News & Announcements
Famed philosopher and activist Dr. Cornel West will come to campus Thursday, Sept. 29, for a discussion with members of the SF State community. The event will be held at the McKenna Theatre from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tickets are free but should be reserved in advance via Simpletix.
The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at New York City’s Union Theological Seminary, Dr. West is the author of 20 books, including “Race Matters,” “Democracy Matters” and his memoir “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.”
SF State has a proud tradition of organizing conferences for Constitution and Citizenship Day, a national holiday that commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. To be held Thursday, Sept. 15, and Friday, Sept. 16, the 2022 conference provides multiple opportunities to reflect critically on the past, present and future of constitutional rights, freedoms, citizenship, democracy, equality and justice. A full schedule is available on the Department of History website.
The conference coordinator is Marc Stein, Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History. The conference sponsors are the College of Liberal & Creative Arts, the Department of History, the History Students Association and the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair in U.S. History.
“I am proof mentoring works,” says Edgar Velazquez (B.S., ’16). “Mentors helped me go from being a dishwasher with no shot at medicine to graduation.”
Velazquez didn’t just earn another degree. He has a new title — Dr. Velazquez — that will allow him to fulfill a lifelong dream.
Velazquez graduated from University of California, Davis medical school June 2022. But it was at SF State that he first received the mentoring that transformed his life.
Velazquez immigrated from Mexico at the age of 14 and grew up as an undocumented immigrant in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. With the help of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which helped protect from deportation and allowed him to get a work permit, Velazquez is now coming back to San Francisco for the next step of his career. With his fresh medical degree in hand, he’ll start a residency at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he’ll be splitting his time between UCSF Moffitt, Zuckerberg General Hospital and Richard H. Fine’s People’s Clinic. It’s a dream that’s been nearly 15 years in the making.
Velazquez enrolled in SF State in 2009 (before DACA was established). Although he had various acceptance offers and scholarships, most did not cover his needs. Being undocumented, he had limited options and had to work washing dishes to afford school.
He came to SF State because his high school had a connection to the University’s Step to College Program and he also participated in the Metro College Success Program. Both programs helped Velazquez navigate course enrollment, career resources, tutoring and more.
“I’m the first one in my family to graduate from college and also the first doctor in the family,” Velazquez said. “It was daunting but I had a lot of help.”
SF State President Lynn Mahoney will be one of the featured speakers at THE Campus Live US, an innovative event bringing together thought leaders to address the critical challenges facing college leaders throughout the country. Organized by THE (Times Higher Education) in partnership with Inside Higher Ed and other partners, THE Campus Live US will be held Nov. 9-10 in Los Angeles. Learn more, including how to register, on the event website.
U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier, the representative for California’s 14th district, will be on campus for a Town Hall meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3. (A previously announced visit set for Monday, Sept. 12, had to be rescheduled.) The entire campus community is invited to attend the discussion, which will be held in HUM 133.
In October 2021, the U.S. Department of Education announced a change to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program rules for a limited time as a result of the COVID-19 national emergency. Millions of nonprofit and government employees have federal student loans and may now be eligible for loan forgiveness or additional credit through the limited PSLF waiver. But you need to act fast. The special waiver expires Oct. 31, 2022.
For a clear explanation of the program and a simple step-by-step process to determine who is eligible for the program, employees should go to the Federal Student Aid website. Additional details can be found on HR’s PSLF info page.
SF State Abroad has a brand-new program database. Students interested in studying abroad during the Spring 2023 semester should apply by the Thursday, Sept. 15, deadline. SF State Abroad has programs in 36 countries with options for every major and minor as well as lower and upper GE’s and language learning programs. Students pay the same tuition and have access to their financial aid while earning SF State resident credit. For more information, check out the SF State Abroad website.
The Academic Senate met on Tuesday, Sept. 6, via Zoom. At the meeting:
- The Senate heard an informational item on Reorganization within the College of Liberal & Creative Arts, involving Humanities, Comparative and World Literature and Liberal Studies.
- The Senate adopted by general consent the Resolution in Memoriam and in Honor of Emerita Professor Ruth B. Love.
- The Senate heard in first reading Resolution in Support of University Mission Statement (2022).
The full agenda, meeting materials and minutes can be found on the senate website.
