January 17, 2023

Colleges of Distinction, a unique guide for college-bound students, has recognized SF State for its commitment to helping undergraduate students learn, grow and succeed. SF State was named a 2022 – 2023 College of Distinction, California College of Distinction and Public College of Distinction. Aside from these overall undergraduate recognitions, the University also earned additional recognition in the areas of Business, Engineering, Nursing, Career Development, Equity & Inclusion and Military Support. 

“This recognition by Colleges of Distinction represents what we already know: SF State is a place where our students thrive,” said Senior Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Katie Lynch. “We are proud to have the good work of our faculty, staff, administration and students recognized and for word to get out to future Gators.” 

Since 2000, Colleges of Distinction has been a trusted resource for students, parents and guidance counselors. The Colleges of Distinction selection process comprises a sequence of in-depth research and detailed interviews with the schools, accepting only those that adhere to the Four Distinctions: Engaged Students, Great Teaching, Vibrant Community and Successful Outcomes. These principles are all informed by the High-Impact Practices to prioritize the ways that institutions enable students to have a fulfilling, individualized college experience both inside and outside of the classroom.

“I was the first in my family to ever go to a four-year [college]. As a Latina, I’m very proud of myself,” said SF State student Carmen Vargas Velazquez. As the youngest in her large Hispanic family — around 25 aunts and uncles — she says her drive in science stems from her experiences with her family. 

Vargas and 10 other SF State students were among the 52 recipients of the 2022 Latinos in Technology Scholarship (LITSI) from the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley (HFSV). (Pictured: LITSI scholarship winners and others being honored on stage at the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley Ball last year.) With 11 awardees, SF State was the most represented university in the latest cohort and ranks third in scholarships received between 2016 and 2021. 

The program provides Latinx STEM students with up to $10,000 in annual financial support for up to three years plus professional development and internship opportunities. The latest SF State recipients are in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science and Engineering. 

“Honestly, I just think [LITSI] has made my college experience so far a lot easier, and it just doesn’t feel so difficult trying to find space [in the field],” said Vargas, a third-year in Cell & Molecular Biology who is only a few months into the program. She says HFSV’s network already helped her navigate professional development, interviews and networking. The confidence she’s gained even led her to earn a coffee date with SF State President Lynn Mahoney. 

Read more about SF State’s LITSI recipients at SF State News.

The Office of the President and the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE) thank everyone who donated to the 2022 SF State Toy Drive. Over 275 gifts from SF State faculty and staff were donated to the OMI/Lakeshore Toy Giveaway and Celebration on Dec. 16, 2022. Many of the gifts were collected from SF State’s End of Year Celebration on Dec. 15.  
 

ICCE staff, Child Adolescent Development Club members and College Corps fellows wrapped toys diligently over the course of three days. They also volunteered with our OMI/Lakeshore neighbors to brighten the holiday season for over 1,000 families on Dec. 16! See pictures and learn more on the ICCE website. 

Early in the spring 2023 semester, construction will begin on a new housing project on the West Campus Green. It will include housing for 750 first-year students and a new Gator Health Center that will include Student Health Services, Health Promotion & Wellness and Counseling & Psychological Services. The project will also include a new dining facility. 

The residence hall is scheduled to be completed in time for the fall 2024 semester. The Gator Health Center and dining facility are expected to open later that academic year. The project is made possible by the state of California, which has provided $116.3 million from its Affordable Student Housing grant program to SF State, covering a significant portion of the project’s costs. 

To support construction activities on site, a fence will go up around the West Campus Green in January 2023 and the area will be closed. Since purchasing it from the San Francisco Unified School District in 2012 for use as a future building site, and the related demolition of a vacant school building, the West Campus Green has become a wonderful space for outdoor recreation and enjoyment. While this space will not continue to be available for recreation, other outdoor facilities remain available. The Mashouf Wellness Center offers other spaces for outdoor recreation, as does a new field next to Marcus Hall. Additionally, new outdoor areas, expected to open in the fall of 2024, are part of the redesign of the West Campus Green. 

For questions about the construction or the overall project, please contact build@sfsu.edu or check the Capital Planning, Design & Construction website. 

Ambassadors are needed to help welcome students back to campus for the first week of spring classes. Volunteers are needed to set up and staff tables and clean up at the end of the day. Volunteers may schedule two hours or more on the following days: 

• Monday, Jan. 30, and Tuesday, Jan. 31, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

• Wednesday, Feb. 1, and Thursday, Feb. 2, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

You can submit one online form for all the times you will be available. A preliminary schedule will be sent out the week before classes begin. 

Zoom volunteer trainings will be provided and recorded. If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact Victor Javier Aguilar at vaguila4@sfsu.edu or Luis De Paz Fernandez at ldepaz@sfsu.edu. You can also call the Office of the President at (415) 338-1381. 

