Paving an Untraditional Path
By Tiffany Harbrecht
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Thalia Anagnos in action in the classroom.
Photo: David Schmitz
Thalia Anagnos shares how relationships 鈥� and a little bit of serendipity 鈥� transformed her career trajectory.
Thalia Anagnos, San Jos茅 State University鈥檚 vice provost for undergraduate education, was recently named a Tribute to Women Award winner by the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley.
Anagnos is part of a select group of more than who were celebrated at their 37th annual awards ceremony in May. The recipients, according to the , 鈥渉ave excelled in their fields and have made significant contributions to Silicon Valley through their dedication and leadership.鈥�
The Tribute to Women Awards has recognized more than 1,400 women for their remarkable achievements at work and in their communities. Anagnos has not only made substantial contributions to San Jos茅 State in her career, but she鈥檚 also repaved the path to university leadership.
Anagnos started at San Jos茅 State as a general education advisor and assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering and taught for more than 30 years before her transition to administration. Over time, she has been involved with numerous committees and held a variety of other roles, including chair of the civil and environmental engineering department, 91猎奇鈥檚 first director of assessment, associate vice president of graduate and undergraduate programs and, currently, as vice provost for undergraduate education.
Presently, she oversees curriculum development and assessment of general education and undergraduate programs, as well as 91猎奇鈥檚 articulation agreements with the state of California鈥檚 community college system. She also supervises the university鈥檚 accreditation, academic program catalog, academic scheduling and e-advising, and coordinates some student success programs.
鈥淏eing a member of 91猎奇 all these years has been really fun because of the variety of opportunities that working at a university provides such as research, teaching, working with the community, collaborating with other universities and mentoring students and colleagues,鈥� said Anagnos.
The strong roots she鈥檚 built at the university over time have made all the difference in the impact she鈥檚 made in leadership and directly with students.
鈥淗aving those relationships with people across campus has helped me to do the work I need to do 鈥� and learn what I need to know to help me change and grow,鈥� she added.
Finding her way, serendipitously
When Anagnos first came to San Jos茅 State back in the 1980s, there were not many women in engineering 鈥� there was a woman president of the university at the time 鈥� but she appreciates how that has changed over the years.
鈥淲e鈥檝e had multiple engineering deans that are women, and many members of the college leadership are now women,鈥� said Anagnos. 鈥淭o see that progression has been really fulfilling. It makes me feel good because we worked pretty hard to make that happen.鈥�
Her own career path and leadership have been more serendipitous. For example, on her first day as a master鈥檚 student at Stanford University, she was recruited by a professor to work on a high-level research project because the work aligned with what she had written in her statement of purpose for the program鈥檚 application.
Later, while in her PhD program at Stanford, a different professor who also taught at San Jos茅 State in the civil engineering department alerted her to an open teaching position at 91猎奇 and encouraged her to apply.
鈥淚'm pretty sure he advocated for me in terms of getting the position,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think if someone hadn鈥檛 tapped me on the shoulder I would have actually applied.鈥�
 Talking with a student in her office at 91猎奇 circa 1989. |
Fresh out of graduate school, once again happenstance intervened: The civil engineering department chair encouraged her to serve as an advisor in the university鈥檚 General Education Advising center in addition to her assistant professorship, which turned out to be the perfect professional development opportunity.
Every week, the advising center would bring someone in from a different campus office, introducing Anagnos to the many different services, particularly related to student success, that existed on campus outside of her College of Engineering.
鈥淣ot many assistant professors at that time had such an opportunity,鈥� she added. 鈥淭hat led to a lot of other different opportunities during my time at San Jos茅 State.鈥�
One of those roles involved assessment of the civil engineering curriculum for engineering accreditation, which laid the groundwork for her eventually becoming the university鈥檚 first director of assessment on campus.
鈥淚 think the greatest thing that happened to me in that director of assessment position was that I met people all over campus because I had to visit every single department and talk to their department chairs,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淚t gave me a great understanding of the real breadth of our curriculum across the campus.鈥�
In retrospect, Anagnos realizes that her path to leadership in a university environment was unplanned. She certainly did not expect to change from teaching to administration after 30 years, but San Jos茅 State is not your typical academic institution.
鈥淲e are a powerful place,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen you think about what we have to offer as a university, it's pretty amazing. And, it鈥檚 been pretty fun in between [all the roles] I鈥檝e had.鈥�
鈥淪haking鈥� up research
Testing the performance of a wood beam during a class in the Civil Engineering Materials
Testing Lab (early 1990s).
