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It wasn’t on the blueprint that night in 1997, when the Hornet football team’s then-running back coach and strength and conditioning coordinator Bob Visger (’71, Social Science) began his volunteer work on renovating the “tin box” that was Sac State’s weight room. A former general contractor, Visger built the walls using mostly standard materials—wood, insulation, sheet rock. And something a bit unusual: his prized Sac State 1995 American West Conference Division 1-AA championship ring. The Night of the Lost Ring happened late on a Saturday, after the team flew in from a game. “It was 11:30 p.m., and I went into the weight room to do some framing,” Visger says. “I took the ring off because it was getting in the way when I was swinging the hammer. I didn’t want to put it in my toolbox because it would get scratched up, so I placed it on a framing board.”
Visger worked a few more hours and went home. Foam insulation was sprayed into the walls the next day. Later, Visger went looking for the ring, and realized where he’d left it. And he knew he couldn’t get to his treasured ring without causing major damage to the walls.
Visger resigned himself to the fact it was gone for good. Unbeknownst to him, the football coaches got wind of the situation and chipped in for a new ring.
Visger’s loss seemed to be the football team’s win. “The team’s record improved greatly after the new room was built. It was 1-10 in the Big Sky Conference the year before the weight room was improved, and the three years after it was built, the team’s records, respectively, were 5-6, 6-5, and 7-4.” And in 1999, Visger was named Big Sky Conference Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year. The new Eli and Edythe Broad Fieldhouse now houses a brand new weight room, and the old weight room that Vigner worked on has been torn down. The Athletics Department hoped to unearth Vigner’s lost artifact in the process but finding a ring in the rubble proved to be a challenge akin to a needle in a haystack.
And that’s okay with Vigner. “I saw the first workout in that room, and I got to see the last,” he says. “I feel proud to have made a difference in Hornet football and was glad to give back to Sac State, the University that gave me my start.” —Kim Nava
Description: Sacramento may not be New York, Paris or Milan, but some style-conscious Sac State students are weaving their way into the fashion world by learning how to design and market clothing, shoes and accessories. Students in the Apparel Marketing and Design concentration learn how to select fabrics and sew but also learn how to incorporate “balance, proportion, emphasis, rhythm and harmony” to their designs. “Those five things are very important,” says Professor Dong Shen. “A dress must have all of those, or it will be either too plain or too busy or not look focused.” While fashion merchandising is a bit of a niche education path, Shen says graduates can look forward to a variety of career options including fashion consultant, purchasing agent, apparel designer, boutique owner and fashion retail manager. Enrollment in the program has almost doubled in the past four years.
Class work: Students complete research papers, design projects, and problem-solving projects, but the best part may be field trips to stores like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Coldwater Creek to talk with buyers and managers.
Assignments: Students explore the properties of different types of fibers, fabrics and textiles and use the knowledge to design their own clothing line. They also study the impact of designers like Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. At the end of each semester, students stage a fashion show featuring their designs.
Students say: “The faculty is really knowledgeable, and they were good about covering the spectrum of the industry,” says senior JoJo Rouas.
If choosing the most influential fiction writers of the year is difficult, imagine trying to pick the most influential writers of the last century.
That’s the task Sac State English professor Dave Madden has as he and two colleagues edit the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Fiction.
“It’s a monster project,” says Madden. “It will include essays from about 200 contributors on more than 200 American fiction writers.”
Madden says he spent a good portion of the fall semester trying to solicit potential contributors to write essays. “I started with colleagues then began looking around the country for people who have conducted research on certain writers. I felt like a detective.”
Finding contributors may have been tough, but narrowing the list of authors may have been even more difficult. “There are writers making important contributions to literature who may not be as heralded as others, but that doesn’t mean their work is unimportant,” Madden says.
He says the team looked for representative figures and made sure not to include “just the usual suspects.”
“They couldn’t be all men, and they couldn’t be all white,” he says. “The tightrope we walked was to not get too arcane and not to get too obvious. I’m glad I did not have to pick and choose by myself.”
The encyclopedia will include essays on everything from the classics to detective fiction, a favorite of Madden’s. “This is not some snooty, highbrow sort of book. It includes authors like Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) because they are very accomplished writers,” he says.
The manuscript is due to the publisher by next spring and is expected to be published by 2010. It will be a companion book to the Encyclopedia of 20th Century British/Irish Fiction and the Encyclopedia of 20th Century World Fiction. —Michael A. Ward
Prompted by incidents at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, Sac State is stepping up its campus crisis communication procedure with a new notification system. The automated Emergency Notification System delivers urgent announcements to large groups of people, such as students and faculty, via text messages, voice mail and e-mail. With more than 30,000 part-time residents, the Sac State campus can seem like a small city. And protecting the safety of the residents is a full-time concern.
“The safety of our students, faculty, staff and campus visitors is paramount, and the implementation of the new emergency alert system is a significant step toward that end,” says University President Alexander Gonzalez. Similar programs are used by the United States Senate, Harvard University and the University of Arizona.
The alerts will only be used in the event of an emergency that threatens the campus community’s health and safety, such as a bomb threat, a shooting, a hazardous materials spill, flood or fire.
The initial message may warn whether recipients should seek shelter or take other precautions. Follow-up messages can be sent, with more specific details of the event and safety procedures, or an “all-clear” message when the incident has been resolved.
The campus community will also be alerted to visit the University’s homepage for more information.
The system got its first test with a simulated “shots fired” incident in April. During the test, a select group of faculty, staff and students on campus received a text message stating that an “ENS Police Emergency” test was being conducted, followed by an all-clear message. So far, nearly 2,300 students, faculty and staff have signed up for the service.
Singers sensational—If Sac State’s Jazz Singers were a Cole Porter song, it would be “You’re the Top.” The group has been named co-winners of the 2008 Best Collegiate Vocal Jazz Group award by DownBeat magazine, the premier publication for jazz music. This is the fifth DownBeat award for the University’s vocal jazz program in the last four years, putting it among the top tier programs in the country.
Sign of the times—A new digital communication sign going in at Sac State near Highway 50 will inform the public about campus events, boost the University’s visibility and raise revenue while also providing a means to alert motorists about highway conditions and law-enforcement emergencies. The structure will prominently feature the University’s name and logo. Near the top of the sign will be a state-of-the-art 48-foot wide message board for commercial advertisements and University messages. The message board uses the latest in LED technology to eliminate glare and “light leakage” sometimes associated with older types of electronic signs.
Making finals fun—This spring’s finals week at the University Library offered a chance to get the mind off the books—an island-themed Stress-Free Zone for students studying for finals. From the tiki hut in the Library’s main lobby students were directed downstairs where they found comfortable chairs, tropical decorations, and hula hoops, games, toys and puzzles to take their minds off their studies. Librarian and yoga instructor Alicia Patrice offered free relaxation sessions. The Library also relaxed its “no food rule” by offering freshly popped popcorn and letting students bring food and drink to the lower level, guilt-free.
Recreation center underway— Now that the occupants of the Eli and Edythe Broad Fieldhouse have settled in and the old fieldhouse has been demolished, work can begin on the new Recreation and Wellness Center. The 150,845-square-foot facility will feature a fitness center, indoor track, recreational courts, rock-climbing walls and a student health center. The project, which was kick-started with a $10 million gift from Alex and Faye Spanos, is scheduled to open in fall 2010.
