Welcome to Faculty Accomplishments page.

• Associate Professor Katherine Kao Cushing as special Assistant to the President and Director of Sustainability.
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• Sociology Professor Scott Myers-Lipton, Works to Provide a Template for Organizing Disaster Recovery in New Orleans
  
  http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/o_libbpmt2_0601bbb01_y8jobsyo.html
  
  
• College Meritorious Service Award 2009 – Dr. Mark Van Selst, Psychology
  
  
• College Outstanding Alumnus Award 2009– Mr. A. Robert Pisano, Public Admin
  
  
• The Austen D. Warburton Award 2009 – Dr. William Reckmeyer, Anthropology
  
  
• Irvin M. Roth, a World War II veteran who commanded Company I, 114th Infantry Regiment, 44th Division, will present "A Rifle Company at War: 1944-1945" at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 28, in BBC 204. Roth's unit spent 200 days in combat in Europe. After World War II, he was hired as one of the first professors at the then-new Foothill College, where he was chair of the Social Science and Business Division for many years. He also served in the Army Reserve, teaching in the Sixth Army Intelligence School with many SJSU professors including Charles Burdick and George Moore. The history department and Burdick Military History Project are presenting the event. Irvin Roth is also the father of history department Chair Jonathan Roth, who can provide more information on the gathering. Contact him at 408-924-5505 or jonathan.roth@sjsu.edu.
  
  
• Professor Jan English-Lueck's book, "Cultures@SiliconValley," has received the Diane Forsythe Prize from the American Anthropological Association. "This book is the result of an anthropological expedition into the everyday lives of people living in and connected to Silicon Valley," says the Silicon Valley Cultures Project Web site. Read more: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/anthropology/svcp/SVCPbook.html
  
  
• Professor William Reckmeyerhas helped SJSU, the Salzburg Global Seminar and the University of Salzburg establish a San Jose-Salzburg Global Dialogue to foster student discussions about critical global issues and provide a framework for an international teaching-learning relationship for the three institutions.Read more http://www.salzburgseminar.org.
  
  
• Professor Bob Gliner's latest documentary film, "Democracy Left Behind," will air at 11 p.m. Tuesday, October 9, on public television station KTEH. Professor Elena Klaw assisted with the production, which examines the impact of the federal No Child Left Behind program on preparing students to be active participants in a democratic society. The piece features Bay Area school districts and SJSU faculty and students. More information: http://www.docmakeronline.com/democracy-left-behind.html
  
  
• Alan Leventhal, a staff member in the dean's office at the College of Social Sciences, served for a second year on the American Indian Heritage Celebration Planning Committee for the American Indian Heritage Celebration, which was held recently at National Hispanic University in San Jose. Leventhal also led the Veterans/Active Armed Forces Honoring Committee, which recognized 25 Native Americans who have served in World War II, Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and Iraq. More information: aleventh@email.sjsu.edu.
  
  
• Associate Professor Ruth P. Wilson presented a paper entitled "Diversity and National Identity in South Africa" at the recent nternational Studies Association-West Conference in San Francisco.
  
  
• SJSU Professors Carol Mukhopadhyay and Rosemary Henze along with Professor Yolanda Moses of the University of California, Riverside, have published How Real is Race?A Sourcebook on Race, Culture and Biology. The book integrates biological and cultural anthropological approaches to race to help people make sense of the contradictory messages about race in the United States and elsewhere. For more, visit http://www.rowmaneducation.com/ISBN/1578865603. Also, Mukhopadhyay recently participated in the debut of the American Anthropological Association's museum exhibit, "RACE," at the Science Museum of Minnesota. The exhibit, which will travel to other U.S. museums, is part of a multi-million dollar public education project funded by Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation. For more, visit www.understandingrace.org.
  
  
• Professor Emeritus James Lullhas published a new book, Culture-on-Demand: Communication in a Crisis World. "This highly original and thought provoking book is the first to analyze the post 9/11 world in terms of global media and popular culture … We need to harness the power of personal and information technologies, mass media, and the culture industries to effectively break down the barriers posed by religious fundamentalism and nationalism," Lull wrote. For more, see http://www.jameslull.com/ .
  
