Alumni

“In Hawaiian there’s a word called kuleana, which means your responsibility, what you bring to the table — something that’s unique and special that you do that uplifts your world,” he told the MacArthur Foundation. “Our ancestors were highly innovative people. What I’m doing with innovating in hula is keeping that innovative spirit of our ancestors and my kuleana.” 

His groundbreaking work in hula at the San Francisco dance school he founded in 1985 earned him a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship in cultural preservation, a recognition that comes with a generous stipend of $800,000. He’s the first native Hawaiian to receive the honor, and he was among 19 other fellows from more traditional disciplines such as science, poetry, art, law, music and math. 

The 62-year-old has made it his mission to challenge what’s considered traditional. “When people think of tradition, they view it as fixed or immobile,” he said. “You can still preserve culture and innovate at the same time. They’re not mutually exclusive pursuits. In fact, if your culture does not innovate or evolve then it becomes immobile and a dead culture.” 

A raconteur, Makuakāne tells both old and new stories through hula. Traditional hula dances focus on the land and the Hawaiian people, but his choreography touches on edgier topics like imperialism and occupation. His 1996 production “The Natives Are Restless” explored the tragic history of Hawaii’s transformation from a sovereign monarchy to being annexed by the United States, which had overthrown the island nation’s first and only queen. 

“I did this piece called ‘Salva Mea,’ which was about the missionaries. I dressed as a priest with techno music in the background and I was running around the stage with an 8-foot cross baptizing people,” he said. “It was like an incoherent, messy and incautious mix of tradition and experimentation that really worked. … People were blown away.” 

That production set him on a path of experimentation ever since. 

Hula often shies away from tough topics, he says, but hula is the right art form to tell these stories so that history doesn’t repeat itself. He credits San Francisco with being the perfect place for his art, a city known as a playground for experimentation, subversion and boundary pushing. Makuakāne arrived in the city around the time of Act Up, a grassroots political group working to end the AIDS epidemic. The group was known for its theatrical acts of civil disobedience, actions he calls influential. 

He began studying hula at 13 years old. At 23, he moved to San Francisco for love — he followed a boyfriend who was a waiter at an exclusive French restaurant. After arriving in the city, Makuakāne taught hula to earn money. It was also his tie to Hawaii. He quickly attracted students and founded his award-winning hula school Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu (which means “many-feathered wreaths at the summit”). Over the past four decades, he estimated he’s taught thousands of students. 

While he was building up his dance company, he studied kinesiology at San Francisco State University. After graduating he continued teaching hula and working as a physical trainer. As his school grew, he devoted himself full-time to hula, a decision that’s paid off. 

He was at Burning Man when he got the call from the MacArthur Foundation. He had no cell phone service and wasn’t sure why they called him. When he finally connected with the organization five days later, he was shocked. As the surprise wore off, guilt surfaced. So much of his work is entrenched in community and rests on the shoulders of his ancestors. “There are many people in my position who are deserving of an award such as this,” he said. “So, you do feel a bit guilty. Why me? Why not somebody else? How did I get noticed, you know?” 

But then again, he has been at this for more than three decades and he’s one of only few taking hula in new directions. And he’s grateful to be in the perfect place to do it. 

“[A friend once said,] “‘It must be nice being in San Francisco without someone looking over your shoulder, critiquing your every move.’ I was like, ‘Yeah it is,’” he said. “So that sense of liberation in your arts, feeling unshackled and doing whatever you want was a part of my process. I feel like I’m at a place really where I can do anything.” 

Photo courtesy of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 

Left to right: Kevin Mullin, April Chan, Shamann Walton

Winning the 15th Congressional District election to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives is Kevin Mullin (MPA, ’98). Mullin will represent the Peninsula and parts of San Francisco in the seat previously held by Democrat Jackie Speier. Mullin previously served in California’s Assembly as Assembly speaker pro tempore and on the City Council for South San Francisco. 

April Chan (MPA, ’95) will represent Ward 7 on the Board of East Bay Municipal Utility District. Chan chairs the Fairview Municipal Advisory Council and previously served on Alameda County Fire Advisory Commission. After her MPA degree, she built a career in public finance and transit. 

Shamann Walton (MPA, ’10) was just re-elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He currently serves as the board president, representing District 10. He is the former executive director of Young Community Developers.

Other MPA alums have also served as elected officials. John Baker (MPA, ’12) is currently president of the South San Francisco Unified School District. Baker first served on the board in 2016 and has been re-elected ever since. Juslyn Manalo  (MPA, ’14) is a member of the City Council for Daly City and has also served as mayor. Alex Randolph (MPA, ’12) was a member of the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees from 2015 to 2020 and has since worked in government affairs for Uber and currently at The Gap.

