CSUSB's Mark Day Earns Distinguished Service Honor

Mark Day, executive director of the Santos Manuel Student Union at Cal State San Bernardino, has been awarded the Don and Noel Hinde Distinguished Service Award by Region 15 of the Association of College Unions International at the ACUI regional conference held Nov. 11-14 in Honolulu. The “lifetime achievement” award honors longtime student union and student activities professionals who have made exceptional contributions to ACUI and Region 15, which includes institutions in California, Nevada, Hawaii, Guam and Australia. “I’m extremely honored and also humbled to join the previous recipients of this award – some of whom were my mentors and role models as I grew up in the profession,” said Day. “Out of the many outstanding universities in California, Nevada and Hawaii, CSUSB is now the only institution with two recipients of this award, as I join Helga Kray (2005) on the list of awardees. This kind of recognition doesn’t happen unless one is surrounded by great team of staff colleagues and student leaders, and at a university where excellence happens every day. Go ‘Yotes!’” Day has worked in student services positions for nearly three decades, including two separate periods at Cal State San Bernardino. He has served as executive director of the Santos Manuel Student Union since 2009, and previously worked as associate director of the CSUSB student union from 1997-2005. Between positions at CSUSB, he was the associate director for operations at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Student Union and held the same title at the University of California, Irvine’s Middle Earth Housing, a residence community for college freshmen. Day, who holds a bachelor’s in music from Cal State Long Beach, also worked at Long Beach and Cal State Northridge. The Don and Noel Hinde Distinguished Service Award is named after Don Hinde, who was director of the University Union at Sacramento State University for 26 years. Hinde also worked in the Union at Bowling Green State University in Ohio for 15 years. During his 41 years in the field, he and his wife, Noel, were fixtures at ACUI events, attending multiple national and regional conferences through his retirement in 2000.