Fullerton : Marker Honoring Dead of Cal State Dedicated

A monument honoring deceased professors and students was dedicated Sunday at Cal State Fullerton.

The seven-foot metal sculpture commemorates “individuals who have died while part of the university residency,” according to Tracy Stotz, Associated Students president. Those being honored by the marker include foreign language instructor Alex M. Odeh, English professor Priscilla Oaks and physics professor Edward Lee Cooperman.

Odeh, director of the California chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, was killed by a bomb blast in Santa Ana last October. Oaks was killed last September in an automobile accident, and Cooperman was shot to death in his campus office in October of 1984 by a student who was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

In a short 11 a.m. ceremony attended by about 25 people, Cal State Fullerton President Jewell Plummer Cobb placed bouquets on the memorial, constructed in a grassy area near the Student Center.

The aluminum-and-steel structure also commemorates five suicide victims on campus within the past nine years. As part of the campus effort to prevent suicides, the “Friends for Life Committee,” a student public relations management project, last week observed Suicide Prevention Week.

The monument was financed with a $750 donation by Associated Students, the school’s student government organization. It was constructed by graduate student Steve Metzger.