MPA program sharpened his focus on equity and his understanding of how government works

Hanging in San Francisco Supervisor Shamman Walton’s (MPA, ’10) office is a photograph of his mentor Philmore Graham, founder of the Omega Boys Club in Vallejo — a club that he says saved his life. Its mission was to create a college pipeline for Black male youth. Walton got into trouble at school and spent time in juvenile hall, but the club set him on a different path — one that began with a four-year degree from Morris Brown College in Atlanta and later a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from San Francisco State University. Now, as the county and city’s first Black man elected president of the Board of Supervisors, through public policy, he’s carving out similar pathways for the Black community.

In high school, Walton says he aspired to lead reform efforts in his community. He knew he’d have a role in government, but he couldn’t see the exact path he’d take to get there. It turns out that path was shaped like a circle. Walton grew up in public housing in Potrero Hill and Bayview. Years later, he worked in nonprofits and education serving those same communities. In 2018, he was elected supervisor of District 10, which encompasses those same neighborhoods. He credits San Francisco State with preparing him for that leap to government. There’s not a day that goes by in his current role that he doesn’t use what he learned at SF State, he says.

“The MPA program taught me how government works, how resources flow from all levels of government — federal, state to local,” he added. “The program is second to none in preparing you for a life in government.”

“It’s a testament to the leadership at SF State that professors know and understand that different cultures are important, that diversity is important and to bring all that to a leadership role is important.”

He was drawn to SF State for its historic commitment to social justice, equity and inclusion, something his instructors lived and breathed, he says. “We live in a diverse world. In public service, it’s important to understand and build relationships with the communities and the cultures around you. All of my professors understood that and taught from that perspective,” he said. “It’s a testament to the leadership at SF State that professors know and understand that different cultures are important, that diversity is important and to bring all that to a leadership role is important.”

The program sharpened his focus on equity, something he’s used to draft groundbreaking legislation for San Francisco. For instance, Walton co-authored a measure, approved by the Board of Supervisors, that would close the city’s juvenile hall by the end of 2021. Instead of jailing youth, the city will expand alternative community-based programs focused on rehabilitation.

Another major project he’s working on is developing a reparations program for the descendants of African American slaves living in San Francisco. He assembled a task force in early 2020, and it’s strategizing ways to put a monetary value to the historic injustices the Black community has endured, such as discriminatory housing policies, mass incarceration and the lack of Black business and/or home ownership.

“When we first came to this country, our language was taken away and we couldn’t get an education. That’s kept us from building generational wealth,” he said. “The reparations package will allow us to create some of that wealth and overcome some of the gaps and disparities for the Black community and create positive outcomes.” It’s unclear yet if reparations will take the shape of direct payments to families or will fund specific community programs.

When he’s not working on landmark legislation for City Hall, Walton is making a difference elsewhere — including in the classroom. He’s a frequent guest lecturer in the public administration program at SF State. He tells students considering careers in government that a good place to start is volunteering and reaching out to local officials, professors and educators. Patience and perseverance are important ingredients for this type of work as well, he adds, because change doesn’t happen overnight.

“You’re not always going to start off in leadership roles. You have to work through all the steps,” he said. “I’ve had a paper route. I’ve worked at a Boys and Girls Club, I’ve taught in a classroom, I’ve worked in public housing. I’ve had all kinds of jobs that have led to give me to the experience and opportunities I have today. You never know what opportunities are going to lead to next, so you have to be faithful in the work that you do. Understand that these things don’t happen overnight — perseverance is key.”

Larisa Revzina (left) and students at Gurnick Academy examine a training manikin. (Photos by Jim Block)

Revzina and her family — including daughter Julia, then 10, and husband Lev — were part of a wave of Russian-Jewish emigrants in the 1990s admitted to the United States as political refugees due to overt, institutionalized anti-Semitism in the former USSR. “Very dirty, very poor, no food, nothing,” is how Revzina sums up the Yeltsin-era Russia she left behind. In addition to empty store shelves, there were limited opportunities, in particular for Jews, who were kept out of more upscale professions like medicine by being excluded from those university training programs. Revzina, who felt called to the medical arena, studied civil engineering and worked as a researcher until her U.S. journey began.

“I cried because I thought, gosh, it’s a very clean country, it’s beautiful surroundings and it’s excellent people,” she says, animated with the emotions of the day more than 20 years later. “This is absolutely my country.”

Revzina embraced her American life, and a success story unfolded. She earned her M.S. in nursing science at SF State, and returned to school for her nurse practitioner certificate. After several years of clinical practice, and some teaching in SF State’s nursing program, she co-founded the Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, a nationally accredited professional training school where she is currently the chief academic officer. Her resume suggests a straight line to success, but the reality was a meandering path of struggle, poverty and a particular penchant for turning failures into opportunities.

Navigating an educational maze

As a new arrival, Revzina had neither the language nor the money to attend medical school. So after a few months of English lessons arranged through the local Jewish center, she enrolled in Foothill College, having heard through the Russian-immigrant community that dental hygienists earned a good living (“$30 an hour — a million dollars!” she thought at the time). She slowly made her way through a maze of prerequisites and unclear outcomes, only to miss the cut for limited internship slots by just one place on the list. She was crushed. “You cannot imagine the amount of tears and screaming and crying,” she said of watching three years of struggle amount to “no job, nothing.”

