‘To serve in whatever capacity you can’

CSUB confers highest honor on visionary leaders Larry Hallum and Faust Gorham

By California State University, Bakersfield

May 9^th, 2024

California State University, Bakersfield will confer the highest honor in the CSU system on two transformational Kern County leaders who devoted their lives to helping students excel in one of the most educationally and economically challenged regions of the state.

Beloved Arvin educator Larry Hallum and CSUB leader Faust Gorham, who both died within the last year, will receive posthumous honorary doctoral degrees at the university’s 2024 spring commencement ceremonies.

“There is no priority more important to the families of Kern County than access to a first-class education,” said Interim President Vernon B. Harper Jr. “In his role as our chief technology officer, Faust Gorham provided our students the connection required to keep them enrolled during the pandemic. And Larry Hallum is a legend in Kern County education for a reason: He maintained his passion for teaching and never forgot the names or faces of his students, even decades later.”

Hallum was nominated for a Doctor of Humane Letters by CSUB alumna and CSU Board of Trustees member Raji Kaur Brar, who said the teacher and coach “changed the lives and trajectories of thousands of youth.” Hallum’s wife and family will accept the honor at the first of three CSUB commencement ceremonies at 8 a.m. May 17.

“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, what an honor,” said Brenda Hallum, widow of Larry Hallum, when Brar called to discuss the nomination with her. “I said Larry would be shaking his head going, ‘What?’ And yet Raji was clear in saying he’s done so much for Arvin. Larry had an expression he always would say when something good would happen. He’d put his hands in the air and yell, ‘Touchdown!” This is a touchdown for Larry.”

Gorham was nominated for a Doctor of Science by his Cal State Bakersfield community and peers at the 22 other campuses in the California State University, the largest system of public higher education in the country. His wife, Karina, will accept the honor on his behalf at the May 17 evening ceremony.

Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thom Davis called Gorham a “consummate professional who was held in the highest esteem by his CSUB colleagues and those who worked with him throughout the CSU system.”

“Faust exemplified leadership with kindness and genuine concern for the well-being of his information technology team, our students, and their success while simultaneously, as a first-generation college graduate, earning his master’s degree and pursuing his doctorate,” Davis said. “Faust knew that education was the key to transforming one’s life and providing opportunities for one’s future, the cornerstone of the CSU.”

Hallum and Gorham bring the number of CSUB’s honorary doctorate recipients to 21 since the first was awarded to former state Sen. Walter W. Stiern in 1986.

Photo courtesy of The Bakersfield Californian

Larry Hallum: ‘Never stopped learning things’

Brar still remembers her first interaction with the We the People coach from Arvin High back when she was a young small-business owner of a Subway franchise in the southeast Kern farming town.

“He asked if I could donate food to his students who would prep all day long for the competition," she said. "I’m like, ‘Absolutely.’ We’ve been feeding the kiddos for 23 years now.”

But Hallum’s advocacy for Arvin High’s students didn’t end with a lunch order. He asked Brar to come see for herself the improbable dynasty that he and the other coaches had built over generations among the children of farmworkers who were a lot like how Hallum described himself growing up: “Dirt poor.”

“These kids who are below the poverty line go up against some of California’s richest schools, but Mr. Hallum always instilled in them that they are as smart and deserving as anybody,” Brar said. “He’s an example of what it means to serve in whatever capacity you can, not for notoriety, not for your name in flashing lights. He does the work we’re all supposed to be doing to make the world a better place, and he does it in his little corner of Arvin.”

By the time Hallum died in 2023 at age 79, he had left an everlasting imprint on the community where he grew up. At Arvin High, where he was a student himself, he served as a teacher of U.S. history, economics, civics, government and coached football, baseball, tennis and, of course, We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, a rigorous competition that promotes civic education.

He “retired” in 2004, but never has that term been so loosely applied, said his wife of 46 years.

“The high school district had a five-year project for retired teachers,” said Mrs. Hallum, also a lifelong educator. “You write your project, which for him was We the People, and see if it’s accepted. You have to do 240 hours over that time. He did double that because it was his passion and after the five years, he still kept going and never stopped.”

