00:00:01Jennifer Fabbi: Hello, this is Jennifer Fabbi, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Regina Eisenbach for the California State University San Marcos University Library Oral History program. Today is July 1st, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. This interview is taking place at Regina's office on the CSU San Marcos campus. Regina, thank you for interviewing with me today.
00:00:23Regina Eisenbach: Thank you. I'm honored that you asked.
00:00:26Fabbi: Okay. So to start off, we'll start young. Can you tell me about your childhood and adolescence, for example, where you were born and a bit about your family?
00:00:39Eisenbach: Sure. so I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico by accident. I'm not Puerto Rican, but I'm actually Cuban. I'll get to that in a second. My dad was there on business. My mom went to go see him, and she was bedridden for six months to have me. And so she was in Puerto Rico and got stuck there basically. And so I was born there. I think that's telling because it shows the kind of parents that I had. So I was an only child and they'd lost--my mom miscarried four times before me, and after me, I had a brother who died after a day. And so my parents lost a lot of children. I was the only surviving kid, so they were, (tears up)--didn't think it would start this early. So they were very devoted to me. And you'd say overprotective, but as a young child, it was great. So we lived in, we moved to Miami early on and then moved to Massachusetts for a little bit, came back to Miami. And so I grew up in Miami from second grade all the way through college. And went to the University of Miami because when I graduated from high school, wasn't really ready to leave home. So went there and went to graduate school there as well, because I thought I might wanna' go away to grad school, and a little independence from my parents at that point when I was, you know, twenty or so. And when I said, Yeah, I think I might go to Gainesville or something, they'd say, oh, they said, Okay, we'll come with you. Okay. That defeats the purpose. So I think I will just stay here. And so I did. And so I went straight from my parents' house to my husband's house. I have never lived alone. So that also says a little bit about me.
00:02:43Fabbi: Okay. So you started to talk a little bit about your education. Can you tell me about your formal education, including your areas of academic focus?
00:02:55Eisenbach: Yeah, so I my undergraduate degree was in psychology. And I did my undergrad in three years. And so when I was, I graduated from college, I was, I wasn't even--I was twenty and wasn't ready to leave school. So I know some folks say that, you know, they always knew they wanted to be an academic or they always knew they wanted to be such and such. I didn't know what I wanted to do. All I knew is I wasn't ready to leave school. So I was looking for graduate programs. And I got word that this professor over in the College of Business was starting a PhD program in business. It was gonna be brand new in organizational behavior. And I thought, Okay, that's, you know, psychology adjacent, let's check this out. And one of those vivid memories I still remember and he did, too--what I was wearing the day that I went to see him 'cause I was wearing red high top Reebok sneakers. This was in 1980--Lord, '87. So yeah, I swear it was in style then. And I wandered into his office and he said, yeah, we're gonna start this new PhD program, but it'll be great. And so I said, sure, why not? So I got in, it was a full assistantship, so I didn't have to pay for it. I actually didn't have to pay for any of my education. It's something that I look back on. And I think, how did that work? Because my parents didn't make a lot of money. I got lot of scholarships. And so my undergrad was completely covered. And then the PhD program was a full ride. Truly blessed. Didn't really know at the time what a blessing it was. And so I thought, all right, I'll try this. And the PhD program, since it was brand new, I was the first student admitted. And there weren't classes for just us in business, so we took classes--there was, there were only two or three, there were a few IO (industrial organizational) psych students in the program at the time, but there was five of us total, if that. So we would take classes with the other PhD students and other disciplines. But when I started my PhD advisor said, Well, you haven't taken calculus. And I said, Yes, I know. That was intentional. He said, well, business folks have to take calculus. And so I did. As a graduate student, one of my classes was to take calculus with the freshmen. And I got an A minus, I still remember. So that first summer of the PhD program, since I didn't have an undergraduate degree in business, I had to take classes with the MBA students. And it was the name has since changed, but I am not even making this up. The program was called the PMS (laughter) Program in Management Studies. And it was basically a business bootcamp, so really condensed all of the basics of business. And I learned that I hated accounting and I hated economics, and I sucked at it. And I got my first Cs ever in school in those two classes. But overall, you know, I liked school and I liked the--I thought, Okay, I'll, you know, keep doing this. And so that's how I got into the PhD program. It wasn't anything premeditated, which is actually the story of my life. It wasn't a plan. It was just, Eh, this'll work out.
00:06:35Fabbi: And Regina, when did you meet your husband and where?