  
• COMMUNIVERCITY: At a recent CommUniverCity San Jose celebration, Executive Director and SJSU Professor Terry Christensen reported some impressive results. In just two years, CommUniverCity has helped 1,459 students and 2,871 residents to devote 21,281 volunteer hours to important issues in the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace neighborhood east of campus. CommUniverCity builds social capital by encouraging the community, SJSU, the city of San Jose and partnering non-profit organizations to collaborate on projects addressing community health, education and neighborhood environment. For more, visit http://www.communivercitysanjose.org/index.htm.
  
  
• FACULTY/STAFF ACTIVITIES Bruce Olszewski, director of SJSU's Center for Development of Recycling, will moderate a panel discussion on energy efficiency and alternatives during an event beginning at 9 a.m., Thursday, August 30, at the San Jose Public Library West Valley branch. "It's Easy Being Green: A Guide to Energy Efficiency and Alternatives" is being organized by Congressman Mike Honda, an SJSU alumnus who represents Silicon Valley. Read more on the gathering at http://www.honda.house.gov/townhall
  
  
• CINDY CHAVEZ -- former San Jose city councilwoman and mayoral candidate, and a San Jose State alumna -- began teaching local politics today at SJSU as this fall's Leader in Residence for the political science department. The department has also booked presidential campaign vets Les Francis and Ed Rollins for the Fall 2007 Don Edwards Lecture at 7 p.m., Thursday, October 4, in Morris Dailey Auditorium. Francis and Rollins -- Democrat and Republican, respectively, and SJSU alumni both -- will review past presidential races and analyze those underway now. Read more at http://www.sjsu.edu/events/event_detail.jsp?id=4445.
  
  
• Many SJSU students, faculty and administrators are participating in the Salzburg Seminar in Austria this summer. The seminar brings together leaders from around the world to discuss international issues. In early June, 12 students plus SJSU Peer Mentor Program Director Jill Steinberg and Professor of Communication Studies Dennis Jaehne traveled to Austria to take part in the seminar's International Study Program in Global Citizenship. Steinberg accompanied the students. Jaehne served as a seminar faculty member. Both were 2006-2007 Salzburg Fellows. In July, nearly 20 SJSU faculty and administrators including Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Carmen Sigler will fly to Salzburg to take part in a seminar with colleagues from other educational institutions. SJSU sends delegations to Salzburg every summer. For more, visit http://iesweb.sjsu.edu/ .
  
  
• Sharyl Cross, professor of political science, has taken a leave of absence to work at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. She helped organize a recent conference for more than 45 academic specialists and counterterrorism professionals from more than a dozen nations. Participants took an "in-depth look at how societal conditions enable or prevent terrorist movements from attracting new adherents," said a U.S. European Command news release. For more, visit http://www.eucom.mil/english/FullStory.asp?art=1328.
  
  
• Maureen Kelley, a lecturer in the Department of Geography, has developed a display of historic maps and campus views to celebrate SJSU's sesquicentennial. The display is in the first floor hallway of Washington Square Hall. Free and open to the public, the offerings include a map of SJSU's first campuses in San Francisco, an early plan for the buildings in Washington Square, pictorial views of downtown San Jose, 19th century maps of both the United States and California, and informative narratives.
  
  
• Ruth P. Wilson, a professor in the Department of African American Studies, has been named one of 16 participants in the 2007 Fulbright-Hays Summer Seminars Abroad Program in South Africa. Her seminar, "Student Achievement and Workforce Development in Disadvantaged Populations," will explore how the South African government's higher education policies, now 10 years into democracy, are addressing the needs of previously disadvantaged students, particularly first generation university students. Wilson and other participants will visit major cities and some suburban and rural regions. Wilson, a social anthropologist who previously lived, worked, and conducted research in Southern Africa, plans to collect and later share curriculum materials with students and colleagues. The materials will also enhance AFAM 111: African Nations, a course she plans to teach in the 2007-08 academic year.
  
  
• Professor Rona Halualani has been appointed assistant to the president and director of institutional planning and inclusive excellence. She will direct and coordinate the university's strategic planning and the development of an inclusive excellence master plan. Halualani has been acting chair of the Department of Communication Studies and a faculty-in-residence on diversity for the Center for Faculty Development and Support. She has also been a Carnegie Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where she worked on a research project entitled "A Semester in Lives of a Diversity Course: Tracing Students' Personal and Learning Pathways in a Diversity Course."
  
