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Scarcity fear
BBC News cited research by Associate Professor of Psychology Ryan Howell on the impulse to shop in a March 19 article. "If you see something that seems to be running in short supply, you're going to get it," Howell said, adding that discounts and clearance prices trigger that evolutionary adaptation. While larger transactions are less susceptible because "it takes a lot of time and effort to think about a house and to pull the trigger," fear of scarcity can cause people to spend more than planned/budgeted. "There are a lot physiological variables that go into a bidding war."
Poking the eye
Rhoda and Richard Goldman Chair of Jewish Studies Eran Kaplan commented for a March 19 J Weekly story on the recent Israeli election. "The main campaign on the left and center was to change the government and get rid of Netanyahu. They ran on very little else," Kaplan said. Netanyahu's eleventh-hour shift to the right was "poking the eye of the Obama administration. We don't know what kind of pressures he will feel from [the] international community, but I know [the rightward shift] paid dividends for his party."
Investing in success
On March 20, radio station KGO reported on $3 million in added state funding for the Metro College Success Program, which helps underrepresented students navigate their first two years of college. The report included comments by Co-Director and Chair of Health Education Mary Beth Love. "We have a lot of capable young people who, with a small additional investment, can successfully graduate from our public education system and go on to do great things for society," Love said.
Speaking to interests
A March 30 Diverse Issues in Higher Education article about the recent Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) academic renewal conferences in San Diego included coverage of the keynote speech given by Associate Professor of Latina/o Studies and Educational Leadership Jeff Duncan-Andrade. "I can take a crisp $100 bill and stick it inside any Shakespearian text and leave that text anywhere in the classroom, it'll be safe. But if I leave Tupac [Shakur]'s book of poetry, 'The Rose That Grew from Concrete,' that book will be immediately snatched up," Duncan-Andrade said. "I told U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan that it's not that young people are not interested in literacy, it's that young people are not interested in the literacy they are given."
Point of pride
President Les Wong's announcement that San Francisco State University funds cannot be used to support employee and student travel to Indiana was reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report and the San Francisco Examiner and others on March 30 and 31. "I am dismayed, if not extremely disappointed, in the recent legislation signed into law in Indiana. It is unconscionable for this great University to spend its resources in a state that attempts to legislate discrimination of any kind," Wong said. "Our commitment to social justice on this campus remains a point of pride for me."
For more media coverage of faculty, staff, students, alumni and programs,
see SF State in the News.
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