Rosemary and Paul Adalian noticed one another in what Paul calls the first class — at 8 a.m. — on the first day of school at the brand-new Stanislaus State campus in 1965. 

She sat in the front row of Sociology 201. He was in the back. 

“I saw this girl in the front and she was wearing a dress, and I thought, ‘Who in the heck wears a dress? This is college,’” Paul said. 

Someone who wore a plaid skirt, blue blazer, white gloves and hat to an all-girl Catholic high school two blocks from New York’s Times Square did. 

When history professor and professional musician Kim Nalley speaks or sings about the racism Black people have endured, she frequently makes people uncomfortable. That’s when she knows she is making a difference.

“Being uncomfortable, forcing yourself to see things differently and entertain the idea that you are not always right, that’s when you learn,” said the jazz and blues vocalist who teaches history at Cal State East Bay.