Armando Arias

Armando Arias is a professor in the School of Social, Behavioral, and Global Studies, part of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

He teaches social theory, technology and society, social psychology and the sociology of Latinos.

He came to CSUMB in 1994, serving as the founding associate vice president for Academic Affairs, founding dean of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, and founding dean of Arts, Humanities and Creative Technologies.

He went on to be a primary planner of the Service Learning Institute, founded the Big Sur Environmental Institute, and became founding academic director of the Leon Panetta Institute for Public Policy.

He’s earned grants and fellowships including from the Ford Foundation, he’s authored books including the forthcoming “Active Knowledge Models & Systems Engineering for Re-engineering Hispanics Serving Institutions,” and has published over 50 articles about STEM education and the social psychology of science.

He reports that his work is archived in over nine linear feet of materials including founding documents, accreditation reports and publications, accessible via CSUMB’s Digital Commons Gallery. 

Now he can add to his list of accolades and accomplishments the 2022 President’s Award for faculty members (Rhonda Mercadal-Evans was chosen among MPPs; Christina Rocchi was chosen among staff).

He was nominated by two colleagues in the psychology department. The award was conferred at the Employee Breakfast earlier this year and if he had been in attendance Arias says he would have delivered the following message: “We must do what we can to live truth to the values written into our powerful Vision Statement.”

He’s lived with that Vision Statement since the inception of the university. And he shows little sign of slowing down. In the last few years he’s examined the basic concepts and constructs of Active Knowledge Modeling (AKM), which includes the infusion to ChatGPT, in his approach to the study of dementia.