Professional Announcements

5/17/2004

Stephanie Dyer, Hutchins School of Liberal Studies, was recently awarded a $55,000 Housing and Urban Development Urban Scholars Fellowship grant for a research project called "Markets in the Meadows: How Suburban Shopping Centers Changed the American City." Dyer will address matters of buyer habits, business practices, and financial strategies within inner-city communities in her research. The project will apply to the Strategic Policy Goals set by HUD with the goals of improving economic development in distressed neighborhoods and promoting the participation of faith-based organizations in community improvement.This research will be a continuation of Dyer's doctoral dissertation in which she investigated the migration of large-scale, downtown retailers to suburban municipalities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between 1920 and 1980. In her latest project, Dyer hopes to examine the effects the suburban retail migration had on urban African-American communities and how the community has responded and recovered from these losses. She is planning to publish a book based on her research in Philadelphia. Dyer graduated in 2000 with a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

William Guynn, Art/Film Studies, has been invited by The French Institute of Research on the Cinema and the Audiovisual to be among the members of a four-year multidisciplinary study of television involving economists, sociologists, philosophers in aesthetics, and semioticians. The research team is international with participants from Brazil, the United States, France, and Italy, all renowned scholars in their fields. The project is sponsored by the Scientific Council of the University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle in partnership with the CNRS (French national foundation for scientific research) and the French National Institute of the Audiovisual. The mission of the project is to produce several studies on the evolution of television as "popular art" since 1995. In seeking Guynn's participation in this major new research project, Director Guillaume Soulès cited Guynn's work and expertise in the history and evolution of documentary film, as well as his work on the semiology and aesthetics of cinema and the audiovisual. Guynn has been invited to speak to the international group on his research, in Paris in the month of January 2005.

Jorge Porras, Modern Languages and Literatures, participated in the Intersegmental Major Preparation Articulated Curriculum Statewide Conference in Los Angeles (April 30-May 1, 2004). This meeting brought together interdisciplinary faculty to discuss articulation strategies to help transfer students from CCC into UC and CSU. Porras represented SSU in the foreign language group.

SSU graduate student Josephine Schallehn (MA, English, 2004) earned second place in the Graduate Behavioral and Social Sciences Division at the 18th Annual CSU Student Research Competition, held April 30 and May 1 at CSU Northridge. Schallehn received the award for her Master's thesis, "Narratives of Individuals with Post-Lingual, Post-Vocational Hearing Loss: A Discourse Analysis." She was mentored by Greta Vollmer, English. The annual competition featured 125 undergraduate and graduate students from throughout the CSU competing in 9 different categories. Also representing SSU was Natosi Johanna (MA, English, 2004), who competed in the Creative Arts and Design division. She was mentored by Noelle Oxenhandler, English. For more information about the CSU Student Research Competition, contact Elaine Sundberg, Academic Programs, 4-2215.

Learning Moments, a psychology class taught each semester at SSU for over 20 years. is an opportunity for staff and faculty to present "significant experiences and events" that have shaped their lives. Students have reported that these presentations allow them to appreciate and connect with faculty and staff on a different level. The following individuals made presentations during the Spring 2004 semester: Paula Lane - Education, Anita Catlin - Nursing, Doug Jordan - Business, Richard Rodriguez - Counseling and Psychological Services, Heather Smith - Pschology, David McCuan - Political Science, Carolyn Epple - Anthropology, Melissa Vandeveer - Nursing, Craig Winston - Criminal Justice.