Steven C. González ’85: 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award

Steven C. González ’85

Pitzer’s Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes a graduate who boldly puts the spirit of a Pitzer education into action and demonstrates a commitment to making meaningful changes in their community.

Chief Justice Steven C. González is the Washington Supreme Court’s 58th Chief Justice. Before joining the Supreme Court, Chief Justice González served as a trial judge on the King County Superior Court and practiced both criminal and civil law. He was an assistant US attorney, a domestic violence prosecutor for the City of Seattle, and in private practice at a Seattle law firm. While working in private practice, González regularly provided pro bono representation. The chief justice has received numerous awards, including the Golden Scarf from the Seattle Sounders FC; the 2022 Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession; and the 2021 CZ Smith Trailblazer Award from the Latina/o Bar Association of Washington.

Chief Justice González is passionate about providing open access to the justice system. He was appointed by the Supreme Court to the Washington State Access to Justice Board and served as chair for the Interpreter Commission to enhance language access across Washington state. González also mentors students and serves as a board member for the Washington Leadership Institute, whose mission is to recruit, train, and develop traditionally underrepresented attorneys for future leadership positions in the Washington State Bar Association and legal community.

Chief Justice González earned his BA with honors in East Asian Studies from Pitzer College and his JD from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where he was the technical editor of the La Raza Law Journal. During his sophomore year at Pitzer, González studied at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, and during the spring semester of his senior year, he studied at Nanjing University in China. Before law school, he did graduate work in economics at Hokkaido University. He received Honorary Doctor of Laws Degrees from Gonzaga University School of Law in 2011 and the University of Puget Sound in 2015.

Chief Justice González speaks Japanese, Spanish, and some Mandarin Chinese. He lives in Olympia with his wife, Michelle, and their two sons.

Michael V. Ceraso ’14: 2022 Young Alumni Achievement Award

Michael V. Ceraso ’14

Pitzer’s Young Alumni Achievement Award recognizes graduates of the last 10 years who apply Pitzer’s unique educational experience to their professional life and find creative and innovative ways to make impactful changes in the community.

Michael V. Ceraso has over a decade of experience in electoral campaigns and political advocacy. Ceraso worked on President Barack Obama’s first presidential run after he graduated from Citrus College. After working on several down-ballot races in the Northeast, Ceraso returned home to earn his Political Science and Government degree from Pitzer College in the New Resources Program. His rise through the political ranks led him to manage statewide operations for presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. In between, he worked on Capitol Hill and managed down-ballot races in the rural South. Ceraso also ran for Claremont City Council twice, including a second-place finish in District 5.

Ceraso is the founder and executive director of Winning Margins, a public relations firm that works with executives, political candidates, and advocacy leaders. Established in 2017, Winning Margins also provides resources for underfunded candidates in underserved communities who lack the financial resources and staff talent to compete. Ceraso also founded Community Groundwork, which offers training and mentorship programs, networking opportunities, and financial resources to two-year community college students who are interested in working in government advocacy political campaigns but do not have the same opportunities as students at four-year schools. Community Groundwork first originated in 2019 when Ceraso raised $6,000 through a GoFundMe campaign for a pilot program with 22 students at Cerritos and Long Beach community colleges.

Ceraso’s interests do not just lie with political advocacy and mentoring the next generation of students; he currently writes and interviews up-and-coming comic book talent through Comics Bookcase.

Susan Feniger ’76: 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree

Pitzer’s Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes a graduate who boldly puts the spirit of a Pitzer education into action and demonstrates a commitment to making meaningful changes in their community.

Susan Feniger '76, Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree
Susan Feniger ’76, 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree. Photo by Josh Kaplan.

Susan Feniger, a chef and entrepreneur, is best known for founding the successful Border Grill restaurant with her business partner, Mary Sue Milliken. In 1985, the year they opened Border Grill, they won a James Beard Award. Since then, the two women have expanded their food empire to include a network of restaurants stretching from Downtown LA to Las Vegas, as well as catering services and food trucks. Most recently, they opened Socalo, a California canteen and Mexican pub in Santa Monica.

Feniger and Milliken have co-authored numerous cookbooks, including City Cuisine and Mesa Mexicana, and starred on The Food Network series “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour.” In 2018, Feniger and Milliken became the first women (and first duo) to win the Julia Child Award.

