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CampusMemo

Volume 51, Number 21   February 16, 2004           

CampusMemo Home    Announcements    Events    News

Announcements
Help reward
student research

A reminder that applications for the campus portion of the CSU's annual student research competition are due Monday, Feb. 23. Faculty are asked to encourage students to submit outstanding research projects and papers or creative activities. SFSU winners receive travel funds to the CSU competition.

Student registration forms and application guidelines may be accessed on the Graduate Studies Web site: www.sfsu.edu/~gradstdy. For details, contact Darlene Yee at dyee@sfsu.edu or Lisa Hoskins at lhoskins@sfsu.edu.


Events
Today
Ellis Island's
gender police

Erica Rand, associate professor in women's and gender studies/art at Bates College, will present "Turning Frank into Mary: Gender Policing at Ellis Island" from 2:10 to 3 p.m. today in room 113 of the Humanities building.

The event is part of the Women Studies Spring Lecture series. For details, contact Jillian Sandell at sandell@sfsu.edu or ext. 8-1516.

Thursday
SFSU's human
relations surveys

Jamie Newton, professor of psychology, will present "The Human Relations Surveys at SFSU: What Every Faculty Member Needs to Know" at 12:30 p.m. Thursday in room 361 of the HSS building.

The event kicks off the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences' brown bag faculty lecture series. For a complete list of spring events, see bss.sfsu.edu/bss/brownbag.doc.

Friday
Labor Archives
comes of age

The Labor Archives and Research Center will celebrate its 18th anniversary with an event featuring Glenna Matthews speaking about her book "Silicon Valley Women and the California Dream" and a performance by folk musician Faith Petric. The event will take place at 7 p.m. Friday at the ILWU Local 34, 4 Berry St. (at Second Street), San Francisco. Admission is free. A reception will also be held from 6 to 7 p.m.

For details, call (415) 564-1010.

Coming Up
Financial planning

The Office of University Development and the Human Resources Professional Development Program present a seminar on financial and charitable planning from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, in room 352 of the Administration building. Lunch will be served.

To reserve a seat, contact Jeanne Lee at ext. 5-0325 or jrlee@sfsu.edu.

French migrations
to the U.S.

Annick Foucrier, a French historian specializing in the history of French migration to the United States, and to California in particular, will present a French-language lecture "Faire des recherches en histoire des migrations: Méthodes et approches" from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, in room 580 of the Humanities building. A reception follows the lecture.

The event is sponsored by the French Program of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. For details, contact Elizabeth Wright at ext. 8-7419.

Defensive driving
Environmental Health and Occupational Safety will hold defensive driver training classes from 8:30 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26.

To register, call ext. 8-1449 or send an e-mail to adenbill@sfsu.edu. Participants must provide their name, department and driver's license number.

Seminar on
health disparitie
s
Daniel Dohan, adjunct assistant professor at the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, will speak on "Cancer Clinical Trials and Health Disparities" from noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, in room 104 of the HSS building.

The event is the second in a seminar series on current issues in health disparities research and is funded by the National Institutes of Health Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) Program. For details, contact the Public Research Institute at ext. 8-2978 or email rimi2@sfsu.edu.

Welcome Jean Ritchie
The campus community is invited to an open house for folk singer Jean Ritchie from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, in Jack Adams Hall of the Cesar Chavez Student Center. Admission is free. Ritchie will perform the following day (see below).

For details, contact Associated Students Performing Arts at ext. 8-2444.

Jean Ritchie takes
the stage

Traditional American folk singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 4, in Jack Adams Hall of the Cesar Chavez Student Center. Admission is $5 for students with ID and seniors and $12 for the general public.

The event is sponsored by Associated Students Performing Arts. For tickets, call 1-800-594-8499 or go to: http://aspa-sfsu.org.

A moving memoir
Anca Vlasopolos, professor of English literature at Wayne State University, will read from her memoir No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement at 4 p.m. Friday, March 5, in room 587 of the Humanities building.

Vlasopolos recounts the experiences of her Greek-Jewish family in pre-World War II Romania and their multiple relocations from Eastern Europe to the United States in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

The event is sponsored by the Modern Greek Studies Program. For details, contact Modern Greek Studies at ext. 8-1892 or modgreek@sfsu.edu.


SF State News home

News
Saturday is a day for poetry!
As of press time tickets were still available for the Poetry Center's 50th anniversary celebration and benefit at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, in Knuth Hall of the Creative Arts building. For tickets, go to www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/tickets.html or call toll-free 1-866-468-3399 (service charge applies).