Anagnos鈥� area of research is earthquake engineering, which is what she started working on in that first project at Stanford. Her particular expertise is in the area of risk 鈥� like if we have a big earthquake, what鈥檚 the probability that the Bay Bridge will be damaged and need repair?
At one time, she was also president of the , a worldwide organization dedicated to reducing losses in future earthquakes.
鈥淚n one of my earlier projects in the 鈥�90s, we developed a , which was adopted by FEMA, and they use it whenever there鈥檚 a large earthquake to estimate the amount of disaster relief funding they need to ask of Congress,鈥� explained Anagnos.
鈥淚t鈥檚 based on geographic information systems and combines all types of geologic, building performance, and other infrastructure data with economic, demographic and social data to model potential consequences of an earthquake.鈥�
Being at San Jos茅 State opened up several opportunities for Anagnos to expand her work. She鈥檚 collaborated on numerous projects within the engineering community here, at UCLA, UC Berkeley and Stanford, among others.
One of them involved a $100 million multi-university earthquake engineering laboratory proposal funded by the National Science Foundation through Purdue University. As their director of education and outreach, Anagnos was charged with developing an education program for kindergarten through 16-year-old students, and she ran a summer research experience for undergraduates from all over the country for five years.
鈥淚t was an amazing experience for me because the students were mostly underrepresented, and they were doing their research at the different labs around the country, so we had to use online collaboration tools,鈥� she said.
鈥淭his is back 12 years ago before Zoom was a thing, and no one was using these collaboration tools with students. Our big message to the students was to learn these collaboration tools because you鈥檙e going to use them in your work in the future.鈥�
She also continues to work on a project with two women faculty members at Stanford, Sheri Sheppherd and Sarah Billington, related to an engineering textbook they wrote together some years ago. There aren鈥檛 a lot of engineering textbooks written by three women 鈥� nor, when this was written, were there many equipped with an online interactive platform to practice solving problems and watch instructional videos.
The three are working to create an updated version of the accompanying virtual component. Eventually, they hope to write the next edition of the text with even more real-time examples that a broader group of students can relate to.
鈥淲e tried to think of it honestly, from the perspective of inclusion,鈥� she explained.
鈥淎 lot of the illustrations we drew included people of color, and we tried to incorporate examples of things that you might be more familiar with: things in the kitchen, things that you do every day, or concepts like how our bodies work. We tried to make the book one that would excite non-traditional engineering students and underrepresented groups into engineering.鈥�
Yet, for all of the roles she鈥檚 held across her career, one that she is exceptionally proud of is not research-related at all.
Nurturing the next generation
When Anagnos鈥� daughter was in kindergarten, another mother approached her to start a Daisy troop, and she was game. Once she got involved, she really saw the value in it and ended up leading a Girl Scout troop for 12 years.
 Anagnos and her Girl Scout troop at a camporee. |
鈥淚 was really interested in seeing young women develop into independent beings, especially when I started seeing this as an opportunity for my own daughter and her friends to develop themselves as strong leaders,鈥� shared Anagnos.
She had already worked over the years to get more young women in STEM, helping propel San Jos茅 State鈥檚 Expanding Your Horizons program, which was a conference to get young women, grades six through 12, interested in careers in science, math and engineering. Nurturing future leaders through Girl Scouts was a natural fit.
鈥淲hat I really loved about Girl Scouts was that they're all about developing leadership in young girls and transferring the leadership responsibilities from the troop leaders to the girls,鈥� she said. 鈥淎lmost every single one of those girls has gone on to do something amazing.鈥�
Likewise, Anagnos said her mother, who was a strong leader, single mom, school teacher and community activist, always inspired her to do her best in whatever endeavors she chose.
Anagnos recounts a memory of her after she passed:
I found this picture of her when she was in her 90s. She would go to the high schools in Eastside LA and try to tell the kids that they don't have to sign up for the Army. These recruiters would go to all these schools with lots of Black and brown kids who don鈥檛 have a lot of income, and my mom was part of this group who protested this with her little sandwich board on, saying, 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 have to join.鈥� That's just who she was. She was just always out there making the world a better place."
(Left) Anagnos' mother Lorraine Oshins during WWII while working in the code breaking office in Washington DC; (right) Oshins at the age of 92 still advocating students consider alternatives to joining the military.
Those same words could be used to describe the impact that Anagnos has had on others, especially young women and underrepresented students, throughout her storied academic career 鈥� one she clearly cherishes for its invigorating variety.
鈥淲hen I鈥檝e talked to people about why would you want to work at a university, I鈥檝e said one of the things I've loved about it is that every day, every year, is different.鈥�
