August 28th, 2012 • Educational Quality
Photos and captions by
Brad Polzin and Erik Fallis
Throughout the month of July, CSU Monterey Bay hosts hundreds of young and aspiring artists, university faculty and accomplished art professionals from throughout the state. The campus becomes a setting for exploration of students’ talents, artistic risk-taking, sharing of experiences, peer collaboration and professional constructive criticism. All of this excitement occurs under the banner of CSU Summer Arts, the university system’s intensive and immersive arts program.
CSU Summer Arts is truly a little otter than before. The program fully embraces their new home campus and its rather adorable mascot. Several otter appearances punctuate the summer, including a costume for Zac — the son of CSU Summer Arts Office Manager Kelley Lansing-Moreno.
Tags: Arts, Faculty, Student
July 3rd, 2012 • Educational Quality, Impact on California
By Danielle Solano
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
CSU Bakersfield
A poster from the Boys & Girls Club captures the excitement of Chemical Circus.
The Chemistry Department at CSU Bakersfield developed a series of engaging, entertaining, and educational chemistry activities, called the Chemical Circus, designed to promote interest in science amongst local youth. Engaged Department Institute grant funds were used to incorporate Chemical Circus activities into four undergraduate chemistry courses. Undergraduate students taking these courses traveled to local schools and afterschool programs to bring chemistry to hundreds of community children.
An outstanding fifth grade teacher taught me that learning about science can, and should, be fun. So as a chemistry faculty member, I am passionate about discovering new ways to communicate my enthusiasm for science to my students and members of the local community through educational experiences. More …
Tags: Educator, Faculty, Service
May 22nd, 2012 • Access for Students, Educational Quality
By Karen Jensen
Chair, Department of Nursing
CSU Channel Islands
Students practice critical thinking skills in real time simulations
Communities often have unmet needs, despite the abundance of those with the resources and talents to meet those needs. Sometimes the right connections require the catalyst of a university.
Having started two nursing programs through CSU Channel Islands, I have seen the community unlock its own potential. Students with the right stuff – a mix of compassion, intelligence and drive – are provided with advanced learning tools and opportunities through partnership with hospitals desperate for their talent. More …
Tags: Faculty, Nursing, Workforce
February 7th, 2012 • Access for Students, Educational Quality
Sepher Eskandari, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences
Alumnus of Cal Poly Pomona
Sepher Eskandari in the lab at Cal Poly Pomona.
My most important responsibility as a scientist is to teach the next generation. This is because science is not static – it is not the sum of all existing knowledge. Rather, science is a dynamic process that builds one discovery on top of the other. Today’s scientific community is asking questions that will not be answered in my lifetime, but in my students’ lifetimes – perhaps.
I derive great joy working with and teaching students in my lab at Cal Poly Pomona. Together, we research the chemistry implicated in brain processes that may one day lead to treatment options for seizures and strokes. The work itself is rewarding but the intellectual curiosity and maturation I see developing in students who spend upwards of four years (spanning both their undergraduate and graduate years) in my lab makes a greater personal impact. More …
Tags: Alumni, Biotechnology, Faculty, Research
January 17th, 2012 • Educational Quality, Impact on California
By Kay Takeyama Dilena, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita of Management
Alumna of San Francisco State
Professor Emerita Kay Takeyama Dilena, Ph.D. has established a new center for the Study of Japan and Japanese Culture at San Francisco State University.
When I taught at San Francisco State in the 1970s and 1980s, I came to understand that I was instructing a generation that had no memory of Japan and the U.S. at war. Within these students’ lifetimes, the two countries had always been strategic allies and economic partners. The American-Japanese relationship formed the foundation of a cross Pacific exchange of goods, ideas and cultures. I was amazed and thrilled to see the friendship evolve between my native and adopted nations, but concerned that we might be losing an understanding of the history that brought us together.
This experience, in part, led me to join with my husband, brother and sister-in-law on a book that described our family’s experience through World War II and the time that immediately followed. My brother and I at the time were in Japan – my husband and sister-in-law in the U.S. More …
Tags: Alumni, Business and Management, Educator, Faculty
December 5th, 2011 • Educational Quality, Impact on California
By Terea Giannetta
Nurse Practitioner
Faculty at Fresno State
Alumna of Sacramento State and Fresno State
My aunt was a traveling nurse when I was a child. She often visited my parent’s home sharing stories about different places and opportunities. She would talk about the various aspects of nursing and about caring for people.
