A broad push for literacy is the focus of the Martin Luther King birthday celebration in Sonoma County over a four-day weekend, from Jan. 18-21.
Youth from schools all across Sonoma County are preparing for this event and will join with Sonoma State University's AmeriCorps members and community members in poetry readings, bookshelf building and book donations.
This year's effort features a colorful bookmobile that will be used to distribute the books which benefit children in Sonoma State University's Project SCHOLARS and COOL SCHOOL, and the literacy program of the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County.
SSU students who serve as mentors in the COOL SCHOOL academic after-school program are busily preparing eager young poets for a poetry reading at Barnes and Noble Bookstore on Friday night, Jan.18.
At this well-attended community event, children in grades 1-6 will read and rap the poems they have created in honor of Dr. King's life and work. Children will read from 6-8 p.m. and teens from the Youth Volunteer Corps will read from 8-9 p.m.
A community service event from 9 a.m - noon at Kawana School on Saturday, Jan. 19 will draw SSU students, teachers and community youth to sort and refurbish books from a county-wide book drive.
Luther Burbank Center is the site of the Sunday, Jan. 20 Martin Luther King Birthday Celebration, which features music, dance, art, and youth orators. AmeriCorps members assist with the younger children, bringing them on stage to sing "Happy Birthday" at the show's finale.
This year the tutors and mentors of the AmeriCorps Project SCHOLARS and COOL SCHOOL will join with youth and volunteers at Community Baptist Church in Santa Rosa for the "Day On, Not a Day Off" public information day held on the official day of the holiday, Monday, Jan. 21.
This year's service project responds to the literacy needs of the county. More than 4000 used books will be refurbished, and 90 desktop bookshelves made to foster reading programs in Santa Rosa schools. SSU AmeriCorps members will be leading the bookshelf building and book sorting, as well as preparing food for speakers, presenters, and community members who attend the event.
Since early December members of the Volunteer Center's Youth Service Advisory Council have been preparing for MLK Literacy Action Day. Barbara Fisher, a local literacy expert, facilitated training for the teens about Sonoma County's literacy issues. The 45-member group, representing 22 schools, then began a simultaneous literacy outreach project and book drive.
The teens handed out literacy brochures and collected books at their schools and by going door-to-door.
"This is sure to be a remarkable experience for everyone involved," said Jeff Zainer, youth coordinator for the Youth Volunteer Corps, which coordinated the service project with the Sonoma Regional Service Collaborative. "The best way for young people to learn about Dr. King's incomparable work is to get involved themselves."
Pamela Nirdlinger, AmeriCorps Promise Fellow at CIHS commended thededication of the students and teens. "This project affirms the philosophy of Dr. King, who said, "Everyone can be great, because everyone canserve."
For further information on SSU AmeriCorps program, call Pam Nirdlinger at (707) 664-2044 .
NOTE TO EDITORS: Sonoma County's African-American poet Marjorie Mann will be rehearsing poems with 5th and 6th graders at the AmeriCorps COOL SCHOOL at R.L. Stevens, 2345 Giffen Ave., Santa Rosa on Jan. 16.
Local reading teachers with students that have varied literacy skills are invited to attend an informational meeting on a new Reading Certificate program at Sonoma State University on Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 5 p.m. on campus in Stevenson 3082.
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has recently granted full approval for the program at SSU and applications are now being accepted for the spring semester.
The program prepares teachers to work in specialized reading programs in schools. It is also designed for teachers at all levels who want to increase their expertise in reading and language arts theory, research, assessment and instruction.
This three semester (spring, summer, fall) program provides coursework and in-depth experiences working with K-12 learners of all types, including struggling readers and writers, English language learners and proficient readers and writers at all grade levels. Community college teachers are also urged to attend.
Reading Certificate courses can be applied to a master's degree in Reading and Language or be used as the first half of a reading specialist credential at Sonoma State.
For further information, contact the Department of Reading, Language and Culture, Sonoma State University at (707) 664-3238.
Fire belly toads, pill bugs, trout and hamsters share their universe with curious third-graders in Laura Dax Honda's classroom at Manor School.
The Marin County elementary school teacher creates a world filled with nature-study projects so her students can learn "to step gently on the earth" and know why.
Honda, a graduate of Sonoma State University's Environmental Studies and Planning Department, who also earned her teaching credential here, was this year named a Distinguished Science Teacher by the California State Teachers Association for her innovative student-centered activities in the classroom. She was the only teacher in the state representing grades three through five to receive the honor.
Nominated by a Manor School parent impressed with her activities, Honda was cited for some of the following programs she conducts for her students:
* Special interest workshops involving students and teachers restoring a watershed
* A school-wide science fair including instruction and experience using the scientific method
* Involving classes in national and international environmental projects, including the Schoolyard Feederwatch Program and purchase of two acres of rainforest in Brazil through the Center for Ecosystem Survival, creek restoration at the school site, removal of non-native plants at Lake Lagunitas, and local water testing.
