Lois Capps, Joyce Dudley and Nicolasa Sandoval, alumnae of the Department of Education at the Gevirtz School, will be featured on the UC Santa Barbara Alumni Association panel “Exceptional Women, Exceptional Gauchos” on Saturday, May 20 at 12:30 pm at the Fess Parker in Santa Barbara. (Tickets are available on-line.) Capps will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Distinguished Alumni Award. Sandoval will moderate a panel discussion on the topic Women in Politics that will also feature Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley ’75, ’81 MA, San Jose Vice Mayor Magadalena Carrasco ’91 and Harris Faulkner ’87, who will participate and receive her award electronically from the Fox News set.
Congresswoman Lois Capps retired from the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, after serving the 24th Congressional district since 1998. Capps earned a M.A. from the Gevirtz School in Early Childhood Education in 1990, writing the thesis “Looking Back at Teenage Parenthood: A Survey of Former Participants in a Local Intervention Program.”
Dudley was granted a MA in Education with an emphasis in Educational Administration in 1981. Dudley was elected District Attorney of Santa Barbara County in June 2010. She began her legal career in the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office in 1990. She has prosecuted well over one thousand cases including murder, arson, robbery, burglary, crimes involving sexual offenses, crimes against children and hate crimes. Involvement in community activities has been a priority for District Attorney Dudley during her career as a prosecutor. She has received numerous awards honoring her outstanding performance and volunteer activities from law enforcement agencies as well as community organizations.
Nicolasa I. Sandoval was the first person from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians to earn a doctorate from UCSB, which she did in 2007 from the Department of Education. Sandoval is education director for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and a lecturer in the Department of Education at UCSB. In 2013, Gov. Edmund G. Brown appointed her to the California State Board of Education, which sets K-12 education policy in the areas of standards, curriculum, instructional materials, assessment and accountability. Sandoval serves on the UC Santa Barbara Alumni board of directors and the board of the Santa Barbara Foundation.