August John Hoffman

August John Hoffman is currently a professor of psychology at California State University Northridge and El Camino College Compton Center. He earned his B.A. from UC Santa Barbara, M.A. from Radford University in Clinical Psychology (with an emphasis in Sport Psychology), and Ph.D. from UCLA in educational psychology. As a professor of psychology at Compton College, CSU Northridge, and Pepperdine University, he has assisted students from various backgrounds in accomplishing their goals. He began and developed a highly successful gardening program at Compton College in an effort to help students improve their campus and community. Current research interests include community service work and student mentoring as effective methods to reduce ethnic conflict and improve self-efficacy among community college students. For the last five years Dr. Hoffman has conducted research on the Compton campus with outdoor gardening work with community college students and CSUN mentors, and the results have been very positive. We have seen significant increases in the transition to higher education directly as a result of our community service and gardening work. Additionally, Dr. Hoffman has taught several psychology courses including Motivation and Sport Psychology, which include an applied approach to creating healthy lifestyles for his students. He has published several books and academic research articles, including the texts, Positive Psychology: An Applied Approach; Understanding Sport Psychology and Human Behavior; and, 29,051 Ways to Survive the College Experience. He enjoys gardening in his time off with his family Nancy his wife, and two children A.J. and Sara.