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  • Professional Activities, January-March 2020

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    Dian Baker, Nursing, was selected by the American Nurses Association as a featured nurse for the Year of the Nurse & Midwife inaugural podcast series See You Now. These inspiring storytelling podcasts highlight innovative and human-centered solutions driven by nurses addressing today's most challenging healthcare problems. The series will bring greater visibility to nurses as innovators, leaders and catalysts in improving human health. Nurse, educator, and historian Dian Baker, PhD, APRN-BC, PNP, PHN, has been championing a creative solution to reduce cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia across the country: encouraging patients to brush their teeth. In this episode, Baker and Shawna Butler discuss the significance of nurses taking the lead in developing partners for scaling innovative solutions across an enterprise and why dental care, as well as mental healthcare, should be a larger priority in every healthcare setting. https://nursing.jnj.com/see-you-now-podcast

    Dian Baker, Nursing, and her research colleagues have been awarded the APIC-AJIC Award for Publication Excellence for their work “The epidemiology of non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia in the United States”. Their work on non-ventilator pneumonia prevention and their national incidence study is critically important to patient safety and essential for quality hospital care. The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is the leading professional association for infection preventionists (IPs) with more than 15,000 members. The award for publication excellence recognizes an author who has published an article in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) which was widely read and cited during the previous year.

    Professor Ronald M. Coleman, Biological Sciences, reached two important milestones in his research. As reported by ResearchGate.net, his publications have been cited in more than 1,000 other publications, and in particular, his co-authored paper “Aquatic Productivity and the Evolution of Diadromous Fish Migration” has been cited 500 times.

    Dr. Zoi Dokou, Civil Engineering, presented her collaborative research on “Improving Seasonal forecasting in the Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia for food and water security” at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting held on December 2019. This work is part of an NSF (National Science Foundation) funded PIRE (Partnerships for International Research and Education) project, a multi-year collaborative endeavor between USA, European and Ethiopian Institutions that seeks to understand how the relationships between scientists, farmers and water managers influence the production, dissemination, and outcome of new scientific knowledge. Drawing on strong collaborations with partners in Ethiopia, improved forecast products on water availability and expected crop yields are introduced in four rain-fed and two irrigated agricultural communities in the Blue Nile Basin, while observing the social interactions that surround this transnational scientific intervention.

    Timothy P. Fong, Ethnic Studies, is the co-editor (with Dina C. Maramba) of a new book, Transformative Practices for Minority Student Success: Accomplishments of Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (Stylus Publishers, 2020). This book, the first to focus wholly on Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Institutions (AANAPISIs) and their students, offers a corrective to misconceptions about these populations and documents student services and leadership programs, innovative pedagogies, models of community engagement, and collaborations across academic and student affairs that have transformed student outcomes. This book also serves as an important resource for higher education institutions who are admitting greater numbers of Asian American and Pacific Islanders and other underrepresented students. The contributors stress the importance of disaggregating this population that is composed of over 40 ethnic groups that vary in immigrant histories, languages, religion, educational attainment levels, and socioeconomic status. Chapters in this book describe effective practices that enable instructors to validate the array of students’ specific backgrounds and circumstances within the contexts of developing such skills as writing, leadership and cross-cultural communication for their class cohorts as a whole. More information about the books is at https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781642670172/Transformative-Practices-for-Minority-Student-Success

    Dan Janos, assistant professor of Film, had his animated film Flora My Dear featured at Fear No Film, part of the monthlong Utah Arts Festival in June. Flora My Dear also screened at Artist’s Television Access in February as part of the X-peri-Mental Animation filmshow, and was invited to the Ashland Film Festival in April. Unfortunately, the latter was canceled due to public health concerns.

    Mikkel Herholdt Jensen and Eliza J. Morris, Physics and Astronomy, published their work on the stochastic nature of protein assembly in PLoS Computational Biology. The work was a collaboration with researchers at UC Davis and the Molecular Engineering Lab at University of Basel & ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and was co-authored with Sac State Biochemistry major Hai Tran. The article, “Stochastic Ordering of Complexoform Protein Assembly by Genetic Circuits,” is open access and can be viewed at https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007997.