00:06:39Eisenbach: I met him the day after I started the PhD program. So I was twenty years old. We both grew up in the same town in Hialeah, Florida. And met through a mutual friend. He, my friend and my husband worked at Marshall's together. And it was, the Madonna was going on tour, the Who's That Girl concert. And back in the day, he had to sleep in the parking lot. You may even be too young to remember this. You had to sleep in the parking lot to get concert tickets. And so my husband and my friend were sleeping for the Madonna tickets, and I was supposed to meet them in the morning to give them my money for my ticket and stand in line when they bought them. My husband had no idea. He just thought I was coming 'cause I was, you know, Rick--our friend's name was Rick--Rick's friend. And so I showed up. So we met in the parking lot of Westland Mall, very romantic. And I saw him, and the first thing I thought of was, He looks very young. And so I pulled Rick aside. I said, Rick, how old is this guy? He goes, no, I swear he is your age. Okay, great. Turns out he is, he's two days younger than I am. And it was, I mean, for me it was like, wow. Almost love at first sight. And so that was June 6th that we met. And we went out, we started talking on the phone every day. And we went out in a big group on June 12th, and he asked me to be his girlfriend. And we've been together ever since. 1987.
00:08:19Fabbi: Okay. So how did you find out about the CSU San Marcos faculty position? And what was the process of you moving here?
00:08:29Eisenbach: So as I mentioned in my retirement speech, like one of those moments that just sticks in your mind. I was standing in my PhD advisor's office and his name was Chet Schriesheim. And my mom, who I alluded to, I'm Cuban. So my mom was raised in Cuba, born in Spain. My dad was Hungarian. And my mom had a very thick accent when she spoke English. And we used to joke that she had her own language 'cause the way she pronounced things so she could not say Schriesheim to save her life. So she called him Shoeshine. And so we all did. So I was standing in Shoeshine's office, and Shoeshine knew my mom called him Shoeshine. We got very close. He became--not that I needed a father 'cause my father was very, very strong presence in my life. But he became a father figure. So much so that his son was the ring bearer at my wedding. And so I was standing in his office and 'cause I was really young at the time, I remember I was, you know, twenty when I started grad school, I was twenty. And so he really, you know, made it a point of raising me in the academy as well as, you know, trying to prepare me for being a young, very young woman in this field. So anyway, I'm standing in his office and he, back then, it was all mail obviously. And so he got a letter from then acting Dean Bernie Hinton, who was founding faculty here who was recruiting. And so he sent letters to all the PhD chairs at institutions that he was familiar with. And so Shoeshine read the letter to me and it said do you know of anybody who wants to take on the opportunity of building the first new public university in twenty-five years in this country? And I said, Alright, I'll give it a shot. And so that's how I ended up interviewing here. And when I came to interview, I--so at the time, I was with Angel and we had already made plans to get married. And so we were looking at the job market together, and we said, We need to go someplace where people speak Spanish. And so ignorantly, now we know, we said, Oh, San Diego. Great. They speak Spanish there, and Mexicans, Cubans, same deal. Yeah, it's not at all. But we figured, all right, California would be, you know, pretty cool. So I interviewed at Cal Poly Pomona, and I interviewed here, and I interviewed at Florida Atlantic University in Boca. We didn't wanna' leave Miami, and we thought we never would leave Miami. And in fact, the, I was heartbroken to know that U of M wouldn't hire me 'cause they didn't, they really didn't like to hire their own grad students. 'Cause the plan was supposed to be, I was supposed to stay in Miami, and we were gonna buy the house next door to my parents. And that's it. We were gonna stay there. So I came out here to interview and remember somebody that, you know, picked me up, Len Jessop. He was on the faculty then went on to become UNLV's President. And he picked me up. There was no campus, it was Cal State Jerome's. He took me to the office park. None of that bothered me 'cause I was young. And he drove me down Barham, and they pointed at the dirt and they said, There's gonna be a campus there. Oh, great. And they showed me the drawing and all the things. And I remembered the people seemed to be a little younger as compared to Cal Poly Pomona, especially. A little younger. Very excited and super energized. And I thought, Wow, this is great. Too bad I'm never gonna' leave Miami. So the, I did get offered eventually the job at Cal Poly Pomona, but I thought, no, it's just the, the vibe was very traditional and it felt old to me. I was twenty-four. Everything feels old when you're twenty-four. And Florida Atlantic only had a visiting position, so Angel and I thought Well, we'll go to California for a couple years, and we'll come back 'cause by then something will have opened up. And so we did. And moving out here was--we got married August 2nd, moved out here August 12th, 1991. And it was one of the most traumatic things we have-I have--ever done, we have ever done. We got here, got to our apartment on Mission, still there. And had to buy everything 'cause we came with no furniture, nothing. So we went to Jerome's and we bought an apartment full of furniture, and went to the grocery store where the Stater Brothers is now. And got on a payphone, called home and said we wanted to come back. And we were going to 'cause we had bought round trip tickets because it was cheaper. And so we thought, All right, the round trip goes back in a week. We can, we can go. And we kind of thought we were 'cause it was just, it was heartbroken, it was the fir-- heartbreaking. It was the first time we had ever been away from our families. And Angel moved out here sight unseen. He had never even been to California. So thankfully, I think the next day I went onto into the office, I can't even say campus 'cause it was an office park. And saw the people again, got excited about the opportunity. And that's why we decided, All right, we'll give it, we'll give it the two years.
