San Francisco State University CampusMemo
CampusMemo is published weekly during semesters and monthly in the summer for faculty and staff by the Public Affairs and Publications offices at SFSU. 415/338-1665.

Deadline for submissions is Tuesday at 5 p.m. of the week preceding publication. Send submissions to: pubnews@sfsu.edu. Please include a contact name and extension.


December 16, 2002

Volume 50, No. 17


Announcements

Bulletin clarification, part two In memoriam: Stan Rice Asilomar shuttle available
 
Faculty grants available for international ed projects
 



This Week

Defensive driver courses Holiday reception
 


Coming Up

Islamic literature and love


Features

December STAR: Andrea Olson

 
A play to remember Water supplies to drop Foreign students surprised by visa rejection
Vaudeville on Holloway The Bay Area's untapped trove of medical workers Terrorism as rhetoric
Lotto luck
 

About CampusMemo



Announcements

Bulletin clarification, part two

CampusMemo was correct last week in stating that the SFSU Bulletin had incorrect information for the spring 2003 academic calendar; however, it then repeated the Bulletin's mistake. The accurate dates are: academic advising will be held Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003, and faculty department meetings will be held Friday, Jan. 24.

Please note that the 2003 Class Schedule has the accurate dates.


In memoriam: Stan Rice

Former Creative Writing Department Chair Stan Rice, a poet and painter who also attended San Francisco State, died Monday, Dec. 9, of brain cancer in New Orleans. He was 60.

Rice, the husband of best-selling novelist and fellow alum Anne Rice, joined the Creative Writing faculty in 1966. He was assistant director of the Poetry Center during the 1970s and department chair from 1980 to 1988, after which he retired from teaching and moved to New Orleans.

"Stan Rice was always an enormous influence and steady hand with his most talented students and a devoted and effective chair of the department. And we grieve," said Daniel Langton, professor of English and creative writing.

The author of seven poetry collections including the 1992 collection Singing Yet, Rice garnered numerous honors throughout his career, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Academy of American Poets, the Joseph Henry Jackson Award and a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Knopf Publishing, Rice's longtime publisher, is working on a posthumous collection of his poetry.

Though Rice was never interested in selling his artwork, he did open his own art gallery in New Orleans and published "Paintings," a book of his work, in 1997.

A Dallas native, Rice met his future wife in high school. They enrolled at San Francisco State shortly after they married. He earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1964.

Rice is survived by his wife, son Christopher, mother Margaret, brother Larry and two sisters, Nancy Rice Diamond and Cynthia Rice Rogers.

A funeral was held Friday in New Orleans. Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to: Amnesty International, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10001.

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Asilomar shuttle available

Shuttle transportation to the Asilomar conference will be available at a cost of $25 per person. Fares cover either one-way or round trip transportation. Reservations can be made by calling ext. 8-1264. Space is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The shuttle will leave at noon Monday, Jan. 20, 2003, and at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 21. Pick up will be in the SFSU parking lot on State Drive, directly in front of Lot 19. Normal parking restrictions apply for shuttle riders.

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Faculty grants available for international ed projects

The Office of International Programs (OIP) invites proposals for grants to foster international education at SFSU. Eligible projects are those that have the potential to enhance international education through research and scholarship, creative activities, student and faculty exchanges, foreign language and area studies, curricular innovation, or promotion of international awareness and understanding. Applications are due Friday, Feb. 28, 2003.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty who are not part of the Faculty Early Retirement Program are encouraged to apply. Grants range between $1,000 and $5,000. Applications may be picked up at OIP, ADM 450, or may be downloaded from: www.sfsu.edu/~oip/for.htm.

For details, contact OIP at ext. 8-1293.

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This Week


Defensive driver courses

There is still room in upcoming defensive-driver training courses to be held from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The classes will be held in the Plant Operations Training Room in the Corporation Yard and are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. For a reservation, call Environmental Health and Occupational Safety at ext. 8-1449.

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Holiday reception

A faculty and staff holiday reception hosted by President and Mrs. Robert A. Corrigan will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday in the Seven Hills Conference Center.

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Coming Up

Islamic literature and love

Nasrollah Pourjavady, National Endowment for the Humanities visiting professor of humanities at Colgate University and professor of philosophy at Tehran University, will present "On Love, Human and Divine: Islamic Literature and Ambiguities of Love" at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, 2003, in HUM 392. The lecture is sponsored by the Philosophy Department.