AVP for research, sponsored programs
Five finalists have been selected to interview for the position of associate vice president for research and sponsored programs and have been invited to campus to meet with SFSU representatives. All members of the campus community are invited to attend the presentations and receptions for each of the candidates.
  • Marianne Rinaldo Woods, assistant vice president for research and director of the Office of Research at University of Texas, Arlington, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, in room 460 of the Administration building.
  • A. S. Rao, senior associate vice provost for research and graduate studies at Drexel University and vice dean for research administration, biomedical graduate studies and information technology at Drexel University College of Medicine, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 23, in the University Club.
  • Gerald Sonnenfeld, associate dean for basic sciences and graduate studies and professor and chair of microbiology, biochemistry and immunology at Morehouse School of Medicine, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 4, in the University Club.
  • Kenneth Paap, associate dean and director of the Arts and Sciences Research Center at New Mexico State University, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 8, in the University Club.
  • Bruce Macher, interim associate vice president of research and sponsored programs at San Francisco State University, from 4 to 5:30 Thursday, March 11, in room 460 of the Administration building.

Prop 55 reminder
SFSU would receive nearly $4 million for computers, desks and tables to outfit the soon-to-be remodeled J. Paul Leonard Library if voters approve the statewide education bond measure on the March 2 ballot. The entire bond -- $12.3 billion -- would go toward new construction and building improvements at elementary and secondary schools along with CSU, UC and community college campuses.

For more, see: www.sfsu.edu/~news/prop55.htm.


Child and Adolescent Development position open
The University seeks to fill a tenure track faculty position in child and adolescent development to begin August 2004. The position would start at the Assistant Professor level.

For details, including a full position description, see: cad.sfsu.edu/jobboard.htm.


Academic Senate Action
At its Feb. 10 meeting the Academic Senate...
  • Heard a report from Vice President Leroy Morishita on the state budget situation.
  • Heard a report from Acting Dean of Faculty Affairs Marilyn Verhey on the new online faculty manual.
  • Heard a report from Acting Dean of Graduate Studies Ann Hallum on new online graduate procedures.
  • Approved a revision to the undergraduate major and minor in recreation and leisure studies.
  • Approved a revision to the bachelor's degree in child and adolescent development.
  • Approved a resolution on the recent Summit on Race and Culture.
  • Approved a reapportionment plan for the Senate 2004-05.

Read the full Academic Senate meeting report: www.sfsu.edu/~senate/.

 
STAR of the Month

February STAR of the Month: Alex Keller
Photo of Alex KellerAlex Keller, network analyst/system administrator in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, believes he has a "dream job."

"I get to come in to work and play with a lot of expensive, fast toys, and do all kinds of cool things with them," he said.

Of course, Keller's definition of "play" and "toys" might be quite different from most people. What he actually does is make sure that the college's network and servers -- computers with a large storage capacity that hold the college's Web pages -- are up and running. Not only does he enjoy it, he's also good at it.

"Alex's incredible depth of knowledge in the area of computing, systems and networking extend the capabilities of the Computing Office in BSS dramatically," said Andrew Roderick, informational technology director for the college. "His work makes possible a range of services that are both essential and extend the productivity of a great many others."

Maintaining the network is not a low-stress job. The college has fast servers and a rather open network, making it a frequent target of hackers. It's a job that requires persistence, flexibility and the skill to continually find new solutions.

Keller, who has been a BSS staff member for five years, seems to thrive on the challenge even though it requires the tedious task of poring over daily security reports to see if any of the previous day's hacker attacks have exposed a chink in the network's protections.

"It's always been exciting for me," said Keller. "I like to fix things. I like to see how things work."

In addition to his work with the servers, Keller consults on other college technology issues and serves as the last line of defense when computer hard drives crash.

"Alex has a unique idealism about solving problems in the sense that there are very few problems which he does not feel a responsibility to solve and there are very few problems he does not solve," Roderick said.

For example, one faculty member brought a hard drive to Keller that was in very bad shape, and she had been told that there was little hope of recovering the data on it. After some tinkering, Keller realized that part of the problem was that the drive was overheating. He went out and bought a six pack of cold Cokes and used the cans to cool the drive. He was able to keep the drive cool enough to go in and recover more than 20,000 files.

"It's a wonderful thing to call someone back and say I was able to recover your thesis, manuscript or grant proposal," he said.

Keller began working in the college as a student assistant while earning a degree in political science from SFSU. He hadn't considered computers as a career focus, although they'd long been a hobby of his. He soon realized that he enjoyed working with computers so much that he applied for a job in tech support at the college. He went on to manage the college's computer labs, and then moved to his current position as network administrator.

A San Francisco resident, Keller also enjoys backpacking in the Sierras and has recently rediscovered an interest in making hip-hop music.

Nominate a staff STAR: www.sfsu.edu/~news/star/starform.htm

 

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Last modified February 16, 2004, by the Office of Public Affairs