In fall of 2008 the Parents Association provided funding for the International Student Services and Programs office to offer the International Commencement Celebration as a live stream on the internet.  Dr. Lucia Hammar, Director of ISSP, wrote a letter to the Parents Association following the commencement ceremony.

On Saturday, May 23 at 1 PM, a group of parents and friends of graduating international students gathered in the campus Concert Hall.  These proud people were the lucky folks who managed to fly from their home to the USA to see their son or daughter or grandchild or niece or nephew receive a bachelor’s or master’s degree from California State University, Fresno.  International students who were graduating marched in, robes swishing and tassels tossing.  The university president, provost and vice president of Student Affairs each spoke.  Two graduating students spoke: a young man from Japan with a newly earned masters in linguistics, and a young woman from Malaysia with a bachelors (with honors) in psychology.  Parents of those two young people were present but most of our students were not able to see their parents’ faces.  But now, thanks to our Parents Association, everyone had the chance to “tune in” from all over the world and watch live.  Now the streamed program, which was recorded, is available on the University’s website along with the official university commencement ceremony.

Our technical colleagues on campus worked with our office beginning last October to make this possible.  We had help from captioners working off site (on the east coast!) who were keying in the words of the speeches and the names of each student as they walked individually across our Concert Hall stage. It was amazing that it worked as well as it did with multiple cameras, multiple mikes and people in three locations connected only by wires and ether.

Thank you so much from the parents of the world to the parents of the Parents Association!  We really hope we can do this again next year, when we believe even more people will be tuned in to this possibility and will join us on the internet.

Sincerely,

Lucia, ISSP staff and international students and families

Dr. Lucia Hammar is the  director of International Student Services and Programs at Fresno State

Classes will not meet and offices will be closed at Fresno State on Friday, July 3rd, in recognition of Independance Day on July 4th.  The Gibson Farm Market will be open from 9 a.m. to noon.

The University Police Department will be on duty. In the event of an emergency, call 559-278-8400.

Classes will resume and offices will re-open on Monday, July 6th.  Summer hours throughout the campus are 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a 30 minute lunch break.

Courtesy of www.fresnostatenews.com

The 3rd Annual Fresno State Farm Festival will take place from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday, June 20, at the University’s Ornamental Horticulture-Nursery garden area at the Gibson Farm Market on Chestnut Avenue at Barstow.

The event showcasing student-produced products from the university’s 1,000 acre campus farm will be held in the market’s parking lot under tents.

This year’s festival will include live music, wine tasting, sampling of Fresno State farm products, educational workshops, kids activities and other events.  Winery and farm tours will also be available.

Article courtesy of Fresno State News.

Piggy bank

Many parents and students are eager to find out if they are going to receive a Fresno State scholarship for the 2009/2010 school year.  Please keep in mind that at this point it is too early to determine who’s receiving a scholarship.   The Scholarship Office will be receiving scholarship recommendations from departments and donors all summer long.  The awarding process will be on-going throughout the summer and may extend past the first two weeks of the fall semester.  If your student is awarded a scholarship, he or she will receive a congratulatory award letter in the mail announcing the scholarship.  For those of you who wish to monitor the award activity in real time, students are able to remotely check their status by logging on to their My Fresno State portal.  Under their “Student Center,” look for the “Finances” header and you will see a link called “View Financial Aid.”  The first thing the Scholarship Office does when awarding a scholarship to a student is to post the award on their student account.  That data entry is what initiates the award letter to be printed and mailed to the student.  You can view this activity by clicking on “View Financial Aid.”  If there is no scholarship award posted on their account, then no scholarships have been awarded to the student.   You can view this activity by clicking on “View Financial Aid.” If there is no scholarship award posted on their account, then no scholarships have been awarded to the student.  Students are encouraged to check their Fresno State portal frequently for this and other important campus news.

As a reminder, the Scholarship application process for 2009-2010 is now closed.  The next opportunity to apply for Fresno State scholarships will be on October 1, 2009 for the 2010-2011 school year.  For more information, please visit the scholarship website at: www.csufresno.edu/scholarships.

