Four recent prize winners are among the speakers in the fall "What Physicists Do" public lecture series this fall. Lectures will be at 4 p.m. on Mondays from Sept. 8 through Dec. 1 in Darwin 108.
Chris G. Van de Walle of the Palo Alto Research Center was honored with the American Physical Society's 2002 David Adler Lectureship Award for his work on the behavior of hydrogen in semiconductors. He will describe this work on Sept. 15.
Daniel E. Reichart will come from the University of North Carolina Oct. 13 to tell about his discovery of the connection between gamma ray bursters and supernovae. Reichart is being honored with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's 2003 Robert J. Trumpler Award for doctoral research considered unusually important to astronomy.
Alessandra Lanzara of the University of California at Berkeley is this year's winner of the William L. McMillan Award for outstanding contributions in condensed matter physics. The young Italian physicist was honored for her discovery about high-temperature superconductors. She will speak Oct. 20.
Paul Doherty of the Exploratorium is the recipient of the National Science Teachers Association's 2003 Faraday Award for excellence in science communication. He will describe an exhibit of flying magnets Oct. 27.
The series will open Sept. 8 with David G. Stork, chief scientist at Ricoh Innovations as well as consulting associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University, who will speak on the controversy over whether Renaissance artists employed optical devices such as concave mirrors to project images onto their canvases, which they then traced or painted over.
It will end Dec. 1 with SSU physics graduate Stephanie Snedden describing her work on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a survey of more than 100 million celestial objects being made by a large team working at a dedicated observatory in New Mexico.
Other speakers will discuss such topics as extra spacetime dimensions, technology for Mars exploration, SSU's new W.M. Keck microanalysis lab, computer simulations, ultrafast observations of atoms in materials, and the history of neutrinos and the discoveries about them which have produced half a dozen Nobel prizes.
SSU professor Joe Tenn, who is directing the series, expresses his gratitude to the donors who have made it possible to bring such distinguished speakers to SSU for the privately-funded lectures.
For a free poster describing all thirteen lectures, see http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/, send e-mail to gayle.walker@sonoma.edu, or call (707) 664-2119.
For more information:
http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/
An 87-year old Santa Rosa woman recently donated $5,000 to provide five $1,000 scholarships for Sonoma State University students struggling with the financial strain of the recent 30% tuition fee hike.
Others can do the same to help, says scholarship coordinator Laurie Ogg. Ogg has seen funds for the university scholarship drop from $246,000 to $157,000 due to the economic downturn. She has stacks of applications from 3.0 students who are deserving of scholarships, but there is not enough money to award them.
Donations from $1,000 on up can be put in a special program so students can still tap the funds this year, says Ogg. Because so many students work part-time, a scholarship can afford students more time and energy to dedicate to their studies while attending SSU, she says.
Scholarships also provide the time commitment necessary for a student to become more involved in the numerous community service programs or the study abroad program that the University has to offer, she says.
The Sonoma State University Scholarship Program is a direct method of providing monetary assistance to students as well as recognizing academic excellence .
The university's merit based scholarship program provides awards to over 200 students each year and has scholarships for every major at SSU. Donors may establish selection criteria such as place of residence, community service, career interests, financial need, etc.
A memorial scholarship is also an excellent way to honor the memory of a family member. Awards can be renewed annually or an endowment fund may be established to provide funding in perpetuity.
If you are interested in finding out more about the value of a scholarship or making a contribution to an existing scholarship award, Contact Lance Plaza, Director of Development for Academic Programs and Planned Giving in the Sonoma State University Development Office at (707) 664-4151.
David McCuan, professor of political science at Sonoma State University, is available for comment on the various dimensions of the California recall election. He can also speak to the general impact of ballot measures or "direct democracy" on the state of California and across the nation.
McCuan has provided commentary and analysis to CNN, The Wall StreetJournal, as well as regional and national news outlets on the politics and practices of ballot measure campaigns.
The challenges posed by the increasing use of ballot measures by
politicians, citizens and interest groups across the country have led many commentators to argue that a "fourth branch of government" has risen through the use of the tools of direct democracy, says McCuan.
McCuan can provide insight into the nature of direct democracy - the role of political professionals such as political consultants, signature gatherers, and pollsters in the process as well as prospects for reform.
McCuan says "direct democracy has become more visible in the state with the adoption of measures such as Prop. 13, term limits, Propositions 187 and 209, and confusion has increased about how this institution shapes public policy."
McCuan teaches in the fields of state and local politics, campaigns and elections, and political behavior with a specific emphasis on direct democracy. He is also graduate coordinator of the Master's in Public Administration program at the University.
His first book is due out this Fall titled, "The New Politics of Direct
Democracy." He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, Washington, D.C. and has used his expertise as an elections observer in Africa.
Main Office: (707) 664-2179
Direct Line: (707) 664-3309
E-mail: david.mccuan@sonoma.edu
Sonoma State University has placed fourth in the U.S. News and World Reports annual listing of the top ten public universities in the West in the Universities-Masters category.
The list represents 573 institutions that provide a full range of undergraduate and masters programs in the North, South, Midwest and West. Last year, SSU ranked seventh in the same list.
First, second and third spots went to Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo (1), Western Washington University (2) and California State University, Chico (3).
This year also, Sonoma State ranked 30th among all western universities both public and private - consisting of 126 schools. It tied in that spot with Northwest Nazarene University of Idaho with an overall score of 45 and moved into the first tier of colleges. Last year's score was 45, placing SSU in the second tier.