  
• Elissa Foster, assistant professor of communication studies and the department's graduate coordinator, has received the 2007 Janice Hocker Rushing Early Career Research Award from the Southern States Communication Association.The award honors association members who have demonstrated exceptional scholarly ability through research and publication early in their academic careers. Foster recently published the book "Communicating at the End of Life: Finding Magic in the Mundane." "This is an account of Elissa Foster's moving experiences as a hospice volunteer … It also reflects a critical engagement with a wide range of existing academic literature … In bringing these two areas of experience and scholarship together, the author has produced a significant and insightful work," said an Amazon.com reviewer.
  
  
• FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS Two SJSU faculty members have been selected to participate in Fulbright programs. Margaret Kaluzny, a geography lecturer, has been named a Fulbright Scholar. She will spend the coming academic year at the University of Ankara, Turkey, where she will teach and conduct research. Her specialty is historical urbanism in the western Mediterranean, which she will complement with work on the eastern Mediterranean while she is in Turkey. Mengxiong Liu, an engineering librarian and professor of library and information science, has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist. In November, she will travel to Uruguay to work on a project at the Latin American Center for Human Economy and The British Schools.
  
  
• Larry Engelmann, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY , conducted research in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia and Mandalay , Myanmar while summering at his home in Baan Chai Lei in Thailand . Since publication of Tears Before the Rain, an oral history of the fall of Saigon , Engelmann has been collecting personal accounts of Vietnamese boat people who came to southern Thailand , principally to Song Khla, to Malaysia and even to Burma . He'd earlier interviewed boat people in Hong Kong and Pulau Bidong, Malaysia.He expects to publish a collection in book from. Contact Engelmann at LDE241@aol.com.
  
  
• Alan Leventhal, an information technology consultant and lecturer for the College of Social Sciences, served on the planning committee for the Native American Heritage Celebration held in early November at San Jose City Hall. The event included representatives from the three Costanoan/Ohlone Tribes plus organizations representing Native American people from outside California who have moved to Santa Clara County.
  
  
• Gary Pereira, a geography professor, has combined satellite images with maps and ground photos to create a poster exhibit on Sudan's civil war. The exhibit, on display in the first-floor hallway of Washington Square Hall, "shows the areas of conflict, burned-out villages and refugee settlements. The exhibit demonstrates the power of remote sensing to research political events, human impacts and environmental changes," wrote David Helgren, chair of the geography department. The exhibit will remain on display until February 15.
  
  
• Scott Myers-Lipton, associate professor of sociology, edited the recently published "Social Solutions to Poverty: America's Struggle to Build a Just Society." William Julius Wilson of Harvard University said Myers-Lipton "has compiled an impressive array of articles on the social context of poverty in the United States and on the various plans and proposals to alleviate human suffering. His unique volume could become a standard reference not only for scholars who study poverty, but also for policymakers and citizens seeking realistic solutions." For more, see: http://www.solvingpoverty.com/
  
  
• HISTORY DEPARTMENT RECEIVES $1 MILLION GRANT SJSU's Department of History, the Santa Clara County Office of Education, and Silicon Valley History Online will receive $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education to support professional development courses for 35 middle and high school U.S. history teachers. The program, which will take place over a three-year period, will raise student achievement by emphasizing critical thinking over memorization. The federal grant will cover fees and books for participants, who will take standard graduate history courses in addition to special classes on teaching history. In addition, Silicon Valley History Online, which compiles historic photos and printed materials from many sources into a searchable database, will provide teachers with local context for their U.S. history lessons. After completing their course work, program participants will train an additional 140 Santa Clara County teachers and participate in a U.S. history symposium expected to draw 400 local educators. For more on the grant, see: http://www.ed.gov/programs/teachinghistory/index.html
  
  
• Lou Holscher, professor and chair of Mexican-American studies, has been appointed to the board of directors for the Bill Wilson Center, a nonprofit agency serving youth and families in Santa Clara County. Holscher was acknowledged for his unique perspective on the Chicano culture and the criminal justice system.
  
  
• Political Science Professors Terry Christensen and Peter Haas have co-authored, Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films, published by M.E. Sharpe. It provides a decade-by-decade survey of politics in films of all types -- from comedies and dramas to biographies and documentaries. The book also contains a helpful framework for students and general readers to analyze the political content of films. Contact Christensen at terrychr@email.sjsu.edu, Haas at haas@sjsu.edu.
  
  
• Andy Wood's new book "New York 1939-40's world fair"