Feniger gives back to her community by working closely with Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, Share Our Strength, and the Human Rights Campaign. A co-founder of Chefs Collaborative, she also serves on the boards of the Scleroderma Research Foundation, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. Feniger graduated from Pitzer with a degree in economics.

Adrian Brandon ’15: 2021 Young Alumni Achievement Award Honoree

Adrian Brandon ’15, 2021 Young Alumni Achievement Award Honoree

Pitzer’s Young Alumni Achievement Award recognizes graduates of the last 10 years who apply Pitzer’s unique educational experience to their professional life and find creative and innovative ways to make impactful changes in the community.

Adrian Brandon is an artist whose work reflects the full spectrum of the Black experience. He captures what he describes as “the unique joy, swagger, and love” shared in the Black community and raises awareness about racial injustice and violence. In February 2019, Brandon started “Stolen”—a portrait series dedicated to Black Americans who have been killed by police. He begins each work with an outline, then colors in the portrait for an amount of time that correlates with how long the person lived: 1 year of life = 1 minute of color. The unfinished portraits embody the years of life stolen. The series was on view at his first public exhibition, in Brooklyn, NY, in November 2019, and can be viewed on Instagram, where Brandon’s work has drawn upwards of 200,000 followers. His current series, “Brooklyn Windows,” reflects the isolation and complexity of life during COVID-19.

An environmental analysis and studio art major at Pitzer, Brandon organized and exhibited in the 2015 senior art show, Nine. He studied abroad at Pitzer’s Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology in Costa Rica and played on the Sagehens Men’s Basketball team. His senior year, he was awarded a Fulbright to teach English in Taiwan. Brandon’s artwork lives on where he has lived: his powerful murals in Costa Rica, Taiwan, and on the Pitzer campus speak to art’s ability to communicate across divides of culture and time.  

Romarilyn Ralston ’14: 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree

Pitzer’s Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes a graduate who boldly puts the spirit of a Pitzer education into action and demonstrates a commitment to making meaningful changes in their community.

Romarilyn Ralston
Romarilyn Ralston ’14: 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree

Romarilyn Ralston ’14 is the program director of Project Rebound at California State University, Fullerton, a program that provides individualized support to assist formerly incarcerated students in pursuing higher education. Ralston, who was incarcerated at the age of 24 and served 23 years in prison, went on to receive her bachelor’s degree in gender and feminist studies as a New Resources student from Pitzer College and her master’s degree in liberal arts from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been awarded a 2014–15 Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, the Mary McLeod Bethune 2016 Leadership Award and the 2018 Civil Rights and Advocacy Award by the Orange County Chapter of the National Coalition of 200 Black Women. She was a 2017 Leadership Fellow with the JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction program, a 2018 Fellow of the Women’s Policy Institute.

Steven Liang ’10: 2020 Young Alumni Achievement Award Honoree

Pitzer’s Young Alumni Achievement Award recognizes graduates of the last 10 years who apply Pitzer’s unique educational experience to their professional life and find creative and innovative ways to make impactful changes in the community.

Steven Liang
Steven Liang ’10: 2020 Young Alumni Achievement Award Honoree. Photo credit: Joe Sherman ’10

Steven Liang ’10 is a film director and storyteller who is known for his short films Afuera, Coming Home, and Falling for Angels. He has also directed two documentaries, A Better Life and Trans Lives Matter National Day of Action. Topics such as resilience, the American dream, and underdogs inspire his work. In 2019, Liang was selected to participate in the Ryan Murphy TV HALF Initiative’s Directing Mentorship Program. From 2016 to 2018, his web series was in development at the Warner Bros.-based Stage 13. He is the recipient of the 2017 Film Independent Directing Lab Fellowship, the 2017 Armed with a Camera Fellowship, the 2015 Carl David Memorial Fellowship, and the 2013 AbelCine Documentary Grant. He was also a finalist for the 2016 ABC-Disney Directing Fellowship. At Pitzer, Liang was active at CAPAS and worked as an RA at Holden Hall. In his senior year at Pitzer, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan. Steven holds a BA in Asian American Studies and self-designed Communication Studies from Pitzer College. He also holds an MFA in Film Directing from the University of California, Los Angeles.