Category Archives: Student stories

SJSU Students Illustrate Their Perceptions of ‘Fake News’ During Adobe Creative Jam

 

By Barry Zepel

San Jose State University students used their creative wits, quick thinking and ability to collaborate using Adobe Creative Cloud Applications when challenged to design graphics in a tournament sponsored by the university’s eCampus Department and Silicon Valley-based Adobe Systems, Inc. Students applied to participate and nine pairs were selected to compete.

It was all part of the Feb. 24 “Adobe Creative Jam,” where the competing teams had three hours to produce computer-generated graphics that represent — to their imaginations — the theme “Fake News.” They were only informed of the topic, a phrase coined following the 2016 presidential election, by the event host at the start of the evening competition held in the Student Union.

Following the contest, each team’s design was projected on a screen while the competitors explained what the “fake news” catchphrase, used regularly by President Donald Trump, meant to them. Listening was an audience of more than 100 fellow students and six design and creative professionals. The creative professionals judged the submissions while the audience members also had a chance to cast a vote for the “People’s Choice Award.”

The artwork produced by the team of Mariella Perez and Miles Vallejos, both senior graphic design majors, was judged best by both voting bodies. Their design depicted many current national issues, including “Immigration,” being swept under a rug portrayed by the American flag.

“It was a fun challenge,” according to Vallejos. “It definitely took me out of my comfort zone.”

Perez explained how they approached the Creative Jam challenge. “We devoted the first hour to ideation and the final two hours to execution,” she said.

While the general audience honored just one team, the panel of judges recognized an additional twosome. Earning that second place nod, for their entry “News is Defined by Truth,” was the team of Vasudha Varma, a graduate student working on her master’s degree in human factors, and Ashley Chung, a freshman majoring in animation. Varma and Chung became acquainted online and only met in person for the first time just before the Creative Jam began.

In addition to getting a trophy, each winning competitor received a year of creative cloud membership from Adobe that allows them to use the software package for free after they complete their studies. As current SJSU students, they already have complimentary access to Adobe products.

Additional students who attended, while not selected for the design competition, still benefitted from the event. They were able to have their personal design portfolios reviewed and evaluated by creative directors and design professionals from organizations such as Facebook, Yahoo and other Silicon Valley-based agencies and technology companies.

Jennifer Redd, director of SJSU’s eCampus, noted that the Creative Jam is an example of the university’s partnership with Adobe.

“Tonight’s event was an opportunity for our students to showcase their skills as it relates to the Adobe Creative Cloud,” Redd said. “We work closely with Adobe and offer their software applications for the benefit of our students, faculty and staff.”

The company also hosts an annual Adobe Day in which SJSU faculty and staff visit the downtown San Jose headquarters to learn more about new products or features of existing products that can be used to enhance teaching and learning.

Adobe, which sponsors similar events for other universities around the country, is able to promote its software products on campus to discover how the students use them.

“Our goal tonight was to show what is available to San Jose State students and faculty, in terms of our mobile applications and desktop applications, while extending that into other disciplines outside of just the creative ones,” said Liz Arias, Adobe’s customer success manager whose clients include SJSU and other CSU campuses.

The graphic designs of each of the teams that competed in the Creative Jam, can be viewed online via Adobe’s Behance Portfolio Review website.

SJSU Recognizes Faculty, Students at Celebration of Research

Early Career Investigator Award Winners Rachael French, left, and Miranda Worthen pose for a photograph at San Jose State University on Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (Photo: James Tensuan, '15 Journalism)

Early Career Investigator Award Winners Rachael French, left, and Miranda Worthen pose for a photograph at San Jose State University on Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (Photo: James Tensuan, ’15 Journalism)

BY DAVID GOLL

Recognizing its robust research, scholarship and creative activity, San Jose State celebrated the latest recipients of the Early Career Investigator Awards.

The work of Rachael French, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Miranda Worthen, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Recreation, were featured at the annual Celebration of Research awards ceremony Feb. 16 at the Compean-Diaz Student Union Ballroom.

Opening the ceremony, President Mary Papazian offered praise for the award-winning professors, as well as the Student-Faculty Research Pairs program, as integral components in cementing San Jose State’s position “at the center of Silicon Valley.”

French has generated more than $1.2 million in external funding to support her work examining how development of the common fruit fly is affected by laying its eggs in the alcohol-rich environment of newly rotting fruit. Financial backing for her studies, which started during her post-doctoral days at UC-San Francisco, comes from the National Institutes for Health and the National Science Foundation. Her research is aided by three graduate students and six undergraduate SJSU students.

During a brief presentation at the event, she explained her research — which has revealed the development and long-term survival of the flies have been improved by providing them with a low-fat diet — bodes well for finding eventual treatments for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome among humans. There are similar traits between humans and fruit flies born in alcohol-rich environments. In both, growth can be stunted and death rates higher.

“We have been effective at reducing the incidence of (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) by telling pregnant women they should not drink,” French said. “But 50 percent of pregnancies are not planned and 50 percent of women drink. We still have 10 to 11 percent of women who drink during pregnancy.”

Providing young flies a low-fat diet has a protective effect, she said, generating normal survival and development rates.

Worthen told the audience her research into public health and social justice issues — including examining the plight of people who have suffered trauma, such as victims of gender-based violence and military war veterans — has been influenced and informed by her own background as having overcome a rare genetic disorder at birth.

More recently, she has dealt with an unusual health condition her young daughter exhibited shortly after birth.

