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* Updated to correct information in Faculty Highlights
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Welcome to our September 2022 Faculty Success Newsletter!
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Painting depicting aguas frescas at the Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City
I write to you from Mexico City. The last time I was here, I was a recent college graduate who dreamed of becoming a novelist. (Basically, I hung out at Librería Gandhi, a local bookstore, and smoked cigarettes, gazed into the distance, and occasionally scribbled in a notebook.) Of course, life takes turns we often can’t anticipate at age 22: Instead of penning that novel, I returned home months later broke, broken-hearted, and unsure of what to do next. I clung to a vague notion of “going to grad school,” in part because I didn’t know how else to escape the Chicago suburbs.
Of those intervening years, I spent 7 in a doctoral program, 3 in a teaching post-doc, 12 as a tenure-line professor, and now am starting my third as an administrator. As I revisit famous Mexico City sites and ponder the histories and forces that shaped my family saga, I find myself reflecting on all the ways being in higher education also has greatly impacted my identity. I am thankful to all the colleagues and students I’ve encountered over those 25 years who have expanded my understanding of what is meaningful in academia and the role each of us plays in making our campus more culturally-responsive and equitable for all.
Reflecting on your own experience, what would you tell your fresh-out-of-college self about what you would discover through working in higher education? How have the institutions you have been a part of shaped your sense of self, your place in the world, and your connections to the communities that are important to you? Are you, yourself, a first-generation college graduate? Do you share that experience with your students? These questions are especially relevant as we enter Latinx Heritage Month as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), a federal designation for institutions with a full-time Latinx student population of 25% or more. What does being part of an HSI campus mean to you, and how might you incorporate that institutional identity into your day-to-day work in and out of the classroom?
If you are unsure of where to start, I invite you to check out Somos SJSU (“We Are SJSU”), a draft framework that is helping us begin conversations about initiatives, grants, and pedagogies focused on Latinx student success. The framework is the result of collaboration by faculty, staff, students, and administrators from across campus who have been involved in programming at the Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center since its founding. We will soon launch a website dedicated to SJSU’s HSI journey, with links to readings and resources, information on the development of Somos SJSU,
and opportunities to engage in this work. In the meantime, please check out the range of campus events celebrating Latinx Heritage Month—we look forward to seeing you soon!
Magdalena Barrera,
Vice Provost for Faculty Success
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Updates from the Center for Faculty
Development and eCampus
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At this point in the semester, you’re likely getting to know more than your students’ names--you’re learning about their lives, their goals, and perhaps even the challenges they face. Your communication with your students, whether in the syllabus, in the hallway, in your email, or in a classroom discussion, is foundational to not only your relationship with them, but to their relationship with their peers, their discipline, and their learning. These small everyday moments ideally invite and welcome our students and kindle curiosity. These moments may be powerful and noteworthy or quiet and routine, but, taken together over time, they reveal patterns that are meaningful for our work as educators.
California State University’s Graduation Initiative 2025 (“GI 2025”) is a systemwide effort to fulfill our responsibility to serve all our students by increasing graduation rates, eliminating equity gaps in degree completion, and supporting California’s workforce needs. It goes beyond setting the intention to gathering and analyzing data in ways that result in reflection and action throughout the CSU system, but also with and among disciplines and faculty. Have you ever wondered how many of our students at SJSU are the first in their families to go to college? Have you wanted to better understand who leaves your major, or where they go next? Which courses do they struggle in the most, or which classes have the largest equity gaps? You can find answers to these and other student success related questions in the CSU Student Success Dashboards.
There are four dashboards: Graduation Initiative 2025, Faculty Dashboard, CSU by the Numbers, and Equity Gap Dashboard. Each affords us an opportunity to reflect on patterns that can and should inform both our academic processes (such as requirements and petitions) and our classroom practices. We encourage you to explore, review the resources there, and reach out to us with questions you have on how you can strengthen your courses so that they are equitable, inclusive, and transformative.
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We are excited to introduce learning glass technology to San José State University. Made of glass with specialized lighting, the learning glass is a transparent whiteboard that illuminates writing with neon markers and permits uninterrupted eye contact with students.
How it works: A video camera arranged in front of the learning glass either records or streams the presentation. The instructor faces the camera, maintaining eye contact with students; any writing or drawing on the learning glass “glows.” The result is a captivating and engaging presentation designed to help maintain students’ attention.
One question you might have is, “Does the instructor have to learn how to write backwards?” Happily, no: You will write as usual on the glass while facing the camera. The image is then flipped horizontally in real time for a live presentation or through post production for a video recording.
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Interested in learning more about the learning glass technology at SJSU?
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Adobe Express is an easy-to-use multimedia tool and is free for all students, faculty, and staff at SJSU. You can use it to create professional looking webpages including photos, text, buttons that link to web content, and videos. Plus, collaboration for group projects is easy. For a quick overview on creating, collaborating and sharing an Adobe Express webpage, see Adobe Express Webpages (5 min. video).
You might invite your students to use Adobe Express to create:
- Blogs
- Learning Journals
- Group Projects or Presentations
- Visual representations of essays or reports
Note: Adobe Express is not a video capturing tool. To include your own videos, record them in a different application and upload them to YouTube or an Adobe Express Video, then link the video to your Adobe Express Webpage.
