Tag Archives: College of Applied Sciences and Arts

Young Special Agents Get Hands-On Experience at SJSU’s First-Ever CSI Camp

Young Special Agents Get Hands-On Experience at SJSU's First-Ever CSI Camp

A camper studies fingerprints uncovered with magnetic powder (Department of Justice Studies photo).

By Amanda Holst, Public Affairs Assistant

Sixteen middle and high school students, ages 13 to 17, got a chance to uncover the secrets of a crime scene at SJSU’s first-ever Forensic Science and Crime Scene Investigation Camp, offered by SJSU’s Department of Justice Studies July 9-13.

“The goal is to inspire students into careers where they are helping to solve crimes,” said Steven Lee, the camp’s director and a professor of justice studies.

Wearing crime scene “do not enter” tape as sashes, campers worked in teams of four to look at evidential material used during a crime scene investigation. Each team carefully observed, collected and interpreted fingerprints, bloodstain patterns and DNA, applying tools they learned in forensic science, criminology, neurology and forensic anthropology workshops.

“Everyday I see them, I get a chance to see the light inside them that ignites on how they really like forensic science,” said lead camp counselor Phillip Nhan, ’11 Justice Studies.

The CSI camp was held simultaneously with the AAFS Forensic Science Educators Conference, which seeks to raise and strengthen overall science education in the United States. Last year, SJSU was the first West Coast university to sponsor the teacher conference.

Working With Real-Life Crime Scene Investigators

According to Lee, the collaboration brings students the latest information, allows them the opportunity to work with real-life crime scene investigators and forensic scientists in the field, and dispels fallacies on how crime scenes are being portrayed on television.

“Everything is so predictable on those shows,” said 17-year-old camper Matthew Shull, whose favorite part of camp was uncovering fingerprints with magnetic powder. “Everything always happens the right way and they always find the right evidence and the right person.”

According to Lee, this year’s camp will serve as a national model for future CSI camps. The American Academy of Forensic Sciences donated 10 scholarships to cover registration fees and supplies.

SJSU Organizes Journalism Skills Academy for Afghan Professors

SJSU Organizes Journalism Skills Academy for Afghan Professors

One of the most challenging aspects of the academy was teaching non-linear editing in just a couple of days. Adobe donated copies of it's new Creative Suite 6 to help our efforts, and Dubai's Higher College of Technology donated its classroom space (photo courtesy of Diane Guerrazzi).

By Diane Guerrazzi, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications

(Editor’s Note: Professor Guerrazzi sent the following from the Middle East, where she is helping establish college journalism programs. Her work is funded by the U.S. State Department.)

SJSU sweated it out in Dubai this July, organizing a two-week Journalism Skills Academy for professors from five different universities in Afghanistan: Kabul, Shaikh Zayed, Nangarhar, Balkh and Herat. Their homeland is too unpredictable for conducting training, as I saw first hand when I was abruptly evacuated from Herat last year, following coordinated suicide attacks.

Albeit hot, Dubai is orderly, with easy airport and Metro access for journalists to practice reporting. As part of their work in the academy, Afghan professors created television news stories.  The topics ranged from the burgeoning Indian population in Dubai to the technology behind the fountains near the “tallest man-made structure in the world,” the Burj Khalifa. One of the most challenging aspects of the academy was teaching non-linear editing in just a couple of days. Adobe donated copies of its new Creative Suite 6 to help our efforts, and Dubai’s Higher College of Technology donated its classroom space.

SJSU Organizes Journalism Skills Academy for Afghan Professors

SJSU organized the academy and sent four representatives to teach and assist: English instructor Kelly Robart, Assistant Professor Diane Guerrazzi, alumna/Afghan-American journalist Halima Kazem and contracts administrator Susan Mir (photo courtesy of Diane Guerrazzi).

The weeks were long, Afghan-style. In keeping with the school schedule in Afghanistan, our only days off were Fridays.  We managed to squeeze in a quick tour of Dubai and a “Desert Safari.” SJSU organized the academy and sent four representatives to teach and assist.

SJSU has two $1 million State Department grants to modernize journalism education at Afghan Universities; one of our grants is for Balkh University in the north, and the other is Herat, in western Afghanistan. We invited the other U.S. universities with grants to join us and help teach the Academy and they all took us up on the offer:  Ball State, University of Arizona and University of Nebraska, Omaha.

Our colleagues from Herat and Balkh Universities are scheduled to visit SJSU for 11 weeks each in the coming months. The first group will arrive in October. Having spent two weeks with them this summer, and seeing them on previous visits to Afghanistan, we’ll be introducing old friends to campus. The welcome will be warm, and the San Jose weather will be welcome, after the summer in Dubai.

Spartans at Work: At SolutionSet, “I’m Learning All the Steps From Conception to Final Product”

By Pat Lopes Harris, Media Relations Director

Where will an SJSU degree take you? This summer, we hit the road to find out, visiting summer interns and recent grads on the job in the Bay Area and beyond. Our Spartans at Work series continues with Miguel Martinez, ’13 Advertising. He’s a summer account management intern at the San Francisco office of SolutionSet, the second largest independent marketing services company in the United States. For Martinez, the experience has been a dream come true. “Since I was in high school, I’ve wanted to be in advertising,” he said. “Besides the hands on experience I’m getting, I’m also learning all the steps from the conception of an idea or a project all the way to the final product.” Though he is far from campus, Martinez says his San Francisco internship is an important educational experience. “I know that I have a lot to learn,” he said. “The people that I work with, they can sense that, that you’re eager to learn and they’ll teach you, they’ll take you through the steps.” And if you’re a San Jose State student, he added, you learn quickly.

NBC Bay Area: Politics Professor Commends Governor for Exercising Leadership on High Speed Rail

Brown’s Perseverance Pays–For Now

Posted by NBC July 8, 2012.

By Larry Gerston

Presidential scholar Richard Neustadt once wrote that the president’s greatest clout lies in his power to persuade. More than signing executive orders or vetoing legislation, Neustadt claimed, the president succeeds when he convinces others to do what they might otherwise choose not to do.

California Governor Jerry Brown showed a bit of Neustadt over the past few months when he convinced a majority of legislators to do what they, too, might have not otherwise done, when they decided on Friday to fund the first portion of the state’s $68 billion high-speed rail project.

Brown had a terrible political headwind to conquer. Public opinion polls showed that the voters were queasy on the idea, given the state’s dreadful economy. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives promised there would be no more federal assistance if they had any say over the matter. And let’s not forget the initial construction site, from Chowchilla to Bakersfield. Who’s going to ride the train there? No one, but that’s where the feds with $3.2 billion in matching funds said the building should commence.

Not a pretty picture. Still, Brown persevered.

In some ways, Brown took a page from the legacy of his father, Edmond G. “Pat” Brown, who also proposed a huge infrastructure project. In 1959, shortly after his election to the state’s highest post, the senior Brown asked the voters to pass a then-huge $1.7 billion bond to create the California Water Project, the backbone of the state’s massive water movement system. At the time, the proposal equaled the size of the state budget. Critics viewed it as an unnecessary boondoggle. Others looked into California’s future and saw nothing but trouble without enough water to meet the state’s needs. Of course they were right.

We won’t know whether the current Brown is right for decades, but we know this: against tremendous pressure he prevailed. And whether or not you believe the high-speed rail project is a good idea, you have give credit to Brown and Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg for exercising a characteristic rarely seen these days–leadership.

Larry Gerston teaches political science at San Jose State University and is the political analyst for NBC Bay Area.