On Saturday, Jan. 21, the campus will be welcoming new residents to the housing community for the spring semester. In preparation for their arrival, please be aware that there will be higher than normal traffic congestion in and around the campus perimeter (particularly State Drive, Lake Merced and Holloway). In addition, Lot 19 and Lot 20 (floors 1-3 and the top floor) and some street parking may be restricted. 

HR is excited to announce a change in the way you sign up for direct deposit or change the banking institution you selected for direct deposit. All new direct deposits and direct deposits changes will be done via Cal Employee Connect (CEC). CEC is a secure website developed by the State Controller of California for all state employees to review payment stubs and obtain W-2 information. New employees will receive their first payment as a live pay warrant. Information obtained from that warrant will be used to create an account with CEC. Complete instructions for establishing your initial account with CEC may be found in the CEC Users Guide. 

CEC has expanded access to the CEC Employee Services feature and Multifactor Authentication (MFA). The Employee Services feature is secure and user friendly and has been created as additional options to support remote work and employee self-service. MFA allows for an extra layer of security on employees’ CEC accounts. Once MFA is enabled, employees can enroll or change direct deposit via the Employee Services feature within CEC. SF State uses Duo as its MFA; however, you are free to choose any of the MFA authenticators listed on the CEC website.  

Please note that the new direct deposit feature is an additional option for staff to submit a New/Change Direct Deposit request and will not affect employees already on direct deposit. One new enrollment or change request will be allowed every 30 days. For change requests do not close your original account until you can determine that your new direct deposit has taken effect. 

Staff wishing to cancel the direct deposit service need to contact Payroll Services by emailing payroll@sfsu.edu or contact Human Resources at (415) 338-1872 to request the direct deposit cancellation form.  

You can begin using the direct deposit service via CEC with the following steps:  

• Select User Profile. 

• Click “Turn On MFA” and follow instructions within the application to download the authenticator app to your phone and enjoy an extra layer of security to your CEC account. 

• Select “Employee Services” from the top navigation bar and follow instructions within the application.  

If you have questions or need assistance, please visit CEC Help & Feedback. 

The Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at SF State is proud to announce Emerge, a three-year initiative that will be made possible thanks to a generous $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of their new investment in disability studies. This generous support will allow the Longmore Institute to lead a month-long summer workshop for emerging Disability Studies scholar-activists, held three consecutive summers at SF State with an option for hybrid participation. 

Each Emerge cohort will consist of scholars, artists or activists whose work enriches the field of Disability Studies with projects that explore disabled people and experiences intersecting with further marginalization by race, gender, sexuality, incarceration record or immigration status. Each group of 10 will be invited to campus from across the U.S. on the basis of their five- to seven-years’ experience in disability-related scholarship, arts and culture, and/or disability justice activism. They will receive support for working on new projects grounded in scholar-activism, an assigned mentor and opportunities to learn from and visit with the Bay Area’s rich disability arts, rights and justice organizations as we host open conversations with local disabled changemakers about what scholar-activism means to them and might support them in the future with the challenges they face. The summer will culminate in a hybrid-model symposium presenting their finished works to the broader Disability Studies community.  

“Our work has prioritized creating bridges so that academics, artists and activists can better support each other in the shared pursuit of social change,” said Interim Director of the Longmore Institute Emily Beitiks. “We dreamed up this project because we want to elevate our support for the development of new networks and relationships that support scholar-activism inside disability studies for the next generation of disabled leaders. We are so excited to use our reach to introduce these leaders to the broader international disability community.”  

For more information, join the mailing list for the Longmore Institute on Disability.  

The Office of International Programs (OIP) is thrilled to announce that 25 SF State students have been awarded a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to help fund their study abroad programs. This is a 58% success rate of applicants for the scholarship! SF State is a Top Producer of Gilman Awardees in the nation for the past 20 years. 

For spring 2023, the Gilman recipients will receive scholarships ranging from $4,000 to $7,000. This is the maximum award range for students studying abroad for a semester ($4,000 for a semester abroad in English, while $7,000 is the max for a semester abroad working on a language the U.S. Department of State considers a critical language for national security). OIPe are thrilled that SF State awardees are earning the maximum amounts for their grants. Collectively, they will have earned $111,000 in grant money.  

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship funds U.S. citizens who receive a Pell Grant and might not otherwise be able to study abroad. The next Gilman application deadline will be March 9. OIP will be hosting Gilman workshops throughout the month of February. Please ask your students to contact OIP for more information about studying abroad. Informational meetings and financial information scholarship meetings will be held every week. Learn more at studyabroad.sfsu.edu. 

