Academic Affairs thanks staff with breakfast

The Academic Affairs committee thanked San Jose State University academic affairs division staff members for another year of hard work with the annual staff appreciation breakfast Nov. 1.

At the breakfast, staff members who brought donations of canned goods to give to Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, received raffle tickets to be entered into a drawing for a prize from their college dean.

During his remarks, Dean Charles Bullock, of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts, thanked the college staff for continuing to work hard year after year.  Molly Marquez, of Justice Studies, won the gift basket for the College of Applied Sciences and Arts. The gift basket included gourmet popcorn and seasonings, movie tickets and a restaurant gift card.

To increase the amount of donations for Second Harvest, the college or departments that collected the most canned goods were rewarded with a half a day of volunteer time from Deputy Provost Andrew Feinstein. The College of Social Sciences won the competition as they did last year and will be able to assign Feinstein to tasks in their office for four hours.

After all the deans and AVPs completed the raffle and remarks, staff members were treated to entertainment from Comedy Sportz, an Improv group. For one skit, they asked each table to come up with a line they often use in their offices and the comedians worked the lines into a funny routine. Some of the lines included, “No, I didn’t read the directions” and “It’s in the syllabus.”

In addition to the individual college raffles, the event planning committee received donations of other raffle prizes for a staff-wide raffle.  Some of the prizes included tickets to San Jose Sharks games, gift certificates to downtown restaurants, cookies and cakes, and more.

 

Dean Bullock meets with ‘royalty’ during homecoming game

Dean Charles Bullock, of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts, got a chance to spend some time with San José State University’s Homecoming King Daniel Harris-Lucas, right, and Homecoming Queen Diana Busaka, center, at the game against the Wyoming Cowboys. Harris-Lucas and Busaka are reported to be the first African-American couple voted in as homecoming King and Queen in SJSU history. Harris-Lucas is a public relations major in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications while Busaka is a student in Occupational Therapy. For many fans, Saturday’s game started out with tailgating in the parking lots outside the stadium before they took seats in the stands. While the Spartans started off behind in the first half of the game, they picked up steam in the second half when they rallied to pull off a win in the last seven seconds of the game. They ended the game with a score of 51-44.

Library conference goes worldwide

Library 2.013, a worldwide virtual conference that was co-founded by the San José State University School of Library and Information Sciences, and Steve Hargadon, the director of Web 2.0 Labs, goes online Friday. The virtual conference is free to attend and will run around the clock starting on Oct. 18, at 6:30 a.m., standard pacific time, until Oct. 19 at 9 p.m., standard pacific time.

The conference is geared toward library and information specialists and is a free forum “designed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among information professionals worldwide,” according to a welcome letter on the conference’s website (http://www.library20.com/2013.) The schedule will run around the clock to accommodate virtual attendees from around the world. Visitors can click on their nearest timezone to get a schedule of events that will match their clocks.

Those who participate will have a chance to discuss such topics as:

  • MOOCs
  • e-books
  • maker spaces
  • mobile services
  • embedded librarians
  • green libraries

Dr. Sandy Hirsh, the director of the School of Library and Information Sciences in the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at San José State University said University President Mohammad Qayoumi recorded a welcome address that will start the conference off Friday morning. She said in past years participants have also been in attendance for the closing reception.

“People actually like to attend to debrief,” Hirsh said.

For more on the conference, visit http://www.library20.com/2013. For more on the School of Library and Information Sciences, visit http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/