May 19, 2025

The new issue of SF State Magazine demonstrates how the SFSU community puts students first with generosity of spirit, creating hope for a better tomorrow. The magazine, an official Gator alumni publication, is now available online and in print. 

Issue highlights: 

• Lifting Up, Taking Off: three alumni whose help from SFSU gave them the boost to succeed 
• Wellness 101: Nourishing our students to a healthy life 
• Striking a Chord: an exclusive alumni Q&A with Ben Fong-Torres and globe-traveling musician-educator Mike Blankenship 
• Class Notes: updates on your old SFSU classmates and other alumni 
• And much more

Print copies will be available at the Cesar Chavez Student Center information desk later this week. Issues are also mailed to alumni worldwide.

Read the spring/summer 2025 issue of SF State Magazine.

Illustration by Gabi Tylenda

The Academic Senate presented SF State’s 2025 Distinguished Faculty and Staff Awards at the final meeting of the 2024 – 2025 Academic Senate. The Faculty and Staff Awards Committee, chaired by Fang-yu Chou, presented the awards. An in-person celebration took place after the Academic Senate plenary session.

The awards include a $4,000 stipend provided by the SF State Foundation Board, a plaque honoring their achievement and their photo added to those of past award winners.

Awards: 

• Excellence in Teaching (Tenured Faculty): Rama Ali Kased, Department of Race and Resistance Studies 
• Excellence in Teaching (Lecturer Faculty): Daniel Ciomek, Department of Information Systems 
• Excellence in Professional Achievement (Tenured Faculty): Anthony Pahnke, Department of International Relations 
• Excellence in Service (Tenured Faculty): Jackson Wilson, Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism 
• Excellence in Service (Staff): Myla Adeva, Graduate College of Education Credential and Graduate Services Center

Provost Amy Sueyoshi and other SFSU colleagues celebrated this year’s emeriti faculty at the Rites of Passage Luncheon on May 15 at the Vista Room. The luncheon honored the retiring faculty members’ years of service. 

Please view a list of this year’s emerita/emeritus faculty via Faculty Affairs. 

Pictured in front row (from left): Kenneth Papp, Kirsten Hilbert, Jenny Kwok Wah Lau, Provost Amy Sueyoshi, Karen Lovaas, Mark Sigmon, Gloria Soto, Connie Carr, Kenn Burrows, Dean Andreana Clay, Peter Biella. Second row (from left): Dragutin Petkovic, Mary Warden, Lisa Vicar, Sheldon Gen, Pete Palmer, Dean Carmen Domingo, Dean Cynthia Grutzik, Dean Ifeoma Nwankwo, Joseph McBride, Yu Charn Chen.

The newest recipient of the Make Safety Happen Champion award is Nancy Martin, lecturer faculty in Apparel Design and Merchandising. She diagnosed and resolved a significant fire hazard, helping keep our campus safe.

Martin had noted that the Family, Interiors, Nutrition and Apparel Department’s new industrial steam irons did not have an automatic shutoff function, and she found them left on overnight on occasion. To solve this problem, Martin won a grant from the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences to install automatic timers in the lab that turn off the irons after one hour.

The Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications (SMC) is pleased to announce that the content development phase of the University website redesign project is underway. The sfsu.edu website is being restructured and rewritten to center student users first and foremost: providing necessary information, illustrating the student experience and creating a seamless process from exploration to application and enrollment.

In the coming weeks, each department will be contacted with a designated time frame for collaborating with a representative from SMC on reviewing, updating and refining website content.

SMC offers drop-in hours via Zoom for guidance on web content and strategy throughout this process. Please join and ask questions about the website redesign project and how to best present information on the web.

Schedule: 

• Tuesdays in May, 11 a.m. – noon: Web Content Strategy with Alexis Lowry, lead digital communications specialist. Join Zoom meeting. 
• Thursdays in May, 3 – 4 p.m.: Writing for the Web with Steve Hockensmith, director of communications and executive editor. Join Zoom meeting.

CampusMemo will go on hiatus following the Tuesday, May 27, issue. Summer issues will be published on Monday, June 16, and Monday, July 14. Weekly publication will resume with the Monday, Aug. 18, issue. During the hiatus, events can continue to be submitted to the University Calendar.

For questions, please email the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications at marcomm@sfsu.edu.

The SF State Academic Senate met on May 13, at Seven Hills Conference Center.

The Senate: 

• The 2024 – 2025 Senate adopted by general consent the resolutions: 
  • Commending and Thanking Senators Completing Terms of Service and Serving on the Executive Committee 
• Welcomed a presentation of Distinguished Faculty and Staff Award winners 
• Held elections for the 2025 – 2026 Senate Executive Committee and announced the results for the one-year terms beginning Sunday, June 1: 
  • Chair: Jackson Wilson, Recreation Parks and Tourism  
  • Vice Chair: Arezoo Islami, Philosophy 
  • Secretary: Alesha Sohler, Educational Doctoral Program 
  • At-Large: Elaine Musselman, Nursing 
  • At-Large: Frederik Green, Modern Languages and Literatures 
  • Academic Policies Committee Chair: Nancy Geber, Chemistry 
  • Campus Curriculum Committee Chair: David Landy, Philosophy 
  • Faculty Affairs Committee Chair: Elizabeth Brown, Criminal Justice Studies 
  • Student Affairs Committee Chair: Ellen Christensen, Design  
  • Strategic Issues Committee Chair: Alaric Trousdale, International Education 
  • Academic Senate of the CSU (ex officio): Robert Keith Collins, American Indian Studies; Dipendra Sinha, Engineering

The SFSU AI Literacy Education Program will facilitate artificial intelligence (AI) workshops over the summer. Engage in guided inquiry of this emerging technology, catch up on your digital badging progress or level up your understanding of generative AI.

Summer courses include: 

• “AI Literacy Essentials: Introduction to Generative AI” 
• “AI Literacy Essentials: Prompting for Practical Applications” 
• “AI Literacy Essentials: Critical Analysis of Generative AI” 
• “Collaboration with Zoom AI Companion” 
• “Generative AI for Visual Design” 
• Staff elective: “Working with AI” (new for summer) 
• “Working with Generative AI” (new for summer)

This course is designed specifically for SFSU staff looking to integrate generative AI in your daily work. Learn how to prepare for effective and responsible AI use, write goal-oriented prompts to accomplish particular work tasks, evaluate AI-generated content for quality and reliability, and refine outputs to enhance efficiency and productivity in your professional context. Participants will engage in hands-on activities with Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT to employ strategies in real-world work scenarios, share practical insights and use cases with peers, and assess additional opportunities for integrating generative AI tools in specific practice areas.

Please visit the AI website to register.