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Volume 52, Number 16   December 6, 2004         

    Announcements    Events    News    Newsmakers

Newsmakers

A rather interesting idea
The retirement of CBS new anchor Dan Rather is an opportunity for the network to attract younger viewers, said Phil Kipper, chair of broadcast and electronic communication arts, in the Nov. 24 San Francisco Chronicle. "If you look at the network newscasts and you look at the kinds of commercials that are run on those newscasts, that's a pretty good tip-off to what they know the audience to be," Kipper said. "There are a lot of commercials for geriatric medications -- basically they're serving an older audience. Perhaps by bringing in (a younger anchor), they might have an opportunity to grab a younger audience in the long run."

Judgment day for governor
On CNN International's "Insight" program on Nov. 17, speech and communication studies Professor Joseph Tuman said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has earned a B or B-plus grade in his first year in office. Tuman noted his success in delivering a balanced budget, dealing with the Legislature in a bipartisan manner, and efforts to promote California. "But beneath all of that, we have some serious problems … with our economy here that have to be dealt with." Tuman also said the fact that the governor is a movie star has helped him. "People in our Legislature, I think, respect his celebrity status, but not because he's a movie star, but because he can translate that celebrity status sometimes into power in the ballot box," he said.

A moving performance
The Nov. 16 San Francisco Chronicle featured a profile of Albirda Rose, professor of dance. In addition to her classes on campus, the past few years Rose and her students have been teaching dance to disadvantaged children from San Francisco's Visitacion Valley neighborhood. "One day it dawned on me that the children I was reaching didn't need it," she said. "I wanted my students to have a real real-world experience and a more diverse group of fellow dance students." The students performed on campus Nov. 21.

Greens gain ground
The Green Party's focus on local elections helped them recover somewhat from the damage the party took after Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential election run on the party ticket, reported the San Francisco Chronicle in its Nov. 15 edition. "The Greens didn't cause the result of the (presidential) election and they could position themselves as an alternative for people who think the Democratic Party is headed too far to the right," said Corey Cook, assistant professor of political science.

Kinsey still controversial
The release of a film on pioneer sex researcher Alfred Kinsey has focused the spotlight again on the climate for doing sex research in the United States, reports the New York Times in a Nov. 9 article that appeared in other papers around the world. "I have been in this field for 30 years, and the level of fear and intimidation is higher now than I can ever remember," said Gilbert Herdt, director of human sexuality studies. "With the recent election there's concern that there will be even more intrusion of ideology into science."

California: mad for municipal initiatives
An Oct. 31 Associated Press report on the popularity of municipal initiatives in California featured comments by Richard DeLeon, professor of political science. "They allow citizens to legislate directly when unresponsive and unrepresentative elected officials, like boulders in the stream, block progress and thwart popular will," he said. The story ran in several California newspapers.

A bewitching performance
Pianists Victoria Neve, professor of music, and Inara Morgenstern, lecturer of music, were featured in an Oct. 29 Chronicle of Higher Education article on academics who celebrate Halloween by wearing costumes on the job. For the past 20 years Morgenstern and Neve have performed a Halloween concert of "spooky" classical works such as "Funeral March of a Marionette" while dressed up in witches' costumes. "One time we decided to dress like angels," said Neve, "but we didn't think it worked very well. We thought: We're teachers. We're witches. So we went right back to the witches the next year."

For more SFSU people and programs in the news, see the SFSU in the News page on SF State News.

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Last modified December 6, 2004, by the Office of Public Affairs & Publications