Honda first looked into Sonoma State because her parents, with four other children, couldn't help her with college tuition and so she had to find a college she could afford.
"I was pleasantly surprised to find the major in environmental studies," says the third-grade-teacher who has long had a passion for environmental science. "It was a great fit."
She worked days and attended Indian Valley College at night in Novato for nine years to further her education. Then she transferred to SSU and ended up working for the famous Marin naturalist Elizabeth Terwilliger as an intern through the ENSP program.
Laura lives in Fairfax, 6/10's of a fossil-fuel-free mile from work, with her husband Alan, 16-year-old son Harlan and 12-year-old daughter Melanie.
"It is not too surprising to learn that a number of Bin Laden's most devout followers may have had dreams that in one way or another seemed to forecast the events of 9/11, " says Sonoma State University psychology professor David Van Nuys.
There is a vast body of work in the field of parapsychology that supports the phenomenon of "precognitive dreams," that is dreams that somehow foreshadow future events, says Van Nuys, who is also chair of the university's psychology department. "These dreams are never exact replicas of the future but, when they occur, have enough similarities to be compelling."
Parapsychological research has shown, in fact, that the most likely place for "psi," or ESP, to occur is, in fact, during the dream state or other altered states of consciousness, he reports.
"There are many cases of mothers with sons away at war who woke up from a dream in the middle of the night knowing their son had just been killed, only to have this later confirmed. And most families have members that can recount one or two such events," he says.
Van Nuys says that sensitivity to psi is heightened by inner-oriented, contemplative practices such as prayer, meditation, etc.
"Whatever else they may be, the followers of Bin Laden are very religious and devout and engage in such inner-world oriented practices. One is more likely to notice precognitive dreams if one takes their dream life seriously, rather than dismissing it," he says.
"In this country, we tend to have a dismissive attitude toward the significance of dreaming. This evidently is not the case among Bin Laden's followers. While they might take such precognitive dreams as evidence that God is on their side, parapsychologists would instead understand these dreams as natural phenomena," the professor notes.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
David Van Nuys, Ph. D.
Chair, Psychology Department
Sonoma State University
Office phone: (707) 664-2847
Home office: (707) 585-7363
E-mail: vannuysd@sonoma.edu
http://www.sonoma.edu/psychology/vannuys/
Five Sonoma State University students have received the Governor's Fellowship Award of $20,000 each to support their education as future teachers in low-performing California schools.
The recipients are, Mark Bollin of Santa Rosa, Corey Stroud of Sonoma , Diane Lewis and Jennifer Schindler of Napa, and John Dean of Cotati. They are all students in the environmental education program of the Department of Environmental Studies and Planning at the university.
This program provides merit-based awards to students preparing to teach in low-performing schools in California for four years. A low-performing school is a school that is in the bottom half of the Academic Performance Index (API) ranking.
These fellowships help pay education and living expenses while students are enrolled in continuous full-time post baccalaureate study.
For further information, contact Rocky Rohwedder, professor of Environmental Studies, (707) 664-2249.
Students at Sonoma State University are getting a chance in greater numbers than ever to live in a foreign country, not as a tourist, but as a scholar. That is because they are eradicating the mistaken impression that study-abroad programs are only for the very rich or the extraordinarily bright.
Sonoma State has seen a dramatic increase of 66% in students studying abroad this year as compared to last year, from 42 to 65 students. "We have been the highest-sending CSU campus per capita since approximately '94 or '95," says Jan Beaulyn, Associate Director for International Services on campus.
The majority of students in the 2001-2002 academic year are studying through the CSU International Program in Spain and the United Kingdom. Other popular destinations include Mexico, Sweden, and Italy.
Students who participate in the international program at SSU study their major from an entirely new perspective in a country of their choice, says Beaulyn. Additionally, they study their own culture from the point of view of their host country.
The courses they take are often courses they would never encounter in the U.S. In most cases, students return after their year abroad, fluent in a second language and, Beaulyn says, participating in a program like this sets students apart from the crowd on a resume or in a graduate school application.
"Students come back to the U.S. with a more developed sense of themselves and their interactions in the world," she says. In fact, the International Program was created to help students develop intercultural communication skills and international understanding.
In order to cultivate interest in the program, organizers at Sonoma State, inform freshman of the program so that students can begin planning their year abroad early.
"Once students see the academic requirements and the actual costs they are always heartened and encouraged to join the competition," says Beaulyn.
In addition, organizers hold recruitment, application and interview workshops, which take some of the fear and intimidation out of the application process and assure that each student gets plenty of one-on-one attention.
The inevitable comparisons that will be made this December 7 between Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center can be dismissed with two words: bad history. So says Dr. Randall Dodgen, chair of the history department at Sonoma State University,
"The attack on Pearl Harbor took place in a context of a crisis of international relations between two nations, both of whom were aware of the real possibility of war," he says.
