We have received the very sad news that Bernadette Cheyne, CSU-ERFSA Executive Committee Secretary recently passed away. The following obituary will be published in the next issue of The Reporter:
Bernadette Cheyne (Cal Poly Humboldt), secretary of the CSU-ERFSA executive committee from 2021 to 2023, died October 30, 2023 after a brief battle with brain cancer. Dr. Cheyne served in the HSU academic senate from 1993 to 2011, chairing that body from 1999 to 2001, and the statewide academic senate from 2004 to 2011. She served as vice chair of the statewide academic senate in 2009-10. She was named CSU faculty trustee, serving from 2013 to 2014. After retirement, she served on the HSU emeriti association executive committee for a decade.
In retirement, she pursued her love of acting through the Redwood Curtain Theater. She found a second love in the Humboldt County Grand Jury, where she was a juror, foreperson, and then what she especially loved, a trainer. In addition to her work with CSU-ERFSA, she mentored children in the CASA program.
Her work as a court reporter earlier in her life trained her well for the secretary’s role at CSU-ERFSA – her minutes were among the most thorough many of us have seen.