Tag Archives: NPR

Faculty Notes for November 2016: Publications, Quotes and More

The Kite Runner Poster

The Kite Runner Poster

Department of Journalism Lecturer Lisa Fernandez was recognized and applauded by NBC Bay Area news for the “small act of kindness” that helped student Brandon Beebe get back into the classroom after a series of financial setbacks left him homeless. Fernandez reached out to her Facebook community who “within minutes jumped in and asked what they could do to help,” Fernandez reported—help that ranged from direct financial assistance to connections to other sources of financial aid and housing assistance. For more of the story, including information about Beebe’s GoFundMe page.

Mother Nature Network interviewed Department of Physics and Astronomy Lecturer Friedemann Freund about the “earthquake lights” that appeared over New Zealand during the peak of the recent 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Freund, who co-authored a paper on the topic, theorizes that earthquake lights result when certain types of rock, under stress, produce electrical charges. Read more online.

Published this month through Cornell University’s East Asia Series: Department of History Assistant Professor Xiaojia Hou’s Negotiating Socialism in Rural China: Mao, Peasants and Local Cadres in Shanxi 1949-1953, the first monograph in English about the beginnings of China’s agricultural collectivization. Hou specializes in research about China’s socialist transformation in the 1950s and joined SJSU’s history faculty in the fall of 2015.

Dean Walter Jacobs, College of Social Sciences, was elected to the executive board of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, a national association based at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. The council provides professional development programming to its member deans and works to sustain the arts and sciences as a leading influence in American higher education.

With help from her public relations class, Department of Journalism Lecturer Halima Kazem is spearheading a fundraiser for Syrian refugees living in a refugee camp in Lesvos, Greece, selling the brightly colored bags those refugees fashioned from life vests worn while fleeing their country by boat. The bags sell between $14 and $40 and Kazem hopes to sell all 130 bags by Christmas, raising approximately $3,000 for the refugees. For more information, contact Kazem at halima.kazem@sjsu.edu.

Department of Biomedical, Chemical and Materials Engineering Professor Claire Komives’s antivenom research made the news again in a Pensacola News Journal report extolling the role of the possum in developing snakebite antivenom. (Possums are immune to the poison inflicted by snakebites.) Komives has previously presented her research findings at the American Chemical Society’s national conference.

Both Popular Science and inverse.com noted iSchool Lecturer Susan Maret’s Freedom of Information Act request regarding the role of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in “the development and application of Hybrid Insect Microelectromechanical Systems.” The 88-page document Maret received in response details the feasibility of using flying insects for purposes of espionage. Read more online and at Maret’s blog.

Department of Communication Studies Associate Professor Matthew Spangler’s adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel The Kite Runner will open at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End on December 21 and run through March 11, 2017. Spangler’s adaptation was staged at San José Repertory Theatre in 2009 for its U.S. premiere and at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2013 for its European premiere.

Professor Emeritus Karl Eric Toepfer, Department of Television, Radio, Film and Theatre, is a contributing writer to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, an online research resource. Toepfer’s articles focus on two important figures in modern dance in Germany, Dore Hoyer and Harald Kreutzberg.

The San Jose Mercury News interviewed Dean Lisa Vollendorf, College of Humanities and the Arts, about the inspiration behind the Hammer Theatre Center and the city/university collaboration that resulted in an approximately $1 million refurbishment of the San José Repertory Theatre, turning that facility into a first-class performing arts venue for SJSU students and the larger South Bay community.

NPR affiliate KTEP in El Paso, Texas, interviewed Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Ken Wharton for a Science Studio: Quantum Theory segment that aired on November 20. Listen online.

Professor Fritz Yambrach, Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Packaging, is concept designer and team organizer of the Fritz Water Vest, a flexible device designed to help populations in disaster or impoverished areas more easily transport water. The vest is currently being beta tested in Ethiopia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Burundi.

San Jose State receives $2M for Student Success

San Jose State University is one of a dozen Bay Area institutions to receive funding from the Koret Foundation as part of a multi-year $50 million initiative to support higher education.

SJSU will receive $2 million from the Koret Foundation to support student success, with University Advancement’s Tower Foundation administering the gift. The influx of funding comes on the heels of the recently released SJSU’s Four Pillars of Student Success: College Readiness, Advising, Student Engagement and Clearing Bottlenecks plan. The data-driven campus-wide student success strategy has one goal: to significantly increase retention and graduation rates for all students while improving the quality of their educational experience.

The $2 million has been earmarked to support college readiness, advising and student engagement at San Jose State. It will be used to create a new student information analytics system that will improve advising and to support the Spartan Scholars Program, a newly launched summer bridge program that is aimed at increasing retention and graduation of underrepresented and first-generation students.

SJSU’s Four Pillars plan was created by Provost Andy Feinstein and Vice President for Student Affairs Reggie Blaylock, with input from multiple campus stakeholders, including students. The plan was highlighted in a recent NPR story in which Feinstein shared that the university is offering up to 500 additional course sections to help students make progress toward degree (with funding from the university’s general fund.)

“They (SJSU students) are the inspiration that keeps me going and get me up in the morning,” he said, during the NPR interview.

According to its press release, Koret believes that education not only enables individual success and mobility, but also helps build a vibrant Bay Area. The initiative addresses a number of high priority needs at each institution, including capital, research, scholarships, technology, and recruiting, advising, and retention programs for low-income, first-generation students.

“The Koret Foundation is proud to fund this initiative that builds on and expands our longstanding commitment to these important Bay Area academic institutions,” said Michael Boskin, President of the Koret Foundation. “This program is designed to be a catalyst for new approaches to optimize student success, improve completion rates, and bolster career advancement opportunities, particularly among underserved populations.”

Read the full press release and view an outline of the initiatives at all of the higher education institutions partnering with Koret online.

Based in San Francisco, the Koret Foundation supports civic, cultural, and educational organizations that promote a vibrant and distinctive Bay Area. Koret focuses its giving in two major areas: strengthening Bay Area anchor institutions and fostering Jewish connection and identity. Since its founding in 1979, Koret has invested $500 million to contribute to a higher quality of civic and Jewish community life. For more information, visit http://www.koretfoundation.org/