00:14:25Fabbi: And you've talked a little bit about this, but what was the entity, the organization, CSU San Marcos, like when you arrived?
00:14:38Eisenbach: Well, it was, there were no offices. So I was, you know, in a cubicle for the first, what, three years. Everybody knew, literally, everybody knew everybody 'cause it was tiny. When I got hired in COBA (College of Business Administration), there were eight faculty, and then four were hired when I got there at the same time as me. Three Asian guys and me. And it was--in some ways it's good that I was so young because I didn't know that I should be terrified because of everything that we had to do. They--the curriculum in COBA was basically just San Diego State's repackaged. And, but the Dean, Bernie at the time said, you know this is just a placeholder for us. We're gonna, and then the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna create our own. Well, I didn't even know what curriculum was, so I had to go to the library to get a book to, because back then, PhD programs did not train perspective faculty in teaching pedagogy, curriculum design, or any of that stuff. It was straight up research. And by the way, my PhD advisor, Shoeshine, thought I was nuts to come here because he said, you are gonna' be overwhelmed with service. You're not gonna' be able to get your research agenda off the ground. And I said, Yeah, you know, two years, it'll be fine. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot that just fell into place, me coming here because, you know--spirit of full disclosure--as far as the profession. I loved to teach. I was very good at it, not just to toot my own horn, but I was very good at it. And students loved me. I loved the students. So I was a great teacher. The research I could do. It wasn't my passion, though. And so coming here was a blessing in that way because I was able to lean into my strength, which was teaching and this whole new thing of service that as a faculty member or as a PhD student, I had no clue what that was about. Shoeshine used to call it administrivia, if he ever had to serve on a committee. And when I would go to conferences, the Academy of Management, and I would go to the PhD or the new faculty seminars, and I would talk to people and they would look at me like, You're doing what? You're on what committee? What? And they thought I was insane. But looking back, it was the best training for an administrator that you could ever have as a faculty member. So I, you know, unbeknownst to me, I was kind of on this trajectory towards becoming an administrator without even knowing it.
00:17:29Fabbi: Okay. So your focus for the first years of your career was in the classroom. And what did you teach? And then what was the focus of your research and service, which you've spoken to a little bit, but anything else you'd like to add?
00:17:43Eisenbach: Yeah, so I taught management and organizational behavior. And I taught IO (industrial organizational) psych in the early days. And I taught H--I think I taught HR once, but mostly it was the basic organizational behavior class. And the classrooms were storefronts back then. So there was a glass in the back and there's little shutters, but inside it looked like a classroom. And almost all of my students were older than me. I think all of my students were older than me. So back then I used to always wear suits and professional stuff and wear glasses to look older. So yeah, on the research side I continued to work with some of my PhD student colleagues to get, because, you know, you have to get enough stuff out the door to get tenure. So, so I did that. The great secret of my life was that I came here at the time ABD ("All But Dissertation"). So I was, I wasn't done with my dissertation, which in retrospect was insane. Coming into a brand new job, brand new everything. And I was scared to death. I didn't tell anybody when I got here and then finally one day I just broke down in the dean's office in Bernie's office and said, I just, I wasn't able to finish the year, but I'm almost done. I just have to write this stuff up. And he said, Don't worry about it, you'll finish it. So by March of the spring semester, I was done and I walked. So part of my first semester was, you know, finish up the dissertation, get started on your res- on your teaching. And oh, by the way, you'll be on all these committees. I don't know. I don't know how I did it. So those were the yeah, the early years. And then the yeah, the service stuff was just all, everything you can imagine. So there's a faculty member in computer science at the time, Shell Baning. And he said, Oh, you should be on Academic Senate. I, what, what is that? And so I was, that was one of the first things I did. And I remember then, and it's still true now, how can they spend forty-five minutes talking about one sentence in a document? I don't understand. So that's why when folks, Academic Senate, now when I see things, it's like, I, what, so what's new? I've seen this for years.
00:20:20Fabbi: Okay. So you started your administrative path relatively early on in your career. Can you tell me what that path looked like for you and the positions that you've held?