The Fine Arts Gallery at SF State will open a new exhibit, “Beyond Binary,” Saturday, Sept. 17. This exhibit focuses on the exploration of a gender spectrum, across cultures and generations, in the formation of personal and collective identities and visual narratives. “Beyond Binary” celebrates trans and gender-nonconforming artists who engage the body as both a form and site of social sculpture and who challenge established narratives of art history to become more inclusive, while working across media and transdisciplinarily. The exhibit is free and will run through Thursday, Oct. 27.
The Fine Arts Gallery is open Tuesday through Friday noon to 4 p.m. For more information visit gallery.sfsu.edu.
Participating artists include Cassils, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Craig Calderwood, Wells Chandler, Jeffrey Cheung, Ben Cuevas, Demian DinéYazhi’, Nicki Green, Juliana Huxtable, MCXT (Monica Canilao + Xara Thustra), E. “Oscar” Maynard, Vivek Shraya, Beatrice L. Thomas aka “Black Benatar,” Eli Thorne, Alok Vaid-Menon, Chris E. Vargas, Leila Weefur, J Wu and Asri Wulandari.
The SF State Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Hub is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 STS Faculty Fellows Program. The STS Faculty Fellows Program offers University faculty who are working at the intersection of science and social justice the opportunity to join a community of engaged scholars for the academic year. Over the course of the year, STS Hub Fellows will develop and share scholarship, collaborate on potential research projects, mentor advanced graduate students and participate in shaping the future of the STS Hub.
The theme for 2022-2023 is “Viral Politics: From HIV to COVID-19.” STS welcomes applications from across the SF State colleges from faculty (TT and lecturers) with active research projects that engage with this theme. Faculty who have a teaching or professional development interest related to the theme will also be considered. Accepted Fellows will receive a stipend of $1,000 to participate in the STS Hub. Priority will be given to applicants at the rank of lecturer and assistant professor, but all are welcome to apply.
To learn more about the STS Faculty Fellows Program or participating in other STS Hub activities, please register to join the STS Hub Information Session from 1 to 2 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19, via Zoom. All faculty are also welcome to email co-directors Martha Kenney and Laura Mamo (lmamo@sfsu.edu). STS Hub Fellowship applications are due by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21.
The STS Fellowship Program is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Beginning this fall, please join the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL) and interdepartmental peer leaders as they examine adapting and emerging best practices in teaching and learning. You are invited to a series of discussion circles focusing on conversations for a post-pandemic classroom. These interactive sessions will be grounded in the exchange of perspectives and ideas.
Please join CEETL for the first Discussion Circle — “Balance: Preserving Yourself and Setting Boundaries” — from 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27, in CEETL’s classroom, LIB 242. Come by to this session to discuss and share ideas about taking care of ourselves at work. As we become more in-person on campus, we should be mindful about our work and life balance and setting boundaries to help maintain our energy. The discussion will explore different forms of self-care, what setting boundaries looks like and ways we can support each other during this time. The discussion will be hosted by Peer Health Leadership Coordinator Kim Nguyen. RSVP online.
Discussion Circles are not eligible for stipends. Stipends for faculty participation in CEETL offerings were made possible through one-time, emergency federal funding (CARES and HEERF) for COVID-19. This funding source has concluded as of April 25.
To learn more about future Discussion Circles please visit the CEETL website.
Please join your staff colleagues and Human Resources AVP Ingrid Williams for the second campuswide Staff Forum of the Fall ’22 semester on Wednesday, Sept. 14, from 10 to 11 a.m. This September forum and October’s forum will share organizational info from the campus Cabinet divisions (September: Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, University Advancement and University Enterprises; October: Administration and Finance, Academic Affairs and the Office of the President). Represented and non-represented staff (who are not MPP/faculty) may attend. RSVP for the Zoom link via Qualtrics.
Patelco is offering a series of financial wellness webinars to improve your money smarts, beginning with estate planning on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 5:30 p.m. Key topics include living trusts, wills, advanced health care directives, power of attorney and grant deeds. Take control of what happens to your property, preserve assets for loved ones, avoid disputes and enjoy peace of mind knowing that you’ve made your wishes clear. Register to attend the session via Zoom.
The Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL), along with SF State Transforms and the STS Hub, invites you to a Scholar-Teaching Series: Building Collaborations to Integrate and Strengthen Projects-Writing-Teaching, Building Bridges Reception from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, in LIB 242. This is a celebration of co-writing and partnership in teaching and research. The team will share their experiences and resources and highlight recent SF State collaborative work.
All are welcome, particularly first-year faculty, who will have just turned in their first WPAF’s. Refreshments provided.
