Category Archives: Tenure and Promotion

Faculty Promotion: Nicholas Taylor

Nick Taylor

Nick Taylor

Nicholas Taylor

Promotion to Professor

Years at SJSU: 11

Department: English and Comparative Literature

RSCA focus: Creative Writing

English and Comparative Literature Professor Nicholas Taylor is a scholar of Steinbeck who serves as the director of SJSU’s Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies. In this role, he coordinates the annual John Steinbeck Award, manages a Fellows program and coordinates other events that promote literature. He also served as a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer in Hyderabad, India in 2011.

But when asked about his research, scholarship and creative activities, he first acknowledges his creative writing projects. He has published essays, short stories and is especially proud of a series of detective novels penned under his pseudonym T.T. Monday.

As a member of the University Library Board and the College of Humanities and the Arts RTP committee, he says his experiences with students have been a highlight of his nearly dozen years working at SJSU.

He appreciates the opportunity to connect with students, and recalls one student who came to SJSU as a transfer student who struggled with writing. Taylor worked with him for several years. The former student and SJSU alumnus now teaches high school English and has published a short story.

“Anyone interested in a career in the arts must learn, first of all, to be resilient,” he said. “The writing life is full of criticism and rejection. My advice, if you feel the calling, is to persevere and take pride in your work regardless of its reception.”

Note: Congratulations to the 43 faculty members who received tenure and/or promotion for 2018-19. We have invited each faculty member to participate in a series of posts profiling their teaching, service, and research, scholarship and creativity activities. Those faculty who opted to participate will be featured throughout the fall semester on the Academic Spotlight blog and the digital sign in the Administration Building lobby.

Faculty Early Tenure and Promotion: Xiaojia Hou

Xiaojia Hou

Xiaojia Hou

Xiaojia Hou

Early Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor

Years at SJSU: 3

Department: History

RSCA focus: Modern China

Xiaojia Hou, an associate professor of history in the College of Social Sciences, recently published her first scholarly book, Negotiating Socialism in Rural China- Mao, Peasants, and Local Cadres in Shanxi 1949-1953. During the spring 2018 University Scholars Series, she presented a talk on her book, which explores how the national policy in China emerged from complex bureaucratic interactions among central, regional, local governments and peasants.

“It was amazing to communicate with the local community,” she said, of sharing her research. “The talk was reported on by the Campbell Express newspaper.”

In addition to her book, she has published multiple peer-reviewed book chapters, articles and reviews on subjects including China’s socialist transformation in the 1950s, modern China, Chinese peasants in the 20th century, Mao Zedong and the Yellow River in modern times.

When she is not writing, researching or teaching, Hou serves as the undergraduate advisor for her department, is the co-director of the East Asian Regional Materials and Resources Center, and serves on college committees.

“Ask more questions, in your research and in your life,” she tells students.

Note: Congratulations to the 43 faculty members who received tenure and/or promotion for 2018-19. We have invited each faculty member to participate in a series of posts profiling their teaching, service, and research, scholarship and creativity activities. Those faculty who opted to participate will be featured throughout the fall semester on the Academic Spotlight blog and the digital sign in the Administration Building lobby.

Faculty Promotion: Soma Sen

Soma Sen

Soma Sen

Soma Sen

Promotion to Professor

Years at SJSU: 11

Department: Social Work

RSCA focus: Understanding and addressing health disparities among marginalized groups

Professor Soma Sen’s recent research is focused on the social epidemiology of HIV/AIDS. She sees her work understanding and addressing health disparities among marginalized groups as a social justice issue. With grants, a year-long fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, and a one-semester sabbatical in 2015, Sen has solidified and furthered her research agenda. Her publications include two book chapters, two manuscripts under review, two in preparation and 15 articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as conference presentations.

“My various RSCA projects are motivated by my passion to create a more just society,” she said.

Along with her research, Sen currently serves on the Academic Senate, worked with the group UndocuAllies to support DACA students, and served on a Strategic Planning Task Force.

“My experience as a faculty member in the School of Social Work at SJSU who came to this country as an international student has been extremely rewarding,” she said. “My profession’s code of ethics of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relations, integrity, and competence serve as my guiding principles as I continue to develop as an educator, researcher, and a social worker.”

Note: Congratulations to the 43 faculty members who received tenure and/or promotion for 2018-19. We have invited each faculty member to participate in a series of posts profiling their teaching, service, and research, scholarship and creativity activities. Those faculty who opted to participate will be featured throughout the fall semester on the Academic Spotlight blog and the digital sign in the Administration Building lobby.

 

Faculty Early Tenure and Promotion: Wendy Rouse

Wendy Rouse

Wendy Rouse

Wendy Rouse

Early Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor

Years at SJSU: 7

Department: Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

RSCA focus: The history of women and children in the Progressive era, history education

Wendy Rouse, an associate professor of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, is the author of two books Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women’s Self-Defense Movement and The Children of Chinatown: Growing  up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920. While she often finds insight into her subjects through traditional sources such as archives she visited at Tulane and Smith College, she also has become adept at using genealogical sources such as ancestry.com to reconstruct the life story of an individual.

The highlight of her time at SJSU has been “working with future teachers in the Social Science Teacher Preparation program.” Her research has focused on methods of teaching history as well as women and children in the Progressive era, and she has penned a chapter on film portrayals of women’s suffrage for Hollywood or History? An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Teach U.S. History and a journal article on Chinese exclusion and resistance published in Teaching History: A Journal of Methods.

She tells students they should “research and study what you love.”

Note: Congratulations to the 43 faculty members who received tenure and/or promotion for 2018-19. We have invited each faculty member to participate in a series of posts profiling their teaching, service, and research, scholarship and creativity activities. Those faculty who opted to participate will be featured throughout the fall semester on the Academic Spotlight blog and the digital sign in the Administration Building lobby.

Faculty Early Tenure and Promotion: David Schuster

David Schuster Photo Credit: Karl Nielsen Photography

David Schuster
Photo Credit: Karl Nielsen Photography

David Schuster

Early Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor

Years at SJSU: 5

Department: Psychology

RSCA focus: How complex sociotechnical systems support or hinder people, with a particular focus on decision making among cybersecurity professionals

Associate Professor David Schuster received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program Award in 2015 that is helping to fund his research on human cognition in cyber defense. In 2017, he received SJSU’s Early Career Investigator Award, and he has co-authored more than 30 papers in journals, edited books and conference proceedings. He manages the Virtual Environments, Cognition and Training Research Lab, in which he has mentored almost 50 students.

“Seeing students present their research is always a great moment,” he said.

Schuster is a co-investigator on an NSF-funded technology pathway program that led to a minor in computer programming for College of Social Science majors and is also co-advisor for the Human Systems Integration minor.

“There are so many opportunities for interesting, important and lucrative careers in my field but sometimes they are in unexpected places,” Schuster said, noting that students should “keep exploring the field and learning about the diverse research being conducted.”

Note: Congratulations to the 43 faculty members who received tenure and/or promotion for 2018-19. We have invited each faculty member to participate in a series of posts profiling their teaching, service, and research, scholarship and creativity activities. Those faculty who opted to participate will be featured throughout the fall semester on the Academic Spotlight blog and the digital sign in the Administration Building lobby.