But the effort would amount to something, after all. A friend from the dental program encouraged Revzina to look into nursing. She found SF State’s Generic Master’s Program in Nursing Science, which did not require applicants’ undergraduate degrees to be related to medicine. There were still prereq’s, but with her engineering degree and her health-related Foothill coursework, she easily qualified.

Day One at SF State set a lasting tone. Patricia Hess, a now-retired professor, did a role-playing exercise, assigning students to don doctor, nurse and patient roles. With her choppy English and the social chasm between her and the other students — well into her 30s by now, she was the only older student — Revzina tried to hide. But Hess wouldn’t allow it. “She said to me, ‘You’re going to be a doctor,’” and made Revzina stand her ground in the exercise. It was a pivotal moment; Hess’ refusal to let her disappear forced Revzina to own her education and imagine a promising future.

Years later, when Revzina earned her doctorate in education from the University of San Francisco, one of the first calls she made was to her former mentor. “Dr. Hess? This is Dr. Revzina!” she belly-laughs, recounting the moment.

Karen Johnson-Brennan, now an emeritus professor of nursing, is also in Revzina’s pantheon of influential SF State teachers — for the dubious distinction of issuing the struggling Russian student her first D, on a medicine-surgery test. Revzina marched into Johnson-Brennan’s office to seek sympathy for her special challenges of language, work and money. “Who do you want to be in life?” she recalls Johnson-Brennan asking her, not buying into Revzina’s so-called predicament. “Do you want to be a poor Russian immigrant, or do you want to be an American nurse?” She sent Revzina back home to study.

“She gave to me the outstanding lesson in life,” Revzina says of Johnson-Brennan, one she took to heart. Revzina studied harder, did well on her next test, and established a foundational no-excuses attitude that still persists today. She says her SF State teachers gave her everything. “Not a lot. Everything!” she reiterates.

“We talked many a time about strategies for improvement, which she diligently worked on,” Johnson-Brennan says of the Russian student who had trouble with exams. “She always had a positive, ‘Let's do this’ attitude.” Both Hess and Johnson-Brennan became professional collaborators, first at SF State’s School of Nursing, where Rezvina was an adjunct faculty member for a time, and later at Gurnick, doing curriculum development and part-time teaching. “She never fails to treat me as a friend and mentor rather than an employee of the Academy,” Johnson-Brennan says of their ongoing relationship. “She is one of the most dynamic, entrepreneurial women I have ever met.”

A passion for nursing

Gurnick’s humble birth story is a product of that entrepreneurialism. When Revzina’s nursing job changed to part-time, once again she needed money. Drumming up opportunity, she set up an informational interview at a very small medical training school. Her interviewer didn’t have a job for her, but he had some ideas on expanding on the medical-education model, and paid her a small consulting fee, which led to a business partnership. Their big break came a year later, when a change in the law required phlebotomists — the technicians who draw blood — to be licensed at an official school. She designed the curriculum and filed the paperwork. Five campuses, twelve nursing and imaging programs, and thousands of alumni later, Revzina says her partner enjoys joking that the $1,200 consulting fee was the best investment he made.

Thinking back to her confusing community college experience, Revzina says Gurnick’s aim was clarity. “It’s very straightforward: These are the courses you have to take; this is the certification or licensing you earn,” she says. From phlebotomy they branched out to train vocational nurses and medical assistants, imaging technicians, physical therapy assistants, and — coming full circle — dental assistants. Last year they reached a new milestone, graduating their first baccalaureate class in nursing.

As she marvels at her opportunities — and those of her daughter, who studied at two top universities and is now a senior manager at PayPal — Revzina wonders if people who were born here don’t understand how lucky they are. Back at Foothill, she cleaned houses to pay tuition. “I hated cleaning toilets. Awful. Horrible,” she says. Yet she still keeps a list of chores a client once left her, revealing both a humility and a boundless appreciation for having fulfilled that early calling to medicine. “I don’t have hobbies. Work is my hobby,” she says.

She also uses nursing to stay connected to her home country, with a weekly clinical day at a private practice that serves San Jose’s Russian-speaking community. It’s work that keeps Revzina grounded. After all, at its core, her life is an American immigration story — from the beginning, all she ever wanted was a decent job in the profession of her choosing.

Revzina recalled an event back in Iron Curtain–era Moscow, when a delegation of French girls visited her special French-Russian school. The cultural interaction changed her forever. “They had the freedom to talk about anything, to be anything,” she says. As she looks at what she values most about her American life, it boils down to that teenage insight. “I’m not smarter, I’m not younger. I’m not more talented, I’m not different,” she says with characteristic humility. “This country gave me opportunity to achieve whatever I wanted to.”