RSVP online by Wednesday, Sept. 14.
Spotlight
Assistant Professor Libby Black’s exhibition “The Way Things Also Are” opened at the 500 Capp Street gallery in San Francisco on Sept. 10. It continues through Oct. 8 and also features artwork by Nicole Shaffer (MFA, ’22) and MFA students Maryam Safanasab and AJ Serrano. KQED recommends the exhibition in its round-up of visual art exhibitions in the Bay Area this fall.
Amy Sueyoshi, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, led a tour of the GLBT History Museum for Queen Máxima of the Netherlands on Sept. 6. Other attendees included San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Sup. Rafael Mandelman and Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher, who attended SF State as an exchange student in Spring 2006.
Associate Professor of Physical Therapy Casey Nesbit was a member of an American Physical Therapy National Task Force charged with the development of a toolkit for pediatric clinical instructors. She recently published a study in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education, “Innovation in Pediatric Clinical Education: The Development of a Clinical Instructor Toolkit.” The study covers the iterative processes used to create the toolkit, describe the toolkit and inform the development of future innovative clinical education toolkits.
Political Science Professor Ronald Hayduk gave a presentation at an Aug. 23 meeting of the San Jose City Council. In a special session on a proposal to extend voting rights to non-U.S. citizens, Hayduk shared his research on the topic.
He noted that 40 states allowed immigrant voting until 1926, according to San Jose Spotlight. “For the majority of our history, noncitizens could vote,” Hayduk said. “But noncitizen voting was rolled back state by state, during periods of time with nativism and xenophobia.”
Chemistry and Biochemistry Assistant Professor Jingjing Qiu, Professor Weiming Wu, Associate Professor Marc Anderson and students Daniel Boskin and Dallas Oleson wrote the paper “Plasmon-enhanced electrochemical oxidation of 4-(hydroxymethyl)benzoic acid.” It was published Aug. 22 in The Journal of Chemical Physics as part of a special topic on plasmon-driven energy conversion.
Associate Professor of Counseling Tiffany O’Shaughnessy recently cowrote the article “Examining the Impact of COVID-19 on Supervisees’ Experiences of Clinical Supervision” in the journal Training and Education in Professional Psychology. The paper examines the results of a study with 324 graduate students nationwide sharing their experiences as they navigated the transition from in-person clinical supervision to virtual telesupervision due to shelter-in-place orders in 2020. It shares strengths and challenges related to telesupervision and provides recommendations for enhancing clinical telesupervision practice.
“Tomorrow in Shanghai and Other Stories” (Blair) by Creative Writing Chair and Associate Professor May-lee Chai received a book review in the San Francisco Chronicle on Aug. 22. Reviewer Cassandra Landry praised the book for its fresh lens on self-determination in the Chinese diaspora.
“Over eight new stories, Chai keeps a steady hand on the scrabbled emotional terrain of expats and immigrants, city and country, and, briefly, a tired, spent Earth and a wealthy ‘New Shanghai’ colony on Mars,” Landry wrote. “There is a familiarity about that friction, the awkward unease of the in-between.”
Chai also wrote an Aug. 25 story for Alta Journal about teaching Julie Otsuka’s novels.
A recent blog post for Pain Treatment Directory features Recreation, Parks and Tourism Professor Erik Peper giving advice on reversing back pain related to habits obtained during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With COVID, ergonomics have become a disaster — especially with people who use laptops,” he said. “In order for the hands to be at the correct level for the keyboard, the head must be tilted down. The more the head tilts forward, the most stress that is placed on the cervical spine.”
Peper offers four tips to avoid back pain and other “sitting diseases”: take frequent breaks from sitting in a chair, practice diaphragmatic breathing, decrease screen time and pay attention to ergonomics.
Since retiring and moving to Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2016, Professor Emeritus of Sociology Ed McCaughan has continued his creative pursuits. He recently co-curated a photography exhibition, “Blowout Raza: Moments in California’s Chicano Movement,” at Galería de la Raza’s Studio 24 Education Annex. He also organized and chaired a roundtable on “visual activism” at the annual Latin Studies Association congress in May.
McCaughan worked with an Oaxacan photographer and designer to produce a limited-edition, hand-crafted, bilingual book titled “We Didn’t Cross the Border: La Frontera nos Cruzó,” and he penned a foreword for poet activist Margaret Randall’s “Artists in My Life” (New Village Press).