00:20:32Eisenbach: So in 1999 we had a dean search. And for reasons completely unbeknownst to me 'cause I was an associate professor at the time, the then-vice president for Academic Affairs, he was not pro--the title didn't include Provost yet. That's a not recent anymore, but in '99 it was just the VPAA (Vice President for Academic Affairs). He asked me to serve as the Dean Search Committee Chair. And so, Alright, sure. And unfortunately the search was not successful. So the VPAA had to pick an interim dean and chose one of my colleagues, Kathleen Watson. And she and I were very close and close friends as well as colleagues. We did consulting together. We were friends outside of work. And so he thought--the VPAA thought I could be her associate dean. And so I was made interim Associate Dean in 1999. And I thought, you know, sure, for a year, I'll try it. I don't have any idea what it entails. Because up until then, the associate deans in the colleges had been these older full professors at the time. I thought they were old. I now look back and think they were like way younger than I am now. I am sure. And so I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I said, yes, I would be associate dean 'cause I figured I'm working with Kathleen, it'll be okay. And then there was another dean search and that one also failed, and the VPAA--no wait, no, that dean search was successful, sorry. And he, the dean who came in, came from Cal State Long Beach, Mohammed Mustafa. Called him Mo, rest his soul. He kept me on as associate dean, and he made me permanent. And the first, the first semester was fine; after that thing started going sideways because his management style and what the faculty wanted at the time were completely different. And the faculty--he began to get really suspicious of them. They began to really hate him. And I was stuck right in the middle. And so that was, I'm sure one of the questions is gonna' be, what's the most chal-- what are the most challenging times that you faced here? That was really one of them, if not the most, because I basically lost all my friends because Kathleen and the other senior faculty thought that I had betrayed them because I stayed on as Associate Dean. They thought I should have resigned. But, you know, at the time, I liked the job and I didn't want to, I didn't wanna' quit. And they never got over the fact that I stayed on as Mo's Associate Dean. And so lost my friends. They wouldn't talk to me. People would yell at me in meetings 'cause they couldn't yell at him. So it was really unpleasant. And so after eighteen months, Mo resigned and that was the only time that I started looking for jobs elsewhere. And I actually got an interview as--for a dean of faculty position in, outside of Boston, Massachusetts at a Catholic school called Easton. And it was when Vince was three, and I remember that because he couldn't pronounce Massachusetts. And so I had to, when I left, Angel would tell him that I was going on an airplane to Massachusetts and he would say, Mama, go airpane Ma-chusetts. (laughter). So that was a great experience because I thought, Okay, I'm a relatively new associate dean. It was only a couple years out, and they still wanted to interview me. And the people were really nice, and I didn't get the job, but at least I felt validated, like, Okay, I could do this. And then thankfully there was a dean search, and the dean who came in was Dennis Guzman. And he was--he ended up being the stability that COBA needed. So prior to that, I said Mo stayed for eighteen months. The permanent dean before Mo stayed eighteen months. There had been a bunch of interims. So the, there was a revolving door in the dean's office basically every eighteen months for the first about ten years of Cal State San Marcos's existence. But when Dennis came in, he was a great people person. He really got to know the faculty. They began to trust him. He ended up serving as dean for ten years. He made it his mission the first couple of years to get folks to respect me again and to treat me well. And it worked. I never got my friends back, like Kathleen and I never fully recovered our friendship. We got to at least talk 'cause she wouldn't even talk to me. We got to at least be on speaking terms and be civil and thanks to Dennis. And he also was great because he--Vince was young. And he let me do all of the things that moms can do. I never had to miss any of his things. I could go on field trips, if I needed any time, Dennis would give it to me. And so he let me be a mom to a young child, which was the most important thing to me. So when I first became Associate Dean, Vince was three. And I figured, I'm gonna be--and I was really young at the time--so I was gonna be the youngest everything. I was gonna' be the youngest provost. I was gonna' be the youngest president. I was going all the way before I was forty. And then Vince started kindergarten, and I realized, holy moly, he needs me. And this time is not gonna' come back. And if I miss it, I am gonna' regret it. And we only have the one kid we couldn't have anymore. So like, this is my one shot. And so thankfully Dennis let me do that. And so that's why I stayed on as Associate Dean for thirteen years. And then he decided--so provost came, new provost came in. She was quite something, and they didn't get along. And so he decided to step down. And I thought, Oh God. Because I used to tell him, Dennis, don't leave 'cause I don't want your job. But by the time he stepped down, I had been Associate Dean for like eleven years. So they asked me to be the interim dean. And I thought, all right, I'll give it a shot. And so I was, and found that, you know, I'm a chameleon. I can adapt pretty darn well. 