A lot of libraries have more books and most have more videos.  Some have more recordings or computers.  A few have more maps.

Associate Dean David Tyckoson and Julie Hernandez welcome you to the Madden Library.

One thing that the Henry Madden Library has that no other library in the state can match: a staff totally dedicated to service and to being the friendliest, most welcoming and helpful library staff.  We are - quite literally - “Here to help.”

It starts when you get here. Just through the doors of the new Table Mountain Rancheria Tower is the Welcome Desk, where staff greet visitors, provide directions and a map and answer basic questions.  The Welcome Desk is designed to be your first stop in the new library.

This welcoming environment extends to every section of the library through faculty, staff and student assistants, all ready to answer visitor’s questions.  Each worker wears a red Madden Library badge and lanyard and each is available to help anyone find materials, use the compact shelves, print from a computer or find the elevators.

For more in-depth research assistance, for the first-floor Reference Desk’s reference librarians and student assistants always are available to help locate a specific book, look for articles on a topic, retrieve statistical data, identify search terms or brainstorm a research topic.  The Reference Desk is available by phone and online for those who can’t get to the library.

The new Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno.

How people get in touch isn’t as important as ensuring that when anyone needs research assistance, the new and improved library offers it, as well as specialized research in certain subject areas.

* The Music & Media Department (third floor) serves anyone studying or enjoying music.

* As its name implies, the Teacher Resource Center (third floor) provides lesson plans, children’s books and instructional materials for K-12 teachers.

* The Maps and Government Information Department (first floor) contains the largest collection of maps at any California State University library along with relevant publications from federal and state agencies. 

* The Special Collections Research Center (fourth floor south) is home to rare books, local history and several specialized and unique collections.

* The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature (third floor south) contains the largest collection of historic children’s books west of the Mississippi.

Each area is intended to provide sophisticated assistance to support programs and researchers in those areas.  There are also liaison librarians assigned to specific colleges or departments for advanced research in specific areas, which is especially useful to graduate students working on theses and faculty undertaking research projects.

Although staffers provide a variety of ways to help library visitors, there are many ways for them to help themselves.  New iMacs throughout the library run either Windows or Mac operating systems at the user’s discretion.  Need something more portable? Laptops, available for student and faculty checkout (Collection Level) for four hours at a time, may be taken anywhere on campus.

Reference librarians are available to assist students.

“Here to help” is integral to the design of the new library, too.  The goal was to give people the best spots on each floor, so study areas are near the windows and the books and other materials are in the back, away from the light.  In addition, the building is designed to meet a variety of study needs and learning styles.  There are quiet areas, group and individual study rooms, lots of power outlets for laptops and wide-open study rooms. 

The library is a large and complex place. The Madden Library staff is committed to making certain this beautiful new university center of knowledge meets everyone’s individual needs by staying true to three little words: “Here to help.”

- David Tyckoson is Associate Dean of Library Services at the Madden Library

For more on this story, visit Fresno State Magazine.

Map of Fresno State College as it appeared in the 1950s.

Born out of the need for qualified teachers to educate the pupils of the San Joaquin Valley during the Progressive Era, Fresno Normal School officially broke ground in a vacant field, with a handful of eager students and 12 faculty members - only one of whom claimed full-time status.

Since 1911, the university has expanded from a teachers college operating out of Fresno High School, to a major four-year university on 388 acres (plus a 1,011-acre University Farm) with more than 2,300 full- and part-time faculty and staff. The initial student population was 150; now it exceeds 22,000.

Black and white map of California State University, Fresno circa 2009.

The regional impact of the university has been equally dramatic. Besides being one of the region’s largest employers and strongest community partners, businesses, nonprofits, law offices, hospitals, school districts, government agencies, agricultural enterprises, health agencies and police departments teem with Fresno State graduates.

The community’s strong identification with the university is undeniable from ubiquitous Fresno State license plate frames to apparel.  It is difficult to find a Valley resident without a tangible connection to Fresno State through direct personal experience, family ties or bonds of friendship.  Clearly, Fresno Sate, in a manner unique to the California State University system, is woven into the fabric of this expansive, culturally diverse, fast-growing region dubbed the New California.                