SF State and the Office of International Programs would like to extend special congratulations to the 25 SF State students who will have the opportunity to realize study abroad with the financial support of a Gilman Scholarship next semester. For a complete list of Gilman awardees from the October 2022 deadline, visit the Gilman website. 

The CSU Student Research Competition provides a fantastic opportunity for both undergraduate and graduate students to present their scholarship, research projects and creative works to other academics, peers and the community at large. Current students as well as those who graduated in the spring, summer or fall 2022 are eligible. Winners receive cash awards. 

Our campus will select up to 10 winners to compete in the CSU system-wide competition hosted by San Diego State University. The SF State campus competition will be held in person Feb. 27 to March 3. The registration deadline is Friday, Feb. 10, 5 p.m. Students can register online via Qualtrics. 

The Division of Graduate Studies & Career Development requests that faculty and the academic advising communities help recruit undergraduate and graduate student participants. A flyer with competition information can be shared with students. The division thanks you in advance for your help! 

Through a Department of Education AANAPISI Grant, the Responsive Education for Access, Community, and Hope (REACH) Program, in partnership with the Office for Student Financial Aid (OSFA), is working to create and implement culturally responsive financial literacy programs and curriculum to increase the financial knowledge and capability of students. Izabela “Izzie” Villanueva, M.S. (pronouns: they/them/theirs) has been hired as the inaugural financial literacy coach for the campus. The financial literacy workshops address topics such as student tuition, navigating financial aid, paying for college, scholarships, money management, savings, work opportunities, understanding credit reports and scores, and more. REACH’s new financial literacy coach is available to speak in-person or online in classrooms, student clubs or departments across campus. Workshops can be tailored and can be from 10 minutes to one hour. Sign up for a class visit via Qualtrics. 

As part of SF State’s continuing transition from iLearn to Canvas, courses scheduled for spring 2023 were created in Canvas by default. Instructors will need to go to classdata.sfsu.edu and choose to use iLearn for their courses using the gray box at the top of the page if they wish to use iLearn this upcoming semester. This guide offers a step-by-step process for choosing iLearn instead of Canvas for the spring semester. Otherwise, courses will remain created in Canvas. 

As a reminder, spring/summer 2023 will be the last semester iLearn is available for teaching, and beginning fall 2023 only Canvas will be available for teaching. Training and support opportunities will be available throughout spring and summer to support transitioning faculty. 

Academic Technology and the Center for Excellence and Equity in Teaching and Learning (CEETL) have partnered to bring a robust schedule of Canvas workshops this month. Check the support and training page on the Canvas website for specific dates and registration links. There is at least one workshop every business day in January, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to get to know Canvas before the spring semester begins. 

The first 2023 Staff Forum is on Wednesday, Jan. 18, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. with updates from the Office of Emergency Services (OES), Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). All campus staff, both represented and non-represented (who are not MPP/faculty), can attend. RSVP for the Zoom link via Qualtrics.

A CalPERS retirement informational session will be offered on Thursday, Jan. 26, for all CalPERS-eligible staff and faculty. This virtual, three-hour session will be presented from 1 to 4 p.m. Human Resources CalPERS Retirement Specialist Mary Saw will cover topics such as steps in planning for retirement, pension formulas and more. RSVP via Qualtrics for the Zoom link. 
 
Need it sooner? Make an appointment with Mary Saw (email: msaw@sfsu.edu) or attend a general CalPERS class virtually or in-person. Check the CalPERS website for dates and details using the Education tab. 

The faculty of the Gerontology program will offer informational sessions for prospective students interested in fall 2023 admission. During the informational sessions, prospective students will learn about SF State’s M.A. in Gerontology, SF State Scholar programs (accelerated 4+1 programs with Sociology and Social Work) and the program’s admission process, course offerings, degree requirements, faculty advisors and scholarship opportunities. Faculty will be available to answer questions and advise prospective students.  

The Gerontology informational sessions will be offered as webinars through Zoom on the following dates: 

• Monday, Jan. 30, 12 – 1 p.m. 

• Tuesday, Feb. 21, 12 – 1 p.m. 

• Wednesday, March 15, 7 – 8 p.m. 

• Thursday, April 6, 7 – 8 p.m. 

Join any of the above sessions via Zoom. (Meeting ID 862 1962 9085; Passcode: 368935) 

Please note that completed applications will be processed on a rolling basis. Aug. 1 is the deadline for admissions applications to the M.A. in Gerontology for fall 2023. 

The 2023 University Retreat, titled “Reimagining the Post-Pandemic University,” will be held Wednesday, Jan. 25. Join the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL) and the Academic Senate for discussions on emerging practices for student engagement and opportunities to think beyond pandemic disruptions to plan a future university built on principles of justice, equity and inclusion. 