'Cause It's a completely different skillset, associate dean to dean, as you well know. Being the the associate dean, you're the support, you're the details, you're the sounding board, you're all the things. As the dean, you are it. If you don't think of it, it doesn't get done. You need to--and then in COBA, you had to fundraise. There was an advisory board, all of the things. So business, community stuff. So all kinds of stuff I was learning. But I loved, I liked it. I liked it a lot. And so when the fall semester went well, when the spring semester rolled around and the dean search started, I put my hat in the ring. I thought, You know, why the heck not? And the Provost at the time, she said that, you know, I was doing a great job. She loved working with me, I liked working with her. Everything was going great. Dean search happened. And I didn't get the job. And I still remember to this day, it was April 1st, 2012. She called me and told me I didn't get the job. And I cried harder than I had ever cried. 'Cause I gave my heart and soul to this, to the job. And I thought I should have gotten it. People were telling me I should have gotten it. The advisory board was. Everybody was thankfully rallying around me, but, you know, to no avail. 'Cause the person that they picked at the time, and I'm not, I'm not saying anything that anybody doesn't know, she left after two years and gave the provost at the time--so the provost shift, Graham came in, Graham Oberem--gave him two weeks notice. So, she basically came here to get her retirement. But the provost who hired her saw dollar signs because she had come from San Diego State and raised, supposedly raised, thirteen million dollars. And so they thought, oh, she'd come here and do the same. So that didn't work out. And she, you know, I did my best. I swear it wasn't sour grapes or anything like that. I did my best to transition her in and to work with her. But her work style and mine were very different. Like, I'd come in and before 7:00 a.m. there were sixteen emails for me to do stuff. She was having me do spreadsheets left, right, and sideways for absolutely no reason. And so after a year, I thought I can't do this anymore. So I was gonna' go back to faculty, and Graham called me 'cause David Barsky was stepping down as the--it was AVP (Associate Vice President) of faculty--of Academic Programs at the time. And Graham asked me, do you want to do it? And I said, no, I don't, because let's see, David works until midnight, and I don't know what the job entails and, you know, but let me sleep on it. So I did. And Angel and I talked and he said, You know, what have you got to lose? Do it for a year. I said, okay. Twelve--it would've been twelve years today that I stayed in this job. And, you know, turns out that Patricia Prado-Olmos told me this, and it's true. That the COBA dean thing was, you know, the best thing that never happened to me because this gig was really, you know, very well suited to what I like to do, what I like to think I'm good at, and allowed me to work with faculty across the University, which I didn't get to do in COBA. Gave me a really a bigger picture view. Had I decided to go on to be a provost someplace else, it really would've positioned me well for that. And so, you know, looking back, there really has--well, I haven't had a plan for my career. There has been a plan by someone, you know. So I'm a person of faith, so I believe God took care of me somehow. Put me where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be at each stage of my career.
00:31:53Fabbi: So tell me what an AVP of Academic Programs does.
00:31:59Eisenbach: So the evolution of--so started off with basically the catalog maintenance. And back then it was a paper catalog and then shifted to PDF. So the catalog and then the curriculum. So curriculum goes through a bazillion approval steps--new courses, new programs, all the way up to the Chancellor's Office. And so all of those steps really shepherding, shepherding faculty along in their creativity around new courses and new programs to get them through all of the myriad of steps. So the position originally was an AVP and it didn't do--David didn't do accreditation and what else didn't he do? And he did first year programs. So when I took it over, first year programs really wasn't in Academic Programs anymore. Neither was scheduling, which he had for a while. And then after about a year, we had--we were ramping up for our WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) reaffirmation in 2014 at the time. And Sharon Hamill was our campus Accreditation Liaison Officer. And she was a faculty member. We had our visit from the Vice President from WASC, and he recommended that it be an administrator. And so Sharon and I talked, I had, you know, gotten to know the VP from WASC. I was really impressed. And I said, you know, sure, I'll do it. And so that's how the WASC piece came over. Then Academic Affairs reorganized, and we brought in a Vice Provost for the first time. And when that happened, that's when the AVP position became a dean position because they wanted all of the senior leaders in academic affairs to be at the dean level. And so I became Dean of Academic Programs and still doing the accreditation, assessment, curriculum, catalog. So those basic things. Then in 2018, President Haynes called me into our office, and there had been a task force put together to look at advising and infrastructure and organization around academic advising on the campus. And they said that it should be consolidated in one division 'cause It was bifurcated in Student Affairs and Academic Affairs at the time. And they wanted all in Academic Affairs. And Karen--President Haynes--asked me if I would do it. And I said, why me? Academic programs, advising, why? She said, you know, we really think that you can make it work. And so that's how advising, that's how it became Dean of Academic Advising and Academic Programs in 2019, I think we launched.
00:34:55Fabbi: Yeah, it's been a long road.
00:34:57Eisenbach: Yeah, it has been.
