California’s El Niño winters never have been a sure thing. Some seasons of oceanic warming produce record rainfall and flooding, while others barely threaten average seasonal precipitation.

But at California State University, Stanislaus, annual preparations are being completed as if a deluge was guaranteed.

Former California State University, Stanislaus Foundation Board member Carl Boyett, whose business acumen and philanthropic spirit enhanced an entire region, died Sunday morning.

Boyett, 70, owned Modesto-based Boyett Petroleum, which owns and operates more than 40 stations in Northern California and includes a fuel distribution network that services more than 500 stations in the Western states. His passion for building the company, started by the Boyett family in 1940, was equaled by his love for his community.

Eugene Simmons was one of roughly 30 veterans who rode motorcycles onto the Quad at the California State University, Stanislaus campus for Wednesday’s seventh annual Thank A Veteran Ceremony.

The act itself didn’t seem so impressive until you realized that Simmons, 88 and a Navy and Air Force veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, rode in from his home in Milpitas for the event — roughly 95 miles one way.

Gina Cook, assistant professor of child development at California State University, Stanislaus, has been named a recipient of a 2015 Simms/Mann Faculty Fellowship.

The fellowship, conducted by the Los Angeles-based Simms/Mann Institute, is a public/private partnership offering professional development to CSU and California Community College instructors in the fields of early childhood education, psychology and nursing.

California State University, Stanislaus President Joseph F. Sheley participated Friday as a member of a distinguished panel at the California Latino Leadership Education Summit hosted by Fresno State.

The two-day event, which sold-out and drew more than 600 participants, was designed to be an interactive forum addressing the barriers to and proposing solutions for ensuring educational success and equity for all students in the Central San Joaquin Valley.

California State University, Stanislaus honored this year’s recipients of the Mary Stuart Rogers Scholarship, including 11 undergraduate students and 6 teaching credential students at a luncheon held on campus last Friday. The group was recognized for their outstanding academic performance, dedication to personal growth and desire to serve others.

Volunteers shone brightly in the final week of the One Purpose campaign — an annual effort to raise scholarship dollars for students. In the sixth week of the campaign, volunteers reported more than $185,000 in pledges of support, making it the most successful of the six-week fund drive. In its second year, One Purpose volunteers generated more than $400,000.

Evolving federal requirements have changed the way that universities address sexual violence. More resources are being directed toward anti-violence education, victim support and “see something, say something” training. Reporting requirements have changed as well.

At Stanislaus State, the number of sexual assaults rose from two in 2013 to seven in 2014, according to the University’s annual Campus Security Report, which was released Oct. 1.

Amy Laitinen admits she was surprised when she saw the results of her statistical methodology for the first time.

A former White House and Department of Education advisor, Laitinen was asked in September by National Public Radio to come up with a ranking system for the nation’s universities.

She responded with a formula that measured upward mobility, and when NPR’s computers crunched the numbers, the top five schools on the list were Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UC Irvine … and California State University, Stanislaus.