About a decade into his “retirement,” Hallum coached a bright We the People student named Nick Hernandez. Like Hallum, Hernandez left town for college and — also like his mentor — followed the same boomerang trajectory back to Arvin High, where he assumed We the People coaching responsibilities. His former coach became his “right hand.”

Hernandez still has a couple of civics texts that belonged to Hallum that offer a glimpse into the coach’s thinking.

“He’d go through and handwrite questions for every paragraph in these dogeared textbooks and photocopy them,” Hernandez said. “When we’d start with a team, he’d give them 70 to 80 pages of ancient photocopies and handwritten notes, and he didn’t have the best handwriting. But when you look through the margins, you realize that Mr. Hallum never stopped learning things.”

This year’s We the People competition was the first without Hallum since its inception in Arvin. Hallum had thought he would be unable to participate in the state competition in Sacramento last year because it conflicted with his other love — the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada.

“In the middle of night, he sent me a message. He said, ‘I’m going to travel all night and get there in the morning to see the kids,’" Hernandez said. “It's really easy for students to pick out teachers who don’t have a real love for the things they teach. It should be in Teaching Credential 101 that if you don’t have enthusiasm, the kids won’t either. Mr. Hallum was always so excited and he knew the names of the thousands of kids he taught over the years. He took a lot of pride in his community, and this community takes a lot of pride in him.”

Faust Gorham: ‘Students would not be able to continue their college education if we failed’

CSUB Interim Chief Information Officer Christopher Diniz remembers the days and weeks leading up to March 2020 vividly. CSUB, like every educational institution in the nation, was facing the prospect of abandoning campus in the middle of the semester to protect students, faculty and staff from a pandemic that was claiming lives around the world. How would instruction continue, particularly in an area where many families did not have the technology required for remote studies and access to the internet was unreliable?

But long before the pandemic, Chief Information Officer Faust Gorham understood that inadequate access to the digital age was perhaps the greatest equity challenge in higher education. His work to address that profound disparity gave CSUB a head start in the move to virtual learning, a revolution in instruction that has continued post-pandemic.

“Mr. Gorham led with imagination, a collaborative, audacious spirit, and deep compassion for our CSU community, particularly the students in Kern County, a rural region marked by high rates of poverty and a disproportionate share of first-generation college students who face barriers like inadequate access to the internet, laptops, software, and other necessary equipment,” said a letter of nomination signed by all the information executives at the CSU’s 23 campuses and the Chancellor’s Office.

Diniz, who worked with Gorham for nine years, said his boss and their team launched a comprehensive effort to address digital equity. Among the new campus upgrades and resources were 100 outdoor Wi-Fi access points to allow students to access CSUB resources from the parking lots and other campus spaces; the Virtual Computer Lab, which allows students to access all applications on any device, anywhere; more than 1,000 hotspots provided to students at no cost; more than 2,000 computing devices provided to students at no cost; and upgrades in the instructional modality to include in-person, remote and hybrid applications.

“Even before we received government funding, we were using our own resources to buy what we could afford to take proactive steps for our students,” said Diniz (who, in an only-in-Kern-County twist, also was a student of Hallum’s at Arvin High).

“By the time we got the go-home message, that weekend, we had the Virtual Computer Lab up and running, and that was a game-changer," he said. "We were working nonstop because Faust knew students would not be able to continue their college education if we failed.”

Gorham’s understanding of CSUB students was born of his own experience, having been raised in the Tulare County town of Porterville, just up the Valley from the Bakersfield campus.

“Anytime I was out with him and we’d see students taking pictures for commencement, he would about trip over himself to try to get in the picture with them,” Diniz said. “Faust was an extrovert, and our students gave him so much joy. He loved to watch them graduate, and that’s why he was so involved in commencement, even down to the musical selections.”

During his yearlong battle with cancer, Gorham was away from campus at times for treatment but always remained connected. Diniz said that he had a standing order to update his boss at least daily and that Gorham’s last visit to campus came just two days before his death at the age of 52.

“At the very end, he told me, ‘I’m in the hospital. ‘I’m not doing too hot.’ I told him not to worry about it, that I would keep him updated," he said. "He was not in any state to be here, but he wanted to be involved. He was just so proud of this campus.”