00:34:59Fabbi: Okay. So you've been a faculty member and administrator on campus for 34 years. What has been the evolution at CSUSM? How has it changed?
00:35:12Eisenbach: Well buildings are nice. (laughter) It still boggles my mind to this day. I will just like stand in Palm Court and look up the stairs 'cause for the longest time, those stairs were there and there was no building. And they were the stairs to nowhere. That's what we would call them 'cause Markstein Hall didn't open, hadn't opened yet. So every single building on campus, I have seen open. I've been in many of them before they were even built, like this building, I got to--I have a rivet from this building. So just basically growing up with the campus was just insane. And it's not, you know, it really exceeded expectations 'cause I certainly hoped that once we decided to stay here 'cause I mentioned we were gonna' be here for two years. After two years and, you know, this weather, we called home and we said, Yeah, we're not going back. And so my parents packed up and moved, and eventually, Angel's family packed up and moved. So once we decided to stay, and I got to, you know, we were at 400 students when I started. We're at what, close to 17,000 now. So just seeing that, and all of the talk in the early years was always about the City of San Marcos, the region needs us 'cause there's gonna be this explosion in the college age population. North County's population is exploding. We need to be here. And they, the City, you know, put its money where its mouth was. The Twin Oaks (Valley Road) has been as it is today, since before there was a campus. So they really were thinking ahead. And so, all of those promises and dreams so many of them came true. And I got to see that. I got to--(weeps) I knew this would happen.
00:37:16Fabbi: It's okay. We very much want you to be as vulnerable as you can.
00:37:20Eisenbach: And anybody who knows me knows that I cry. So it's okay. But I got to be a part of that. I got to, to build, build this place. And I think, wow, you know, I built it, and then my son came here. So I built it for him, for all of the other students that have graduated. And for all the faculty who have come here. So, you know, if you look for God, did you, did you go someplace where they let you make an impact? Yeah, I did. I did. And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that Shoeshine got that letter that day and that I gave it a chance.
00:38:13Fabbi: Did you always know that you wanted to be an academic or this was something that Shoeshine, like, helped to develop?
00:38:24Eisenbach: Yeah I, when I was little, I used to play school, and I'd line up my stuffed animals, and I had blue books, and I thought they were the coolest thing in the world, and I would give them little tests. So I guess leaning towards teaching was always a thing for me. But being a professor, no. And in fact, Angel can tell you this, when we, since I met him the day after I started the PhD program, I hated my classes. 'Cause they were very quantitative. I was a psych major. This was not my wheelhouse. And it was a lot more difficult. Like, I had been a really good student my whole life. Even in my undergrad, I got two B's. So school came easy to me. That all ended in grad school. It was not easy anymore. And so I would cry on the phone with him every night that we were talking, Oh, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this program. And so after the first year, I got an internship in HR for a bank. It was called Sun Bank at the time, in Florida, in Miami. And it was on Brickell Avenue, which is a beautiful big office right on the bay. And so I just had an intern job. But I got offered, at the end of the summer, I got offered a permanent job for ten dollars an hour. And I thought, Wow, that's lot of money. This was in 1988. That's a lot of money. Maybe I should drop out of the PhD program since I hate it so much. And I almost did. Oh my God, thank you. I went to my first academic conference at around the same time. And at the conference when I met other PhD students, when I saw faculty presenting on their research, I said, oh, okay. This is what faculty do. It's not these quantitative classes that I hate. So I was able to see the bigger picture. And so at that point, I, and then I started teaching in the PhD program, too. And I thought, okay. I like this. I like this part. Now, being an administrator, never crossed my mind. But being faculty--
00:40:33Fabbi: Until you started to be an administrator and then you were going all the way to the top.
00:40:37Eisenbach: Yep. Then I was gonna' be president. Yep.
00:40:38Fabbi: Okay, I get it. Okay. So can you speak to your highs and lows at CSUSM? You talked about one of the lows.