I followed in my aunt’s footsteps with a desire to explore. I wanted to learn the profession, but also seek out different places and perspectives. In 1976, I received my bachelor’s degree in nursing from Sacramento State – a relatively urban environment with great hospitals. I then completed my Master’s in Nursing as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner from Fresno State, among the first graduates from this new program. Fresno offered an entirely different experience, with a county hospital that sent me into rural areas with often-limited resources and issues with access to care. More …
Tags: Alumni, Faculty, Nursing
September 29th, 2011 • Educational Quality, Impact on California
By Monica Tenhunen, DNP
Gerontology Nurse Practitioner
Full-time Lecturer at CSU Long Beach
Alumna of San Diego State
Monica Tenhunen visiting a church in Krakow, Poland, as she indulges her other passion – travel
Children have many dream careers. For me, the dream was always to be a nurse. There was something powerful in caring for people – a type of joy that comes from touching the lives of patients and their families in a time of need.
Now well into a career as a nurse practitioner I understand the less appealing sides of the job: long-hours, the loss of patients, mental stress and physical strain. Yet, the most challenging situations often bring the greatest reward.
I once cared for an older adult who was dying of cancer. Her bravery approaching the end of her life was remarkable. Her grown children, however, were struggling with the prospect of losing their mother. They became absorbed in their own fears and emotional turmoil and were not able to provide their mother with the support she needed. As a nurse practitioner, I was able to pull her children aside and work through the end of life issues with them. With a little more information and support, the family was able to pull together during this terrible time and provide comfort to a dying woman. More …
Tags: Alumni, Faculty, Nursing, Service
January 24th, 2011 • Educational Quality, Impact on California
By CSU Public Affairs
The celebration of student and faculty work at CSU campuses statewide took place under the theme of 'Innovating Educational Practices for the Biotechnology Industry.'
Focusing on a wide range of cultures – from the tribal and corporate to the academic and microbial — the 23rd Annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium earlier this month showcased applied research in the CSU as it set the stage for students’ future success in scientific and technological careers.
To a lively gathering of about 500 CSU students and faculty and nearly 100 industry professionals, community college representatives and elected officials, the symposium presented panels of experts with global perspectives and the discoveries of individual researchers.
With 236 research posters, students from 22 CSU campuses described and discussed their findings related to genes, proteins, cancers, crops, nerves, viruses, and more. Students, faculty and industry leaders dialogued through career networking, educational sessions and roundtable discussions.
Organized by the CSU Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB), the symposium is the major statewide event fostering the development of emerging biotechnology researchers and professionals in California.
Several awards celebrated particularly strong work by students and faculty. More …
Tags: Biotechnology, Faculty, Research, Student
October 26th, 2010 • Educational Quality, Environmental Sustainability, Impact on California
By Cindy Daley,
Professor, CSU Chico College of Agriculture
Professor Daley (top right) with a group of her students and staff in front of cows from the CSU Chico Organic Dairy Unit. The logo above reads: ''Happy cows come from California. Happy students come from Chico State.''
Students working with the campus organic dairy program suggested the slogan: “Happy cows come from California. Happy students come from Chico State.“ It is such an appropriate saying for this group–clever, funny and true. It has been nearly four years since Chico State launched the Organic Dairy Unit, and I have witnessed a group of students become deeply engaged in what they are doing and excited about a future in agriculture.
More …
Tags: Agriculture, Faculty, Green, Research, Student
October 18th, 2010 • Educational Quality, Environmental Sustainability
CSU experts drawn to science of flaming landscapes
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By Sean Kearns,
CSU Science Communications Advisor
Photo courtesy Swanton Pacific Ranch
Just what is “spreading like wildfire”?
It can be a multi-story wall of flames racing uphill at 40 miles an hour, burning at 400 degrees F – or much hotter. It can be a blaze that roars across the top of a vegetative canopy – and then returns to ignite what was left underneath. It can be a searing rage that leaps into the sky and, with its back to the wind, lands on a distant untouched stretch of land – and torches it.
Sometimes it seems to stay put, burning hotly in a bowl of chaparral under the heavy atmospheric lid of an inversion layer, with the fast-rising pressure intensifying the heat – until the fire blows up like a ruptured pressure cooker, unleashing an incendiary rain.
If something’s spreading like wildfire, be very careful. More …
Tags: Faculty, Research
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