To get your free license for all Adobe Creative Cloud applications, fill out the Adobe License Self Registration Form.
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As you edit your Canvas courses, we encourage you to review any current files, especially if you copied the content from a prior time you taught the course. TidyUP is a tool that provides a quick way to check for and delete unused files and pages in your Canvas courses. This can be especially helpful to use before using your Ally course accessibility report to strengthen the accessibility of your instructional materials. (This way, you will reduce the total number of files to correct.) To learn more about TidyUP and to get started using it in any of your courses, please review the TidyUP User Guide.
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Gain Insight into Student Learning with Gradescope
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SJSU has a Gradescope license, and it's available in Canvas for all instructors to use.
Not only does Gradescope reduce grading time and provide students with better feedback, but Gradescope can be used to gain valuable insight into student learning for both online and paper-based assessments.
Review student performance by:
- Easily identifying knowledge gaps
- Gaining insight at the assignment and question-level
- Tagging questions with key concepts or learning objectives
An example of question-level statistics available in Gradescope:
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Call for Proposals - 2023 Geospatial Review
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The CSU Geospatial Review (ISSN 2373-5783 & e-ISSN 2373-5791) is accepting submissions for the 2023 CSU Geospatial Review. We will be accepting submissions from now until January 25th.
Articles should pertain to research or educational projects using geospatial methods. Articles should be short (750 words or fewer plus maps and/or photos) and of interest to others in the CSU system who may be considering similar research. Articles with results are favored over proposed work.
Some topics you may consider writing about:
- Research Projects
- Case studies
- Innovations in GIScience Education
- Innovations in GIScience Methods
Please note that articles are not limited solely to ESRI applications. They can also include Remote Sensing platforms, other GIS programs, R or RStudio, and many others. Looking through the past couple of issues may also give you some ideas for submission topics.
Please submit your articles by Wednesday, January 25, 2023 to the CSU GIS Specialty Center at [email protected].
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Dr. Jessica Castillo Vardaro
Assistant Professor,
Biological Sciences
Dr. Jessica Castillo Vardaro was recently awarded a $500,000 research grant through the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) new Building Research Capacity in Biology (BRC-BIO) program, which aims to increase research opportunities for faculty and students at primarily undergraduate institutions. Dr. Castillo's research will study the effects of recent human-caused climate change on American pikas, small rabbit-like mammals that typically live in cold climates in western North America and may be at risk of extinction. Her research team will investigate genetic changes over time by analyzing the genomes of modern pika populations and century-old museum specimens. This work will increase our understanding of the potential vulnerability and capacity for resilience of this mountain-dwelling species, while providing research experience for undergraduate and graduate student researchers at SJSU.
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Dr. Yu Chen
Assistant Professor,
School of Information Systems and Technology
Dr. Yu Chen has received an NSF Grant for the project, “Collaborative Research: Broadening Inclusive Participation in Artificial Intelligence Undergraduate Education for Social Good Using A Situated Learning Approach.” This project aims to broaden AI education among undergraduate students. With one of the most diverse student bodies in the U.S., the mission of the CSU system is to prepare significant numbers of educated people to contribute to California’s future and to provide services that enrich local communities. Dr. Chen’s work is a collaborative project with CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Long Beach, and the CSU Office of the Chancellor. It aims to engage undergrad students from diverse disciplines in AI education and provide them with necessary skills for future jobs and to contribute to their communities. The long-term goal is to improve AI education across the CSU, resulting in a diverse AI-skilled STEM workforce ready to be tomorrow’s innovators and leaders.
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September
19: LEAD Convening for Chairs and Directors, 12 pm
21: Deadline to form Write@SJSU Writing Groups
22: Range Elevation: Applications due in eFaculty by 5:00pm
22: Sabbatical: Chair Statement due
29: RTP: Candidate dossiers close in eFaculty at 5:00pm
October
17: LEAD Convening for Chairs and Directors, 12 pm
18: Sabbatical: College committee rankings and recommendations due
20: Learn more about HonorsX, 12:30 pm
21: Range Elevation: Chair and department-level recommendations due
25: RTP: Chair and department-level recommendations due
November
10: Sabbatical: Dean’s recommendation and rankings due
11: Campus closed
14: RTP:
23: Non-instructional day
24-25: Campus closed
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Tips for Fighting Impostor Syndrome in Academe: “Most likely if you have experienced such [impostor] fears once, you will experience them again even as your career advances. Having a set of tools will assist you when you need to overcome even the worst impostor syndrome days.”
How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive: “This guide is for any faculty member who believes, as we do, that education can be an equalizer. We share tips here that any instructor can use to minimize inequities and help more students succeed.”
Climbing Out of a Research Rut: “I discovered that I am not alone in experiencing a research rut and that getting out of the rut may take time. But I also learned there are many ways out of it.”
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Do you have a story, highlight, reading, or tip that you would like to share in this newsletter?
Please reach out anytime to
[email protected]
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Contact Us
Magdalena L. Barrera, Ph.D.
Deanna Fassett, Ph.D.
Jennifer Redd, Ph.D.
Follow us on our socials:
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