00:40:49Eisenbach: Yeah. So highs. This building, Markstein Hall. I was involved from the very, very early stages. I saw, I think I was on the first building committee, the first building design--people might not know this--was a circular building, but then in the CSU that can't work because it's too much wasted space. And then on the inside, so the scrap that, came up with the design, so work from the--work with the architect from the very beginning, as I said, was in this building multiple times as it was going up. And so when it finally opened, this was like my child. So it's funny now that I'm back in here, it's like, oh, I'm, I'm home. I feel completely comfortable. I was like, I picked out this furniture. Fourth floor, all of it, you know, we, the I--the fourth floor, I picked. Dennis, let me pick it. Dennis, let me pick this chair. It is a Coach leather chair in green. It's mine. This, I tell Angel, this is going home with me when I retire. And he says, University property. No, it's my chair. So opening this building was just awesome. The, in this job, well, accreditation, you know. Getting ten years when I didn't know anything about was going into this and was able to put a great team together, work with great people. God bless Melissa Simnett, you know, we were able to pull off a ten-year reaffirmation, which was awesome. Just seeing the growth, that's just been so exciting. My son graduating from here, that was, you know, best day of my life, no doubt. I was able to--I used to, before we got the, it's not an AI reader, it's a--how would you call our, how we do names at graduation now? So it's the computer reads them basically, but it's a human voice. Anyway, before that, it used to be faculty, and I used to coordinate the reading of the names and I would read names. So I got to read his name, and I got to say "my son Vincent Lorente," and my voice cracked just like that. So that was like one of the best days ever. Actually, every graduation is just amazing. And so those are all high points. The last thing I'll say is, you know, working with Academic Advising and getting to know those folks. This team of in Academic Programs that I'm working with now, like the stuff that's been happening recently, that's, that's all been awesome. I've loved it. Low points. I mentioned the one that was the lowest. What was the other one? Yeah, there really haven't been many. There really haven't been many. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.
00:43:48Fabbi: Okay. Do you have work that you've accomplished in your career that you think has been the most impactful? Like if you had to name one or two things?
00:43:59Curriculog and Acalog. So our curriculum system--curriculum management and our catalog--that's fully online. 'Cause that's, I mean, that's a piece of infrastructure that's gonna' last us. And we, that was entirely. I don't do "me" very much, but that one was me doing the research. Other CSUs, only three were using it at the time. But we had to do something 'cause we had paper forms that we're chasing all around campus. And we tried working with IT to do something that was an early version of DocuSign, but the technology wasn't there yet. And so these companies just started up then that were saying, Hey, we can do it all for you. And so I started researching them and thankfully we chose these folks. And now most of the CSUs uses 'em. And so that, while I don't fool myself into thinking it's gonna last us forever, I'm sure there's gonna be a better mousetrap someday. It has taken us quite far and took us through the pandemic, which if we had not had that, then there is no way. Everything would've ground to a halt. So I think that's had a big impact. This building, this thing's my legacy right here. So those things, and I guess just all the, I haven't counted, maybe I should, all of the program proposals, new programs, all of the things that have gotten approved in the last twelve years while I've been in this job. Like, at least--not a hundred, but about fifty easy. And so so those things.
00:45:36Fabbi: Great. Can you tell me about the people who have most influenced you in your career?
00:45:42Eisenbach: Hmm. So going--I mentioned Dennis Guzman, who had been the dean in COBA. So he was a great mentor and a great friend. And he rebuilt my self-esteem such that I could stay on as an administrator and not think that I was the piece of dirt that all of the faculty thought I was at the time. Beverly Anderson. So she was the first permanent dean hired in 1992. And she was, unfortunately, not what the senior faculty at the time wanted. I don't know if there were gender issues then. I was too young and blind to see any of that at the time. But they did not like her. They wanted to get rid of her and made her life miserable. And in fact, they co-opted us junior faculty. 'Cause I was twenty-six, what did I know from anything at the time? These, you know, senior faculty, who had been around forever, different universities were telling me, oh no, this isn't what we need in a dean. So they co-opted all of us and did a vote of no confidence against her. And so she stepped down after eighteen months. And then as I got a little bit older, I had a little bit more experience. After about three years, I realized, Man, that was a mistake. Beverly was good people and she was a good dean. And so I went to her and I said, Beverly, I am so sorry if you could ever forgive me. And so she became a mentor to me. She became a very close friend, and we stay in touch to this day. And she is like the exemplar of what a woman in the academy should be like. She came up in a time when women weren't respected, but yet she kept her head high. And I still remember the things that she told me. Like she said, nobody insults you without your permission. She taught me that careers are cyclical and that they go up, they go down, they go up, they go down. So never when they're down, when you're down, never worry about it 'cause it's gonna' go back up. So she had a huge impact on me. I'd say Karen Haynes, so she was a great mentor to me. She and Pat Worden, who was a VP of Student Affairs for a while, had been all of the things, like she had been Associate Dean in, it wasn't CHABSS (College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences) then, it was COAS, College of Arts and Sciences. Lots of positions on campus. And so she was a mentor to me and she, Karen and wait, yeah, she, Karen and I taught a class on women in leadership. And so that was super exciting. And that's how I got to know President Haynes as a person. And she wasn't just like in name only, she, we team taught that class and she was there. Like, she would come, she would lecture, she would discussion, all of the things. So she was a great influence on me. Kamel Haddad. He was just amazing. He made me better, you know, he just had a way of, you know, he was tough. He was hard to understand sometimes, not verbally, but just, What is it that you want from me? and I can't do it! And he yes, you can. And he taught me. And he was so patient. And so he made me better. Graham. Graham, he came in from the the provost who didn't give me the job. And he treated me fairly. He respected me. He--I guess that was a low time when I didn't get the job, the dean job. But Graham came in and saved the day for me. And so he was, he was definitely a mentor. My super close friend here, Dawn Formo. She and I have been together now for what, thirty years we've been friends. And so I always looked to her for like, what would Dawn do if? 'Cause she always does the right thing. Yeah, I'd say those, those folks. I'm sure there's more. I'm leaving out. Oh, David Barsky, who held the position before me. So he taught me. He spent a whole year training me, and I was thinking, I can't do this, David. I can't do it your way. But he still taught me and he taught me well, and he was always there to answer questions.
