Alumnae Rita Tsukahira and Dean Pullen were surprised to find out each had ties to CSUF when they ran into each other in Haifa, Israel in November. Our College of Communications dean had a “by-chance” run in with Rita Tsukahira in Israel when he served as a leader of the “History on the Move” study tour.

Rita graduated in the early 80s with her M.A. in Speech Communication and had not encountered anyone from her alma mater in more than 20 years. Professor Rich Wiseman served as her thesis chair.

Tsukahira left Southern California in 1982 to teach interpersonal and rhetorical communication in Tokyo. She and her husband moved to Israel in 1991 to work at the Mt. Carmel School of Ministry where they reach out to Arabs and Jews with their drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, women’s shelter and with various feeding and clothing distribution services.

According to Tsukahira , she and her husband also lead seminars for business people “using the intercultural principles I first learned at CSUF!”