U.S. News and World Reports uses student-faculty ratio, graduation and freshman retention rates and SAT/ACT scores as elements in its ranking criteria.
This year, SSU showed an average freshman retention rate of 79%; average graduation rate of 46%; 45% of classes under 20 students; a student-faculty ratio of 21/1; and 68% of the faculty as full time. SAT/ACT scores range from 940-1140.
The complete U.S. News and Report "America's Best Colleges" can be found at www.usnews.com.
Sonoma State University's newest student residence hall complex, Beaujolais Village, opens Saturday to 655 students with suites of four single bedrooms, each with its own bath.
Like colleges and universities across the nation that are building new residential facilities, SSU is finding it pays to stay competitive by attracting and retaining students with amenities in their living spaces that they would normally find at home -- and that means more privacy.
Recent trends show 84% of students coming into colleges had their own bedrooms at home and 40% had their own bathrooms, says Dan Howard, managing director at Fisher Friedman Associates, the architects for the fifth student housing complex on campus. "This is a far cry from the way people used to live in residence halls," he says.
Students begin moving into all of the residential areas on campus beginning at 10 a.m. The grounds will be busy with moving vans, trucks, shopping carts, dollies and boxes of personal possessions making their way into the suites and apartments. Some 1,100 Freshmen will have the help of teary-eyed parents as they move into Cabernet, Zinfandel, Verdot and part of Sauvignon
Village.
Beaujolais Village will house transfer students and returning residents in the 1,150 sq. ft. apartments. Besides the four single bedrooms and baths, the units include a garbage disposal, microwave/convention oven, electric cook top, Corian countertops, dishwasher and laminated wood flooring in the kitchen and dining room.
There is carpeting throughout the living and bedrooms; radiant floor heating, Internet and telephone jacks in each bedroom, cable television connections in each bedroom and living room. They are fully furnished including window coverings. Cost for the academic year is $7,350.
Times have changed and so have parents expectations, says Howard, who notes it is the parents who are driving the design for privacy. "Parents don't want anything to get in the way of their child's education," he says.
The $28 million complex was also built to help alleviate the need for housing for students in Sonoma County, and particularly in Rohnert Park. The complex is located on the southeast side of campus near E. Cotati Avenue. Construction of a second student residential complex for another 650 students will begin next spring.
SSU currently houses 2,461 students and 85% of them are freshmen.
Media representatives are welcome to attend Move-In Day on Saturday, or arrange a private tour earlier in the week.
For further information, contact Jean Wasp, Media Relations, (707) 664-2057.
More information on SSU's on-campus residential program can be found at http://www.sonoma.edu/housing/
Sonoma State University is taking the first step in the development of a Social Entrepreneurship initiative that will focus on job creation and small business enterprise in troubled areas across the globe.
Called "Practical Entrepreneurs With a Noble Mission," the 12-week course starts in mid-September and will focus on the shared experiences of scholars, representatives from social foundations, and the U.S. and foreign diplomatic corps in Bosnia, the Middle East and northern Israel.
Thanks to an initial donation of funds by Sonoma County resident Claude Ganz, a former Clinton special envoy to Bosnia who oversaw the development of a private sector economy there, the course opens up the diverse world of social entrepreneurship whose "double bottomline" philosophy values the social as well as financial impact of a business enterprise.
Ganz is spearheading development with the University administration of his vision for an Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship which will consist of an array of University-level courses that offers students the extraordinary opportunity to merge humanitarian impulses with business savvy.
"Most businesses try to maximize profits and create wealth while acting in socially responsible ways," says Ganz. "Social Entrepreneurship's objective is to provide social contributions while making a profit to sustain its efforts."
It's key objective, he says, is to encourage small business growth and job creation in areas of the world where political unrest and social conflict are the root causes of chronic high unemployment and economic instability.
Ganz says gainfully employed individuals are less likely to participate in civil unrest or acts of corruption, and that economic development is generally a precondition of governmental stability.
Ganz says his experience in Bosnia clearly demonstrated the need for the development of small and medium enterprises as the most expeditious and least capital intensive method to create employment opportunities through mentoring and quick access to financing.
Ganz says international humanitarian aid programs create dependency within the troubled population even though they are badly needed. Sustainable grass roots economic development should work hand in hand with these programs, he says.
Part of Ganz's vision is an ongoing series of seminars at SSU in combination with telecommunications hookup with students at universities in Sarajevo and Israel as well as student and faculty exchange programs with universities in those regions.
The Initiative will educate students to conduct business activities in troubled areas to foster social and economic progress, assist in creating jobs in economically distressed areas and create a methodology and procedures on how to apply the social entrepreneurship experience to other regions with similar needs such as Mexico, Brazil, China, Vietnam and Indonesia and Iraq.
The September course is particularly suited to those who like to mentor businesses or who have been in government agencies, says director Rob Colman. "It's learning how to create jobs to sustain peace."
Besides the particular scenarios posed by the problems in the Middle East and Bosnia, the course will also look at the nature of Social Entrepreneurship, identifying attractive opportunities, practical screening criteria, funding strategies, startup and management issues and building alliances.
The class will be taught by SSU business professors Rob Colman and Robert Girling on Wednesdays, beginning Sept. 17 from 7-9 p.m. on campus. Cost is $120. Registration is through the School of Extended Education, (707) 664-4170, or on the web at www.sonoma.edu/exed.
For further information, contact Professor Rob Colman,(707) 664-2393.