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Features

A player to remember

History professor and baseball historian Jules Tygiel appeared in the Oct. 28 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine, discussing his new book, Extra Bases. The book features 13 essays on Jackie Robinson, race and baseball history. "The Jackie Robinson story is to Americans what the Passover story is to Jews: It must be told to every generation so that we never forget it," Tygiel said.

His previous book on Robinson, the 1983 work Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, was ranked the 50th best sports book of all time in the Dec. 16 issue of Sports Illustrated.

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Water supplies to drop

A new study predicts that water supplies in the western United States will be severely depleted in the next 25 - 50 years, KRON-TV, Channel 4, reported Nov. 21. California farmers may suffer the worst, according to the study. "There's going to be a lot of pressure on agriculture to use less water," said geosciences Professor David Dempsey, an expert on global warming. "If we put blinders over our eyes and continue to behave as if water were an infinite resource, for example, there will be some serious consequences to pay down the road."

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Foreign students surprised by visa rejection

Despite increased security measures, the number of foreign students at San Francisco State increased this year, according to an article in the Nov. 25 San Francisco Chronicle. However, Yenbo Wu, director of international programs, thinks even more students would have come if new regulations on foreign students hadn't been implemented. "Those people who were denied never expected they would be denied," Wu told the Chronicle. "They are from all over the place, from China, Japan, India and even in one case from Europe."

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Vaudeville on Holloway

The Nov. 29 issue of the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California featured a story on the recent SFSU production, "I Want to Be a Boarder: An Evening of Yiddish Vaudeville." The variety show, sponsored by the Theatre Arts Department and Jewish Studies Program, recalled the golden age of Yiddish-American comedy in the first half of the 20th century, when the culture of Eastern European Jews who spoke Yiddish thrived in American theaters. A diverse ensemble cast of SFSU students performed the free show, directed by theatre arts Professor Joel Schechter. "This is a chance to introduce audiences to some great American comedy that I think still is very relevant and funny," he said.

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The Bay Area's untapped trove of medical workers

A front page story in the San Jose Mercury News on Sunday, Dec. 1, featured the Welcome Back Program offered by Community Health Works, the joint SFSU/City College program. Welcome Back offers free counseling and seminars to help foreign-trained medical professionals use their skills and experiences in the United States. "It is so frustrating because on the one hand, you have a huge need for doctors and dentists and psychologists who understand the patients from other countries," said Jose Ramon Fernandez-Pena, the founder and director of Welcome Back. "They are here, but they can't practice." The article reported that about 2,900 foreign-trained health professionals -- about 600 of those in the Bay Area -- have enrolled in the program so far.

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Terrorism as rhetoric

In the Dec. 6 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Syllabus column featured "The Rhetoric of Terrorism," a course offered in the Speech and Communication Studies Department. The class, taught by Professor Joseph Tuman, studies terrorism as a form of rhetorical communication and aims to redefine terrorism to help people better understand it. While much of the course focuses on the recent terrorist acts, students have looked beyond Sept. 11. For example, in discussing the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century, they reflected on the symbolism of the white hoods and burning crosses. For a group project on the recent hostage takeover by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater, they examined why that particular play -- which dealt with Russian nationalism, according to Tuman -- was chosen for the attack.

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Lotto luck

Belmont couple Angelo and Maria Gallina found the end of the rainbow Wednesday, Dec. 11, when they both won the California Lottery on the same day. They won $126,000 in the Fantasy Five game and $17 million in SuperLotto Plus. They beat the odds after buying 20 tickets a day since the California Lottery began in 1985. So how lucky were they? "If they were to buy a ticket every second of the day 24 hours a day, they'd expect to win again in another 2 million years," said David Meredith, chair of the Mathematics Department, on KPIX-TV, Channel 5.

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About CampusMemo

CampusMemo provides news, information and on-campus events listings to the faculty and staff of SFSU.

CampusMemo is published weekly during the school year by the Office of Public Affairs. This publication is available in alternative formats upon request. Contact Public Affairs at the number listed below. Submissions are welcome. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Tuesday the week preceding publication. Items may be sent via e-mail: pubnews@sfsu.edu, faxed to ext. 8-1498, or sent through campus mail to: CampusMemo, Office of Public Affairs, Lakeview Center 110. Please direct any questions to the e-mail address above, or call ext. 8-1665.

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To send events: call ext. 8-1665 or send e-mail to pubnews@sfsu.edu


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Last modified December 13, 2002, by the Office of Public Affairs