The targets were military, not civilian, the motive was to cripple the Pacific fleet, not inspire terror, and the outrage of the United States was in part a cover for the embarassment of our military weakness and failure to anticipate the attack, the professor says.
" Where these two events may overlap is in the nature of the U.S. response. Racism, paranoia and rage against the enemy will likely undermine judgement and reason," he points out.
"If any parallels are drawn, perhaps the caution provided by the hysterical and unjust incarceration of Japanese-Americans will guide us to moderate our treatment of Arab-Americans. From the Japanese point of view, comparisons of the attacks of Sept. 11 with Pearl Harbor are not only unjust, but reprise the racism and obscure the historical forces that led Japan and the U.S. to the brink of war."
Contact information: Randall Dodgen, Professor of history and an expert on China. (707) 664-2462 (office). randall.dodgen@sonoma.edu
"Globalization, Democracy and Terrorism" is the topic of a lecture by internationally-known author and lecturer Michael Parenti on Saturday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. in Warren Auditorium on the Rohnert Park campus.
Parenti is one of the nation's leading progressive political analysts. He is the author of fifteen books including; "Democracy for the Few" (2001), "To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia"(2001) and "History as Mystery" (1999). His articles have appeared in CovertAction Quarterly; Monthly Review; Prevailing Winds; The Humanist; New Political Science; Nature, Society and Thought; The Nation; Z Magazine; Dollars and Sense and numerous other publications. Additionally, he appears on radio and television talk shows to discuss current issues and ideas from his published works.
The event is a benefit for Truth in Media and a fundraiser for Project Censored, and the North Bay Progressive. Cost is $10 donation; $5 students. For more information, call (707) 664-2588.
A discussion by student teachers and youngsters will be featured on KRCB's "A Novel Idea" program at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 11 at 91.1 FM. SSU children's literature professor Sandra Feldman will coordinate discussion of Tolkien's trilogy that includes "The Fellowship of the Ring," "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King."
Discussion will also include "The Hobbit," a biography of Tolkien, and a critical look from SSU students' point of view and from a child's point of view. The novels are part of the curriculum of English 342 Children's Literature which is a requirement for future teachers. Students in that class will view the film "The Fellowship of the Ring" after reading Tolkien's works.
This Tuesday, Dec. 4 at noon in room 3001 of the Jean and Charles Schulz Information Center will be the final session in the 40th Anniversary Lecture Series "Who We Are: Conversations on 40 Years at Sonoma State." This final discussion will look towards the future as audience members discuss thoughts, concerns and hopes about the future of higher education.
Bernie Goldstein, Provost, will facilitate the final session by asking the audience to share thoughts on some of the following topics:
-- how technology is/has changed the curriculum
-- dealing with continuing budget cuts, but maintaining the highest standards
-- how professional schools such as Heald College and the University of Phoenix have affected more traditional types of higher education
-- distance learning and its future
-- the need for external funding (and corporatization) of higher education in this country
-- how a large body of retiring faculty might shift the curriculum, or its way of presentation
The discussion will be video-taped for future use.
This event is free although there is a $2.50 parking permit to park on campus. For further information call (707) 664-4240
He was writing software in 6th grade and stretching his management skills for local businesses soon after. His M.B.A. was earned at the prestigious Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and his entrepreneurial spirit led to creation of a successful leisure-lodging web site and a healthcare software company.
Now David Hehman of Sebastopol, has joined Sonoma State University School of Business and Economics as the new director of the Wine Business Program.
Created through a partnership between the university and the wine industry, Sonoma State's Wine Business Program is the first university program of any kind to focus exclusively on the business dynamic within the wine industry. Professional development courses and cutting-edge research projects by the faculty are now helping the wine industry tackle problems caused by the recent economic downturn and the oversupply of grapes on the market.
Hehman is a member of the North Bay Angels investor group and is also a partner in Spartina Ventures, LLC, an early-stage venture capital fund. He and his wife moved to Sonoma County from Connecticut to get closer to nature. This position matches his passion for teaching and working with local businesses, he says.
Hehman was previously Vice President Business Development of Vacationspot.com, a leading independent leisure lodging web site, which sold to Expedia, Inc. He joined VacationSpot.com from GetawayZone where he was co-founder and CEO. GetawayZone merged with VacationSpot in December 1998. Hehman also co-founded and served as CEO of HealthDeskCorporation, a healthcare software company, from 1991-1995.
"David's entrepreneurial background, teaching interests, and his desire to become involved in the wine industry made him a perfect fit.," says Dr. Ahmad Hosseini, dean of the School of Business and Economics. "We are excited to have him on our team to grow our Wine Business Program and foster ties to the business community."
Hehman replaces Armand Gilinsky who is heading up the new Entrepreneurship Center at Sonoma State University. Hehman, who will also serve as a Development Officer for the School of Business, says he and Gilinsky are working closely together to build both programs into valuable community resources.
