William
R. Blischke,
executive director, Special Projects, School of Education/ professor, Sociology,
has been elected President of the Board of Education of the Torrance Unified
School District for the fourth time. He is in the fourth year of his
fourth term on the Board. Blischke serves also as that board's representative
to the Southern California Regional Occupational Center (SCROC) Board, serving
as SCROC vice president.
Carol Casten, professor/chair, Physical Education and Recreation, has been
elected President of the Western College Physical Education Society, an organization
dedicated to professionals in Physical Education in the western United States.
She is the first female president of the 46-year-old organization.
Bernard Clinch, senior staff producer/director, Center for Mediated Instruction and Distance Learning, was feted at a special night in San Francisco for having been named one of the "Top 100 Producers of 2000" by AV Video Multimedia Producer magazine in September. He was nominated by his colleagues, the magazine said, then given the award by a panel of "highly regarded producers." Clinch was profiled in the magazine's November issue and featured on its web site. Besides the dinner in San Francisco at which the magazine's Top 100 Forum was honored, he attended the publication's reception for honorees at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Lorna Fitzsimmons, visiting scholar, Interdisciplinary Studies, had her article "The Magnificent Ambersons: Unmasking the Code," published in Literature/Film Quarterly 20 (2000), pp. 293 -302. The article discusses Orson Welles' film adaptation of Booth Tarkington's major novel, The Magnificent Ambersons, focusing on the tension between the film's modernist strategies and the codicillary profile of Hollywood classicism. Also in 2000, her article, "Stein's Syndetic Aesthetic," appeared in The Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 20 (2000), pp. 212 -216. The article relates Stein's writing to African-influenced experiments in modern art.
John Goders, professor of art, has been named a Getty Service Learning Scholar by the Getty-CSU Service Learning LINKING Project and has received a Getty Service Learning Scholars Grant. Goders will receive released time during the spring 2001 semester to add a service-learning component to "Art 392, Mixed Media Sculpture."
Richard K. Gordon, professor, Teacher Education, was invited to serve as a visiting professor at Tokyo Gakuei University during the 2001 spring semester. He is the first foreign faculty member to receive such an honor. Tokyo Gakugei is one of Japan's finest teacher training institutions. During the term, he will participate in a semester-long colloquium on school reform and professional development issues. Moreover, he has been invited to work with Japanese scholars on issues surrounding the education of the Japanese minority group known as the Burakumin. He has been researching the educational experience of the Burakumin since 1997.
Noreen Larinde, professor of art, presented a paper, "Female Power Imagery in SubSaharan Art" at the International Conference on Gender and Equity Issues in Bangkok on Jan. 4, 2001.
James E. Lyons, Sr., president, has been awarded the Peace Corps' Franklin H. Williams Award. The Peace Corps' prestigious award is named after the veteran diplomat, ambassador, educator, civil rights activist, and Peace Corps director in Africa. The award will be presented to Dr. Lyons during ceremonies Feb. 21 at U. S. Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. Lyons is the Western region recipient.
Lyons spent a tour of duty in the Peace Corps in the late 1960s, serving as a teacher and coach of the high school track team in Manta, Manabi, Ecuador. John Hartley, Peace Corps regional manager, said the Franklin H. Williams Award is given to those who served admirably in the Peace Corps and who continue to serve their communities upon their return. Moreover, Hartley noted, Williams is noted for his leadership in helping advance educational opportunities for American minorities and Africans. His posts during the past half-century have included assistant to Thurgood Marshall, then special counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); West Coast director, NAACP; assistant attorney general, state of California; African regional director, U.S. Peace Corps; U.S. representative to the United Nations; U.S. ambassador to Ghana; and, director, The Urban Center, Columbia University. Today, Williams serves as president and trustee of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a philanthropic organization whose assistance includes educational and business opportunities for minorities. "The Franklin Williams Award acknowledges Dr. Lyons' service with the Peace Corps and his continued service to the community where he lives and works," Hartley said. "He passes muster. In fact, he more than passes muster."
Louis Murdock, professor of graduate education, was elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest and largest chapter in the western region of the United States. He was also elected chairperson of the Carson Mobile Home Rental Review Board. The board acts upon all City of Carson applications for mobile home rental increases and capital improvement increases. Also, Murdock was assigned as the coordinator of the Big Brothers of America pilot mentoring program in California. This pilot program is a national pilot project designed to advise and guide minority males in junior and senior high school. The Los Angeles program directed by Murdock is the only pilot program in the state of California. In addition, he was recently appointed to the Compton College Foundation Development Board.
Marion Smith, coordinator, Instructional Computing Services, participated in the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services (ACM SIGUCCS) User Services Conference, Oct. 29 - Nov. 1, in Richmond, Virginia. She co-presented two papers, one on web site redesign with Jan Boucher of the Center for Usability in Design and Assessment (CUDA) at CSU Long Beach and the other on public/private partnerships with Keiko Pitter, chief technology officer of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and Gil Gonzales of GoCampus in Palo Alto. Also, she presented at a poster session on the CSU's Community of Academic Technology Staff (CATS). Staff at the CSU's Center for Distributed Learning created the poster.
James Sudalnik, professor of communications, participated Nov. 28 in a symposium of the Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board of National Academies. Titled "The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age," the program was held at the Faculty Center at UCLA and was hosted by the National Academy and sponsored by the National ScienceFoundation and the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. The seminar focused on challenges facing academia and business regarding the new digital technologies.
