Newsmakers is published in First Monday by the Public Affairs and Publications offices at SFSU. 415/338-1665. E-mail: pubcom@sfsu.edu

Send submissions to: pubnews@sfsu.edu. Please include a contact person and extension.
Note: To reach an extension from off-campus, dial 415/33-and the extension.

December 04, 2000

SFSU cinema: independent and proud	Electoral College controversy
Healing of a habitat	Soured clout
Removal equals restoration

SFSU cinema: independent and proud

A special Fall 2000 collector's issue of Entertainment Weekly on "How to Break into Showbiz" listed SF State's Cinema department among the top 12 graduate film schools in the United States. Alongside such film schools as UCLA, University of Southern California, New York University and Columbia University, SF State Cinema has carved its niche, wrote reporters Tom Edgar and Karin Kelly: "Low-budget, independent filmmaking is the specialty at this low-budget, independent film school." Also mentioned were examples of required projects and assignments. "Students at SF State are learning flatbed editing, optical printing and even how to hand-process their own film."

Christopher Waldrep, SFSU Pasker Chair in History and a constitutional historian, appeared on the Nov. 24 edition of KRON's morning news program Daybreak. Speaking about the constitutional issues surrounding the presidential vote recount in Florida, he said: "There's always been a debate over the Electoral College; this just highlights it. It gets ordinary people involved in the discussion, which is a good thing." Waldrep went on to say, "The Electoral College keeps some sovereignty in the states ...If you want to do away with the Electoral College, you are shifting power to the nation and away from the states, and that implies that Congress can say that you have to have a certain kind of voting machine."

The Oct. 19 edition of the Point Reyes Light featured an article about the recovery of the Inverness Ridge forest ecosystem five years after being damaged by a major fire. The story reported the results of studies by seven researchers, including SFSU Environmental Studies Program Director Barbara Holzman, who inspected the area in 1996 and 1997. Holzman said that the area has been re-established significantly, citing her discovery of a rising number of Bishop pine seedlings and several different plant species, especially huckleberry.

A story in the Oct. 29 issue of the San Francisco Examiner suggests that a critical shift in the economy, social conditions, politics and population have led to a decline in "clout" for the African-American community in San Francisco. In the article, SFSU Political Science Professor Robert Smith addressed the absence of a powerful local African-American leader. "I would think where black political leadership in San Francisco and elsewhere is concerned, it's more important to get an effective leader of the NAACP than a black person as mayor," said Smith. "You really need civic structures that can bring pressure on school boards and city halls."

A report on the restoration of coho salmon in a Marin County creek in the Oct. 15 edition of the Marin Independent Journal drew upon a study by Michael McGowan, senior research scientist at the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies. Among the first studies to look at the role dams play in diminishing habitats, he found that the 1997 removal of Giacomini Dam in Lagunitas Creek may help raise the population of the endangered fish. Noting that a shrimp called neomysis mercedis - which is a crucial food source for the coho - is appearing in more areas of the creek, McGowan said: "If all the neomysis are in one pool, that's food for only one or two [young salmon], but if there is neomysis widespread in all pools it opens that much more chance for survival. That's encouraging."

Return to November First Monday

Return to Newsmakers Archive

To send events: call EXT 1665 or send e-mail to pubnews@sfsu.edu