00:50:24Fabbi: So what do you plan to do during retirement? Personally and professionally. Today is your first day of retirement, I will say--
00:50:32Eisenbach: It is.
00:50:33Fabbi: --and you're in your office--
00:50:34Eisenbach: --and here I am. (laughter) Aye-yai-yai. So I am going to FERP, faculty early retirement. And so as part of that, I need to continue my--funny how I phrase that--I need to continue my work on WASC because the retirement was unexpected. My plan had been 2026 after my sixtieth birthday in September, after we had done our WASC reaffirmation visit, which is in March of 2026. But this VSIP (Voluntary Separation Incentive Program) thing came up, and it was too good to turn down. So I retired now. But leaving this place in a lurch with accreditation wasn't an option for me. And thankfully, the Provost and Vice Provost agreed. And so that's my fac--my FERP assignment is instead of going back to the classroom, I'm going to continue on as the, the WASC ALO and lead us through the accreditation visit. Also, since I'm not being replaced yet, the whole what happens to academic programs and academic advising question is still a very real one. And so I will be a faculty fellow for accreditation and curriculum, which means, kind of have to figure out how much I can do within the constraints of my FERP assignment to kind of keep the boat afloat for a year. So in a lot of ways, nothing has changed but then everything has changed. So I'm just, I'm still trying to figure out in my head what that means. I think at minimum it means that I set my schedule. And that I am the boss of no one for the first time since 1999. And that technically no one is the boss of me, other than my dogs. (Laughter)
00:52:27Fabbi: Will you still continue to do professional work with WASC?
00:52:31Eisenbach: Yes. So I will still serve on teams. So I've been doing that for about ten years now. I got involved with WASC after our visit because I was very impressed with them as an organization, because you think accreditation and it, you think it's about checking a bunch of boxes and oh, you don't do this right. WASC is not that. WASC is all about, you know, maybe it's the California philosophy, I don't know, but it's all about let's try to make you better. Let's get to know you, let's help you be a better version of you. And so that felt really good. And it also felt good to learn about other institutions because since this is the only place I've ever worked in higher ed, you know, that's my, that's a strength and it's a weakness because it's all I knew. And so getting involved in WASC exposed me to all types of institutions, you know, private, not-for-profit, for-profit, all of the things. Big schools, little schools, international schools. They sent me to the Emirates to review a school, I'm going to Ecuador next year. So really, WASC like swung open the door on professional development for me as someone in higher ed. And so I will absolutely love to keep doing that. And in fact, I just did a sub-change review yesterday for a school in Africa, of all places. Didn't go there, obviously. It was Zoom. But yeah, Ecuador in April.
00:53:56Fabbi: Very cool. Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about in this interview? Anything that we missed?
00:54:10Eisenbach: So in my retirement speech, I made a reference to Hamilton," and I read part of George Washington's farewell speech. I won't do that again. But the one thing I didn't say was another quote from Hamilton and it says "legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see." I got to see the garden. So that's pretty cool. And as I said earlier, I'm really grateful for that. Hopefully there's still some flowers that will bloom once I'm gone. But that won't be for another, well, I can FERP for five years. And that's my plan, you know, I think, God, old people retire and I'm not old, you know, fifty-eight, I'll be fifty-nine, but I've got five years now, and so I can see going all the way through five years for sure. Unless and until Vince has a baby. If that happens, then we are Napa bound and I will be raising grandchildren. (laughter)
00:55:17Fabbi: Very good. Okay. Well thank you. I will say the theme that came across to me the most in this interview is your like, can do, I can do it for a year, I can do it for two years. I could, I can do it for six months. And you've obviously been open to these possibilities, and that is really what has made your career and CSUSM so much better. So thank you so much for interviewing today. Thank you. Thank you for letting me talk about myself for two hours. (laughter)
00:55:43Eisenbach: Thank you. Thank you for letting me talk about myself for two hours. (laughter) NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END