    Dr. Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson, Geography, was selected as a University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) TRELIS Fellow for 2020. The TRELIS project, Training and Retaining Leaders in STEM-Geospatial Sciences, is a unique model for professional development for women educators in the geospatial sciences. The program builds leadership capacity and skills to address career development, communication, conflict resolution, and work-life integration. With the name, we instill the concept of a human capital trellis or scaffold of support, and embrace the reality of nonlinear career trajectories that move sideways, take leaps, and do not follow a single upward ladder. The 3-day workshop will be held May 2020 followed by the UCGIS Symposium.

    Jamie Kneitel, Biological Sciences, presented the talk "The effects of fire retardants in Mediterranean aquatic ecosystems" at the Annual California Aquatic Bioassessment Workgroup (CABW) and California Chapter Society for Freshwater Science Meeting at UC Davis. Part of this project, which focused on fire-retardant effects on mosquitos, was also recently accepted for publication in Ecological Entomology.This research was a collaboration with Israeli researchers conducted during Dr. Kneitel's sabbatical.

    Dr. Serge Lee, Social Work, was a guest speaker at the First International Juvenile Law Related Educational Seminar at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing from October 12-13, 2019. His topic was "Understanding Child Delinquency and Gangs in California." On November 16, 2019, Dr. Lee provided a one day workshop to the Changsha School Districts in Hunan Province, China. The workshop on "Multilingual and Multicultural Education and School Social Services" was organized by the US Embassy in Beijing, the US Consulate in Wuhan, and the USA Educational Test Service to the Changsha School Districts’ English teachers. On November 25-28, 2019, Dr. Lee was invited by Lanzhou University in Gansu Province, China to give two days lectures to the faculty and graduate students at the School of Philosophy and Sociology. His lectures were on the "Globalization of Social Work Education and Services", the "Needs for Child Welfare Programs and Services," and "Health and Wellbeing of the Former Southeast Asian Refugees in the United States." On December 3 and 6, 2019, Dr. Lee was invited by Hunan Normal University in Hunan Province, China, to provide two lectures to their graduate students and their junior faculty on "Preparing and Applying for graduate studies in the United States" and the America’s format and style on "Journal Articles and Thesis and Dissertation Writing."

    Dr. Marie Lorraine Mallare-Jimenez, J.D., LL.M., S.J.D., Ethnic Studies, presented at a Symposium entitled "Asian American Studies: The Field and It's Future, held on November 16, 2019 at UC Davis' California Hall on the topic of Ethnic Media. Sponsored by UC Davis' Asian American Studies and The Bulosan Filipino Studies Center.

    Dr. Kazue Masuyama, World Languages and Literatures, was invited to conduct a one-day professional development workshop on language assessment and innovative curriculum design for the Illinois Association of Teachers of Japanese (IATJ) on October 19, 2019, Elk Grove, Illinois. She was also invited to conduct a half-day professional development on AP Japanese Languages and Culture Exam for the Association of Northern California Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT) on November 10, 2019 at University of California, Berkeley. She also presented “Transformative Teaching: 7 inspiring activities empower learner and teacher” (With Mieko Avello) at the 53rd Annual American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Conference in Washington DC, on Nov. 23, 2019. In addition, as the Chief Reader for Japanese AP Exam, Dr. Kazue Masuyama participated in AP Japanese Exam development on October 4-6 at Princeton, NJ.

    Dr. Jessica Moreno, LMFT, Assistant Professor, Counselor Education Program, was awarded a grant by the Sacramento Family Unity Education and Legal Network (FUEL) to provide free mental health services for undocumented individuals through the Center for Counseling and Diagnostic Services (CCDS). Housed in the College of Education, the CCDS provides the broader Sacramento region affordable counseling and educational testing.

    Linda Nowell, College of Education/Credential Branch, presented at the Critical Questions in Education that was sponsored by the Academy of Educational Studies, February 17-19 in Seattle.  The title of the presentation was “Rethinking Current Educational Policy and Its Impact on Teaching and Learning: How John Dewey’s My Pedagogic Creed Enables Us to Design a Policy Worthy of the Name ‘Education.’ ”

    George I. Paganelis, curator, Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection, University Library, presented a paper entitled "The Greek Agricultural Experience in California's Central Valley" at the 26th Biennial Symposium of the Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA) in Sacramento from Nov. 7-10, hosted by the campus Hellenic Studies Program. In addition, he participated in a special session panel on the Greek Digital Journal Archive, a consortial project to digitize and make freely available historic journals and newspapers in Modern Greek Studies.

