David Clementson, Communication Studies, had an article, "Truth bias and partisan bias in political deception detection," published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology. It is online at journals.sagepub.com. The paper reveals that people do not necessarily have as much "partisan bias" as we may think, but rather have a "truth bias." Refreshing news, perhaps, in these hyper-partisan times. The paper reports an experiment I ran with partisan voters (half Democrats, half Republicans) who watched a political interview in which half were told the politician was a D and half were told the politician was an R. In addition to the party affiliation manipulation, there was a deception manipulation in which half of the voters saw the politician honestly all the questions but half were exposed to a version where the politician deceptively evaded a question.

Mikkel Herholdt Jensen, Physics and Astronomy, had a paper, "Cell volume change through water efflux impacts cell stiffness and stem cell fate," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, which is the culmination of an ongoing collaboration between Sacramento State, Harvard, Rice, MIT, Columbia and other universities, shows how regulation of cell stiffness regulates stem-cell differentiation, regardless of the physical mechanism by which the stiffness is altered.

Cynthia Linville, English, has received a grant from Poets & Writers to perform with musician Victor Krummenacher in September. In June, she gave a presentation, "Art from Art: Poem and Story Starters," at the Annual Conference on Creative Writing, at University of the Pacific. Over the last year, her poetry has appeared in five publications, including Poetry of the Pacific and Song of the San Joaquin.

An audio book edition of English Department Professor Emeritus Mary Mackey's novel The Village of Bones now is available from Audible, iTunes, and Amazon.com at amazon.com/Village-Bones.

Shawna Malvini Redden, Communication Studies, received a top four paper award from the Ethnography Division of the National Communication Association for her paper “Communicating Identity and Emotion to ‘Meet Resistance’: An Ethnographic Exploration of Problematic Airport Security Practices,” which was presented at the 103rd annual convention in Dallas on Nov. 16.

Shawna Malvini Redden, Communication Studies, had an article, “A different type of dirty work: Hidden taint, intersectionality, and emotion management in bureaucratic organizations” published in the journal Communication Monographs. The article explains connections between identity markers such as gender, race, and class, and emotion management in two bureaucratic organizations—municipal courtrooms and airport security checkpoints. The article is available tandfonline.com.

Phillip Reese, Journalism, has won two awards in the 2017 Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Norcal Excellence in Journalism contest. His story, “In the killing zone: Why Sacramento has so many teen murders,” co-written with Ryan Lillis and Cynthia Hubert of The Sacramento Bee, was named Best Explanatory Journalism by the Northern California chapter of SPJ. His online work showing how Sacramento neighborhoods voted; where parking tickets are issued; and how California is employing fewer police officers was named Best Data Visualization. It is the third consecutive year that Reese has won the Best Data Visualization award in this annual contest. All stories appeared in The Sacramento Bee. Full link to announcement: spjnorcal.org.

Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work, and co-author Debra Welkley, lecturer in Sociology, had a paper, “Evidence-Based Self-Assessment: A Student-Centered Learning Tool,” accepted for presentation by the California Sociological Association, which will be here in Sacramento, Nov. 17-18. The paper discusses the utility of this a student engagement and responsibility tool for use in the classroom.

Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work, completed the training required as a Quality Matters Master Reviewer in July 2017. He now serves as a Team Chair on peer review teams that review courses for QM Certification. A QM-Certified Course is an online or blended course that meets QM Standards in an Official Course Review.

Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work, had an article, “Comparative Analysis of Publisher-Driven Immersive Learning Technologies,” accepted for publication in the National Social Science Proceedings, National Technology and Social Science Conference, 2017. He also had an article accepted, along with co-author Debra Welkley, lecturer in Sociology, “Evidence-Based Self-Assessment: A Student-Centered Learning Tool,” for publication in the same proceedings.