• When: Wednesday, Jan. 25, 9 a.m. – noon 

• Where: iLearn, Webinar and Zoom     

• In-person reception: 12:30 –2 p.m., LIB 121 

Enroll in the 2023 University Retreat iLearn website to find all the information on how to attend this multi-modal retreat. 

Starting Feb. 1, the Qualtrics PI Checklist will no longer be used for managing grants within the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP). In its place, the office has implemented the Grants Management System’s Pre-Award to streamline and manage proposal development. The system will be open to faculty to initiate proposals and work with ORSP through the proposal development and submission process. ORSP is offering training for all faculty who plan to be active in submitting proposals. To sign up for the one-hour training, go to the ORSP website and select Log into Grants Management System, and click on Investigator Training Sign-up Sheet.

Any questions or login issues direct to orspgms@sfsu.edu.

SF State employees are invited to celebrate Women’s History Month at an event on Friday, March 10 (time TBD). Planning has begun to determine venue and speakers. This event is a woman-focused event inclusive of trans women and those who are nonbinary, gender non-conforming and anyone who identifies as a woman in a way that is significant to them. We also welcome allies who are committed to creating environments that are supportive of people who are typically underrepresented in the workplace and beyond. If you’d like to offer input or get involved, please complete the survey via Qualtrics.

The College of Professional & Global Education is heartbroken to report that Luna Abdallah, the senior program lead for the Pre-Health Professions and Certificate Programs (PHPCP), passed away on Friday, Nov. 25, 2022. Luna received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. She had recently taken on the lead role at the PHPCP after several years as co-director and instructor within the College of Science & Engineering. Prior to teaching at SF State, she had also worked at UCSF and USF. 

If you would like to make a donation, a GoFundMe page was set up in her honor. The funds will be used to award scholarships at the PHPCP.

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion Jacob Needleman passed away Nov. 28. Needleman authored more than a dozen books, including “The Heart of Philosophy,” “Money and the Meaning of Life” and “The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of Our Founders.” His wife, folk music expert and former Holy Names College faculty member Gail Needleman, died last March. 

Historian Mitch Horowitz posted a lengthy tribute to Needleman on the Medium website in December. More memories of Needleman are being shared on a page devoted to him on the Department of Philosophy website. 

Digital Communications Specialist Raymond Wang passed away Friday, Dec. 30, at the age of 32. A proud SF State graduate, Wang was an invaluable member of the Strategic Marketing and Communications (SMC) team. He played a key role in creating and maintaining University webpages and other communications, including CampusMemo. 

Born and raised in San Francisco’s Sunset District, Wang and his sister Diana both went to Galileo Academy of Science & Technology. Later, each would attend SF State. 

“Raymond originally received his acceptance letter to UC Davis for college but turned down the offer to help my parents pay off our mortgage at the time,” said Diana (B.S., ’16; Human Resource Management Certificates, ’19). “Since SF State was close to home and work, he chose SF State.” 

Wang completed his B.S. in Design and Visual Communications in 2013. He came to work for his alma mater four years later, quickly endearing himself to his SMC colleagues with his technical skills, enthusiasm, flexibility, humor and deep love of french fries and other comfort food. He also enjoyed sharing the latest about his beloved rescue dogs, Peanut and Cody, who were even known to visit the office from time to time. 

“He would always take them on adventures during his time off, whether it be hiking, camping or any destination that allowed a furry friend,” Diana said. “He always wanted to include them wherever he went. He made sure to celebrate their birthdays with a good meal. He would put on his chef hat and start cooking up a gourmet steak for them.” 

Donations honoring Wang’s memory can be made to the San Francisco SPCA. A memorial service was held at the San Francisco Columbarium & Funeral Home Sunday, Jan. 15.  

Connie Yannacone, a teacher in the Deaf Education Program at SF State for many years, made her final transition in the new year. She is remembered as an excellent teacher and motivator who was adored by her students.  

Yannacone was in the first two-year graduate program at Gallaudet University, graduating with a master’s in Deaf Education. When she studied at Gallaudet, they had enough confidence in her that they had her start teaching without the customary teacher supervision, before she completed her training. She was among the very first people to teach Signed English to very young children. She was also a master teacher who mentored student teachers in the graduate program. She was pivotal in Gallaudet’s longitudinal study comparing a group of deaf children who had oral education with a group that had total communication (speech and signs) while using amplification. She was instrumental in creating and providing sign language classes for parents. 

Yannacone had a passion for dancing, especially swing dancing. She loved new adventures and was open to meeting and developing relationships with new people. She maintained her sense of humor until the very end. Her flair for the dramatic was legendary.  

She is survived by her three children, Natasha Yannacañedo, Maia Yannacone and Todd Yannacone, as well as her beloved granddaughter, Amara Noela Yannacañedo McIntosh, and her son-in-law, Dane McIntosh. She is also survived by her furry children, J.D. and Pepper.