SF State Alumni Hall of Fame welcomes inductees

SAN FRANCISCO, May 5, 2011 -- A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, a philanthropist and professor emerita, a radio anchor, an international physician, and the CEO of Walden House recovery centers will be inducted into the San Francisco State University Alumni Hall of Fame at a campus reception on May 20. The president of Tamkang University in Taiwan will be honored as the Alumna of the Year.

The honorees are:

Flora Chia-I Chang (M.A. Economics, 1982) Alumna of the Year
President of Tamkang University (TKU), Taiwan's oldest private university, and a professor of educational policy and leadership, Flora Chia-I Chang has pioneered new ways to deliver higher education and ensure that universities remain a primary source of innovation in global business, politics and culture. Her academic research, which focuses on distance learning technology, is widely cited. Combining high tech and quality management expertise, Chang introduced successful business philosophies and practices that streamlined TKU operations. In 2009, TKU was the first academic institution in the world to receive international accreditation for its comprehensive information technology data and service management. Chang's focus on ensuring that students are prepared for the global workforce is reflected in TKU's pioneering Lanyang Campus in eastern Taiwan, where the language of instruction is predominantly English. Under Chang's direction, TKU has initiated academic partnerships and exchanges in 28 countries with 110 universities, including SF State.

Stan Bunger (B.A. Radio-TV, 1977)
Bunger currently co-anchors a top-rated morning news show on KCBS radio that reaches 600,000 listeners each week. The recipient of many awards for excellence in news broadcasting over the past 30 years, Bunger shared a Peabody Award for his KCBS radio coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Raised in the Santa Clara Valley, Bunger developed a specialty in high tech reporting. He produced, reported and co-hosted television news segments and shows focusing on technology including the syndicated "Next Step," which aired in the Bay Area on KRON TV. Bunger's digital presence includes a Twitter feed from the KCBS broadcast studio, a regular "KCBS Sports Fans" podcast, and a sports-related blog. When he's not reporting the news, Bunger is making music as a guitarist in the "Eyewitness Blues Band." The Alameda resident was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2010.

Kay Takeyama Dilena  (B.A. Accounting 1970, M.B.A. Management 1973)
A native of Japan who survived World War II in Tokyo, Dilena has dedicated her life to strengthening relations between the U.S. and Japan. The San Francisco resident, who came to the U.S. as a student in 1953, co-wrote "Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima," a family history in both English and Japanese. Published in 1989, the book was a collaboration with her American husband, James Dilena, who survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; her brother, Yasuo Takeyama, a prominent economist and journalist who survived the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima; and Yasuo's wife, Janet Takeyama. A professor emerita of management, Dilena taught at SF State from 1973 until she retired in 1988. In 2010, Dilena made a $5 million legacy gift to SF State. The second largest private individual gift in the University's history, it honors the memory of Dilena's brother and husband and their personal histories that framed U.S. involvement in World War II. The gift established the Dilena Takeyama Center for the Study of Japan and Japanese Culture.

Vitka Eisen (M.S.W. Social Work, 1993)
Homeless, hopeless and addicted to heroin in 1985, Eisen walked into a San Francisco Walden House addiction treatment facility not expecting to stay very long, much less become the organization's CEO in 20 years.  She is the first Walden House graduate to become president and CEO of the 40 year-old nonprofit.  After completing the Walden House program in 1987, Eisen began her two-decade commitment to serving individuals struggling with addiction or incarceration by earning a master's degree in social work from SF State and a doctor of education from Harvard University. Her career with Walden House began in the organization's adolescent program, working with substance abusing teens. Later, she served as director of one of the largest prison substance abuse treatment programs in the country in Corcoran, California. Today the Berkeley resident oversees a $58 million annual budget, 425 full-time employees and 13 treatment facilities throughout California. Eisen is currently overseeing the merger between Walden House and Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.

Philip Schultz (B.A. English, 1967)
Norman Mailer wrote "Philip Schultz is one hell of a poet, one of the very best of his generation, full of slashing language, good rhythms, surprises, and the power to leave you meditating in the cave of his poems." A recipient of both Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, Schultz was also honored with the Academy of American Poets Lamont Prize, an American Academy & Institute of the Arts and Letters award, a National Book Award nomination and the Levinson Prize from Poetry. The East Hampton, NY resident won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his sixth collection of poems, "Failure." Schultz's work has been published in many magazines, including The New Yorker and The Paris Review. A dyslexic who did not learn to read until he was 11 years old, his new memoir, "My Dyslexia," will be published this September. Schultz is the founder and director of the Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry, which has branches in Manhattan, Tucson, Amsterdam and here in San Francisco. Among his many accomplished students are Walter Mosley and this year's Pulitzer Prize-winner for fiction, Jennifer Egan.

Ramona Tascoe, M.D. (B.A. Interdepartmental Studies: Political Sci., Sociology, Psychology, 1970) At the request of the International Medical Corps, Dr. Tascoe coordinated the working relationship of U.S. doctors and nurses providing medical relief in Haiti with the largest public hospital after the 2010 earthquake. Today, as the hospital's appointed international consultant, she is responsible for interfacing with U.S. universities and hospital systems involved in the medical recovery mission in Port au Prince. She continues to travel between her home in Oakland and Haiti. Dr. Tascoe specializes in the evaluation of behavioral factors that influence disease, disaster, and social disorder on a global level, and gives advice on constructive interventions.  She has led medical missions to Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, India, Sri Lanka, and the U.S. Gulf Coast following Katrina. A Jefferson Award for Public Service recipient and ordained minister, Dr. Tascoe's passion for social justice and healthcare cultural competency was cultivated during her undergraduate years at SF State, where she triple majored in political science, sociology and psychology. As a student she was a member of the Black Student Union and the movement to hire more black professors and create the College of Ethnic Studies. In addition to a doctor of medicine degree from University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Tascoe earned a master's degree in health services administration from the University of San Francisco.  She earned a master of divinity degree at the Graduate Theological Union.

The San Francisco State University Alumni Hall of Fame recognizes alumni who have earned the respect of their peers through professional, cultural and civic achievements. Among the previous inductees are jazz artist George Duke, Director of the San Francisco Food Bank Paul Ash, actor Jeffrey Tambor, astronaut Yvonne Cagle, actress Annette Bening and "Frazier" co-creator and executive producer Peter Casey.

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Photos are available upon request.