Jane Lopez announced Outstanding Graduate and Undergraduate Students

“During nursing school, I was at Kern Medical for my psychiatric nursing rotation,” Reynolds recalled. “I had just one day in the ER. I remember a patient came in as a cardiac arrest, and I was able to give compressions and get the pulse back. It was right there that I decided I wanted to be an emergency nurse at Kern Medical.”

Reynolds grew up in Tehachapi and enrolled at CSUB in 2006, where he met his future wife, Gina Martinez, now a biology teacher at Liberty High. Initially a pre-engineering major, Reynolds changed course after a general education class in biology.

“There isn’t anything more fascinating to learn about than the inner workings of the human cell,” he said.

While working at Kern Medical, where he was named the hospital’s Nurse of the Year in 2019, Reynolds was on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic in Bakersfield.

“It’s been awful,” Reynolds said of the pandemic’s toll on the community and health care workers. “There were so many times when we couldn’t let family visit patients before we put them on a ventilator, and that was the last time that patient was awake. We’d have difficult conversations with family in the waiting area and there’s just nothing you can say to make it easier. And then, on top of that, being afraid to bring the virus home to my son and daughter, my wife and her family.”

Just months after the pandemic started, Reynolds returned to CSUB in the fall of 2020, enrolling in the Nurse Practitioner program despite his demanding work schedule and raising two children with his wife: Lyla, 7, and Rory, 5.

“The cohort is small — just 19 of us — and you get to develop a rapport with your professors, which is crucial,” he said. “CSUB allowed me to do a lot of things I wouldn’t be able to do at a larger university.

“I’ve been at CSUB since 2006. It’s crazy to think how long it’s been, and to end it on this high note, the President’s Medal, it’s the perfect capstone. I couldn’t ask for a better life.”