San Jose State is the oldest public institution in California. Our first campus buildings were constructed at a time when much of the valley was still covered in orchards. The city and the university have grown up alongside each other so it’s no surprise that we often find ourselves working together for the betterment of our community.
The partnerships we form are mutually beneficial as CommUniverCity has proven for the last 10 years. CommUniverCity provides research, scholarship and creative activity opportunities for faculty while providing students with engaged learning experiences. Their programs such as College Day and the Records Clearance Project offer our students an opportunity to gain hands-on skills while also benefitting the neighborhoods surrounding SJSU.
The unique CommUniverCity partnership received national accolades in November. I was fortunate to travel to Indianapolis with the program’s Assistant Director Katherine Cushing to receive the
C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award. The award gives merit to the importance of university-community partnerships in providing educational opportunities for students as well as long-lasting, positive support to our campus neighbors. Thank you to Dayana Salazar, the executive director of CommUniverCity, along with her team, for their vision and leadership.
We have many more community collaborations, some that are well established and others that are just getting started. It has been 15 years since we broke ground on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at the corner of Fourth and San Fernando streets. The joint city-university library was the first of its kind and it is truly an example where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Just this month, we finalized an agreement with the city for SJSU to operate the Hammer Theatre Performing Arts Center and I look forward to watching this new connection develop.
As Provost, I always keep an eye out for potential partnerships with city, business and community leaders. As a member of the San Jose Rotary, I and other campus leaders share information about the university while fostering relationships that we hope will lead to even more opportunities to grow together in the future.
In addition to our community partnerships, campus collaborations are also important. As President Sue Martin announced last week, Information Technology Services (ITS) has joined the Academic Affairs Division. ITS managers and employees have long been strong partners in supporting student success. Join me in welcoming them to our division.
I wish you all a wonderful winter break and look forward to seeing you at the start of the spring semester.
Sincerely,
Andy Feinstein
Provost and VP for Academic Affairs
For a decade, San Jose State students, faculty and staff have fostered a unique partnership with the City of San Jose and community organizations through CommUniverCity. The collaboration supports residents in neighborhoods that surround the campus with such activities as after-school tutoring, nutrition education, adult financial literacy classes and much more.
For the last five years, CommUniverCity has been involved in College Day with volunteers visiting 13 downtown schools this year. Volunteers included SJSU students, staff, faculty and alumni who spent an hour each visiting 50 K-12 classrooms in an effort to get younger students thinking about college.
Lorri Capizzi, a lecturer in the counselor education department in the Connie L. Lurie College of Education, motivated students in one of her courses to adopt Lowell Elementary School for College Day.
“Her class usually has 25 to 40 students,” said Elizabeth Figueroa, the Education Programs manager for CommUniverCity. “They provide great visuals and get a lot out of the experience.”
College Day participation is just one of more than 50 community action projects that together brought national recognition to CommUniverCity this fall. Representatives from each college are involved in projects.
Provost Andy Feinstein and CommUniverCity Associate Director Katherine Cushing, who is also an associate professor in the College of Social Sciences environmental studies department, traveled to Indianapolis to represent SJSU at the APLU meeting where the winner of the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award was announced.
Dayana Salazar, the executive director of CommUniverCity and a professor in the College of Social Sciences urban and regional planning department, said she and her office colleagues jumped up and down when they got the news from Feinstein that they had won.
“It’s national visibility, which is something we have been intentionally putting more effort into,” Salazar said. “It deserves a lot more recognition. It is quite special. It keeps bearing fruit and taking new directions — it is renewed every year.”
Salazar said there is potential for sharing the model with other universities and cities as well as more opportunities to delve deeper into the established programs in San Jose.
“We do a lot of work day to day,” she said. “We know we all put a lot of heart in our work. We don’t have a lot of opportunities to stop and take a look at the larger picture. It’s time to take pause and look back and celebrate.”
San Jose State’s unique CommUniverCity program, which marked 10 years of service to the San Jose community this year, was honored at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities annual meeting Nov. 17 with the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.
For 10 years, San Jose State faculty and students have fostered a unique partnership with the city of San Jose and community organizations through CommUniverCity. The collaboration supports residents in neighborhoods that surround the campus with such activities as after-school tutoring, nutrition education, adult financial literacy classes and much more.
“CommUniverCity offers a unique opportunity for our students to engage in hands-on learning while also providing an avenue for faculty to engage in research, scholarship and creative activity,” said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Andy Feinstein, in accepting the award on Nov. 17 at a breakfast ceremony in Indianapolis.
Katherine Cushing, the associate director of CommUniverCity and an SJSU professor, accompanied Feinstein to receive the award in Indiana. Cushing worked closely with Michelle Smith, of University Advancement, on completing the lengthy award process for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarships Awards and the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.
Each year faculty and students engage in more than 50 community action projects, including many that are interdisciplinary. Some projects include College Day, in which volunteers visit local K-12 schools to talk to students about college; a community garden where college students teach elementary school students about nutrition; and the Records Clearance Project, where SJSU students help residents expunge criminal records, among many more programs.
SJSU’s CommUniverCity program was first recognized as a regional winner of the 2015 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Awards in September. Dayana Salazar, the executive director of the program and an SJSU professor, and Imelda Rodriguez, a community director, presented a video and answered questions about CommUniverCity at the Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference at Pennsylvania State University. SJSU is the first California university to receive the regional award since its inception in 2007.
Salazar said she and her office colleagues jumped up and down when they got the news from Provost Feinstein in a brief email on Tuesday morning that they had won.
“It’s national visibility, which is something we have been intentionally putting more effort into,” Salazar said. “It deserves a lot more recognition. It is quite special. It keeps bearing fruit and taking new directions – it is renewed every year.”
Salazar said there is potential for sharing the model with other universities and cities as well as more opportunities to delve deeper into the established programs in San Jose.
“We do a lot of work day to day,” she said. “We know we all put a lot of heart in our work. We don’t have a lot of opportunities to stop and take a look at the larger picture. It’s time to take pause and look back and celebrate.”
As a recipient of the regional award, SJSU moved on as a finalist for the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award. San Jose State was selected from a pool of four finalists that included the University of Minnesota, the University of New Hampshire and Texas Tech University to win the prestigious Magrath award that includes $20,000 and an engraved glass award.
Katherine Cushing, left, and Provost Andy Feinstein, hold upC. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award.
SJSU faculty, staff, students and alumni are invited to participate in College Day 2015, on Friday, Oct. 9. The theme this year is “Reach Higher. Own Your Future!”
College day is a community-wide initiative that celebrates, promotes and inspires college aspirations among all students in Santa Clara County, coordinated through SJSU’s CommUniverCity. Volunteers will serve as mentors to students and will be asked to spend one hour in a classroom on Oct. 9 to talk about their college experiences.
CommUniverCity has provided some talking points and activity ideas for those who want to volunteer but need support in developing their one-hour talk.
Those interested in supporting College Day as a mentor can sign up online via a google form. The form allows volunteers to select the grade level with which they would like to work, the time they are available on Oct. 9, and the region of Santa Clara County they prefer to visit.
The unique CommUniverCity partnership received national accolades in November. I was fortunate to travel to Indianapolis with the program’s Assistant Director Katherine Cushing to receive the