    Elizabeth Parvis, MS in Biological Sciences, and Dr. Ronald M. Coleman, Biological Sciences, published a paper, "Sexual Dimorphism and Size-Related Changes in Body Shape in Tule Perch (Family: Embiotocidae), a Native California Live-Bearing Fish." Copeia 2020:12-18.

    Dr. Bita Rivas, NCC, MAC, ACS, Counselor Education, served as lead for the department’s arduous national reaccreditation process with the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, commonly known as CACREP. This specialized accrediting body assures graduate counseling programs throughout the United States meet standards within the counseling profession. Benefits of graduating from a CACREP-accredited counseling program include access to more employment opportunities, streamlined consistency with the state counseling licensing application process, and an advantage when applying to doctoral degree programs.

    Dr. Bita Rivas, LPC, LMFT, LAC, NCC, ACS, MAC from the College of Education, Graduate and Professional Studies: Counselor Education Program, has been appointed to the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, CACREP Board of Directors in the position of Counselor Educator. CACREP is the accrediting body for all counseling and related programs nationally. CACREP promoted the professional competence of counseling and related practitioners by developing preparations standards, encouraging excellence in program development, and accrediting counselor preparation programs. CACREP accredits master’s and doctoral degree programs in counseling and its specialties that are offered by colleges and universities in the United States and throughout the work. CACREP is recognize by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). The is the first appointment from this region.

    Mark Stoner, Profesor Emeritus, Communication Studies, has published the revised and extended edition of his book, Making Sense of Messages: A Critical Apprenticeship in Rhetorical Criticism, 2nd ed. with Routledge, 2020. Stoner's book offers student critics new theoretical models for analyzing messages categorized as the rhetoric of ignorance and for analysis of the complex and fragmented messages that are ubiquitous in social media. Interested faculty can get link for examine copies on Stoner's homepage: www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm.

    Dr. Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work, has been invited to be the lead facilitator of an QM Improving Your Online Course (IYOC) Online offered through the CSU Chancellor's Office, Academic Technology Services to faculty throughout the CSU. The IYOC begins February 3, 2020 through February 21, 2020. Santos is certified to also facilitate the Applying the QM Rubric Online course, which he will facilitate through the CSU Chancellor's Office, Academic Technology Services in March 2020. These trainings support faculty as they design quality online or hybrid courses to support student success.

    Dr. Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work, online course, SWRK126: Theories of Criminal Behavior, was awarded Quality Matters (QM) Certification. The course was first assessed through an Internal Peer Review and then went through a Formal QM Course Review process. The Formal QM Course Review certified the course as meeting all 42 higher education standards that are a part of the Quality Matters Higher Educational Rubric (6th Edition). The standards in the rubric are geared to ensuring course design has alignment of course and module objectives with learning activities and assessments that support student success when completing an online course.

    Dr. Santos Torres Jr., Division of Social Work and Dr. Debra Welkley, Department of Sociology will present “The Power of Vulnerability: Strongest in our Broken Places,” at the Northern California Foco of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Regional Conference, which will be held at Sacramento State, March 14, 2020.

    Lindy Valdez, EdD, Daryl Parker, PhD and Stephen Lenz, MA, presented a poster titled “The Impact of Increased Physical Activity Opportunities On Overall Academic Achievement: An Analysis Of The Top Elementary Schools In The United States” at the 18th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Education held from January 4 to January 7, 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Dr. Francis Yuen, DSW, Social Work, has published a new book “Conceptual and Practical Research and Statistics for Social Workers” with Cognella Publishing. This book helps students tap into their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to develop key competencies in research and statistics.

    Dr. Jian-Zhong “Joe” Zhou, Library Research, was invited to the 15th Annual Comparative Education Conference held at East China Normal University campus and was the co-presenter for “What is in their GE Curriculum: Three California Universities v. Three Chinese Universities,” Shanghai, China, Nov. 16-18, 2019.

    Dr. Jian-Zhong “Joe” Zhou, Library Research, was invited to the International Conference on Minority Education at National Minzu (Minority) University campus and was the co-presenter on “A Comparative Study on College Admission Policies for Minority Students and Interventions to Reduce the Graduation Gap,” Beijing, China, Nov. 23-25, 2019.

    Dr. Joe Zhou, Emily Merrifield, and Sarah Davis, all of the University Library, published an article in December 2019 titled: “Faculty Information-Seeking Behaviors: The 2015 Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey at California State University, Sacramento.” Journal of Library and Information Science v45, no.2: 4-39.

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