Now it’s time for Fresno State to mark 100 years of this symbiotic relationship with the region by collecting the individual stories of former students, employees and friends that illuminate Fresno State’s past and bring meaning to its present and future.

Photo of the old campus, now Fresno City College.

Fresno State is asking people to donate their memories by recalling that first day of classes, most-inspiring professor or how lessons abstractly learned in college were applied in their very real vocations.  From the debate team to the football team, from ROTC to antiwar activists, the most senior alumnus to incoming freshman, legacies to first generations, we want to share the widely varied aspects of Fresno State’s first century.

An email account has been established to capture “Fresno State Memories” at fresnostate100@csufresno.edu or stories can be mailed to Centennial, California State University, Fresno, 5241 N. Maple Ave. M/S TA 48, Fresno, CA 93740-8027.  All contributions may be used for media projects and scholarly activities related to the centennial.

Since its founding, Fresno State’s been constantly changing, but never varying from its mission: placing the community first. Now we ask you to tell us what Fresno State has meant to you.

-  Dr. Daniel Cady, an Assistant Professor of History, directs Fresno State’s Central Valley Institute for Regional and Historical Studies and is a member of the Centennial Committee.

Sweet corn

Summer heat is here and activity is heating up at the Gibson Farm Market with the arrival of arguably the University’s most popular student-produced agricultural product - sweet corn!

While tradition is served with corn’s arrival in the on-campus Farm Market, a new variety is in the bins - an extra-tender yellow variety called Vision.  According to Dr. Ganesan Srinivasan, director of the University Agriculture Laboratory, the new Vision sweet corn “is sure to be as popular with our customers as our other varieties are every year, if not more…[because] it’s sweeter and has a better flavor.”

Last year, the Farm Market sold more than 400,000 ears of corn and Srinivasan anticipates that 2009 sales will exceed a half-million ears.  About 65 acres of white and yellow corn are planted every two weeks to provide a constant supply from late May through Labor Day, and sometimes longer.

Freshness is key to Fresno State corn’s popularity, according to Srinivasan. “Each ear is selected for proper maturity and hand-harvested daily. Our corn travels less than a quarter-mile from the fields to the Gibson Farm Market, literally making it possible to go from plant to plate in a couple of hours.

Proceeds from the Gibson Farm Market and other Fresno State farm enterprises support the educational and research mission of the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology.

For more information, call 559.278.4511 or visit www.fresnostatefarmmarket.com

Courtesy of Fresno State News.

DOG DAYS Fall 2009, a series of 15 orientation sessions for new students at California State University, Fresno begins Wednesday, June 3.

DOG DAYS is for the new 2,800 freshmen and 1,900 transfer students, their parents and guests.  Check-in begins at 7:15 a.m. in front of the Joyal Administration Building and each day’s program runs from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

All new undergraduates are expected to attend DOG DAYS and the sessions are mandatory for freshmen, said coordinator Ken Ternate of the Division of Student Affairs.  The fall semester begins August 24th. 

Academic advisers from each college or school will be available to discuss general education and major academic requirements.  Faculty and student leaders will answer questions and give insight into campus life.  A career services presentation, campus resource fair, pre-loan counseling workshop, campus safety discussion and campus tours also are offered.

A parent session will answer questions about academics and co-curricular activities for students.

A new feature will be a veterans’ mobile display.

“DOG DAYS is an opportunity for our incoming students and their parents to experience Fresno State’s learning environment,” said Dr. Paul M. Oliaro, Vice President for Student Affairs.

The DOG DAYS office (Joyal Administration Building, Room 224) is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.  For more information, call 559.278.4885.  However, when there is a DOG DAYS session, the office is open 9:30 to 11 a.m. and 12:15 to 2 p.m.

A detailed schedule of DOG DAYS is available and reservations (which are required) may be made online.

Note: The university is no longer accepting applications for first-time freshmen and transfer students for fall.  Enrollment applications for Spring 2010 will be accepted beginning August 1, 2009.  For information, contact University Outreach at 559.278.2048 or visit Go To Fresno State.

Courtesy of Fresno State News.