She acknowledged the presence of her mother, Kaethe Weingarten, a retired associate clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, at the ceremony. She said her mother sparked her interest in these issues during childhood. The mother-daughter team has co-authored academic papers.

“My mother always impressed on me your own personal experience can have an important impact on your research and the questions you ask,” Worthen said.

She said she regularly impresses on her students that important issues in their lives should have an impact on their research and academic careers.

In addition to the Early Career Investigator Award winners, many of this year’s 16 student/faculty research teams were in attendance to present informational posters about their own projects.

Some of those present included Briza Diaz and Citlali Hernandez — students of AJ Fass, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology — who conducted research into the economic and social effects from the 2006 eruption of a volcano near the small village of Pusuca, Ecuador. Diaz said Fass asked the pair to translate Spanish-language transcripts of public meetings during a campaign to resettle about 200 individuals and families who lived in the devastated region.

Julia Regalado, a student, and her faculty partner, Susan L. Ross, an associate professor in the Health Science and Recreation department, shared their research findings.The pair studied the impact of seven types of stimulation — including music and forms of tactile therapy — on children in persistent/permanent vegetative states. Ross said several of the approaches yielded positive results in evoking responses from the children.

CSU Surveys Students on Food and Housing Security

A volunteer stocks a student food shelf on campus. The Academic Affairs Division raised $7,000 for the SJSU Food for Students fund to support this and other efforts to help students with food insecurities.

A volunteer stocks a student food shelf on campus. The Academic Affairs Division raised $7,000 for the SJSU Food for Students fund to support this and other efforts to help students with food insecurities.

The California State University is currently surveying all students by email as part of an extensive research study on food and housing security. The survey findings will be used to develop campus and system programs that address student needs so they can succeed in their pursuit of a degree. The data will also be used to mobilize public policies.

San Jose State University students received an email invitation to participate in the CSU system-wide study, which is now open until December 5, 2016. Students who take the survey have a chance to win a $40 gift card.

How can you help with the survey as faculty?

  • Mention the survey before or during class. Students have positively reacted to faculty members who have shared resources, invited them to research opportunities, and are able to articulate the importance of good data.
  • Email or post about it in emails to your class, via social media, or in online information areas such as Canvas.
  • Have students find the email with the subject line “CSU Study on Food and Housing Security” and complete it today.

SJSU has had students respond so far, but the campus received special permission to extend the survey until Dec. 5 to gather more responses. The survey is critical to the second phase of the study, which was originally commissioned by the CSU Chancellor’s Office in April 2015.

Results of the first phase of research revealed that one in five CSU students experience food insecurity and one in 12 experience housing displacement. Given the scope of this issue and its impact on students, the CSU has since developed online resource tools for campuses and students. Learn more about SJSU’s efforts to address food and housing security online at sjsu.edu/sjsucares and sjsu.edu/food. If you have questions, please email economiccrisis@sjsu.edu.

 

SJSU’s Henry Nguyen Wins Elevator Pitch Challenge at MESA Conference

SJSU students participated in the MESA Leadership Conference in October.

SJSU students participated in the MESA Leadership Conference in October.

San Jose State University students participated in the 13th Annual Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) Student Leadership Conference Oct. 14-15, in Santa Clara. The students engaged in many creative activities designed to sharpen their professional skills, including an elevator pitch challenge styled after the television show “The Voice,” a team-building Lego challenge and networking games.

Henry Nguyen, a member of SJSU’s MESA Engineering Program, won first place in the elevator pitch challenge. He competed against eight other finalists from California community colleges and universities. He received a $500 scholarship as his prize.

According to a press release from the statewide MESA office, the conference provided 1,500 professional development hours to 200 MESA students from 33 colleges and universities. The students engaged with 75 industry professionals from 28 STEM companies. PG&E sponsored SJSU attendees. Other sponsors included NASA, Tesla, AT&T and other industry partners.

During the conference, NASA Astronaut Commander Victor Glover was named the 2016 MESA Distinguished Alum. He participated in MESA when he was in middle school and as an undergraduate. He credits the program as a driving force behind his success as an engineer.

“What you’re doing is so vital, so important to California and the planet,” he said, of staying committed to STEM education.

MESA promotes STEM success for more than 25,000 educationally disadvantaged secondary, community college and four-year college students in California through project-based learning, academic counseling and exposure to STEM careers so that they can graduate from college with math-based degrees. Seventy percent of MESA high school graduates statewide went directly to college after graduation compared to 48 percent of all California graduates. Sixty percent of MESA students go on to math, science or engineering majors. Ninety-seven percent of MESA community college transfer students go to college as STEM majors.

For more information about the SLC visit http://mesa.ucop.edu/newsroom/

For more information about MESA visit http://mesa.ucop.edu/ or on Twitter @MESASTEM.

SJSU MIS Student Wins Scholar-Athlete Award

Tim Crawley

Tim Crawley
Photo: Christina Olivas

For the first time in the National Football Foundation National Scholar-Athlete program’s 57-year history, an SJSU player will be honored. Wide receiver Tim Crawley will receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship and be a finalist for this year’s William V. Campbell Trophy presented by Fidelity Investments. The NFF and the College Football Hall of Fame award the trophy to the “best scholar-athlete in the nation.” Crawley graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in business management information systems and is enrolled in the university’s master’s program in interdisciplinary studies. “I have to give my mom [Stacey Tinker] a lot of credit,” he said. “She got on me at an early age to put academics first and be serious in the classroom.” Crawley is this year’s only honoree from a California-based university and the Mountain West.