>> Hi, everybody.
I'm Sue Rosser, the
provostan vice president
for Academic Affairs at San
Francisco State University
and it's my pleasure to
welcome everyone this afternoon
to today's STEM symposium.
As you know, STEMS stands
for science, technology,
engineering and mathematics.
And those represent exciting
opportunities for our country,
but this particular event is one
of the many exciting events
planned this week in honor
of the investiture
of the 13th president
of San Francisco
State, Dr. Leslie Wong
and Mrs. Phyllis Wong who
is also here with us today.
Could you please wave so
everybody can see you?
[ Applause ]
>> In addition to extending
a welcome to the Wong's,
I would also like to welcome the
students, the faculty, the stuff
and the administrators
from San Francisco State,
our campus community,
our alumni,
also our Osher [phonetic]
Lifelong Learning Institute
representatives,
guests from AT&T,
the San Francisco
Unified School District
and the San Francisco
School Alliance.
Your support of and interest
in San Francisco State
are greatly appreciated.
We feel it on a daily basis.
Now it's my pleasure to
introduce Mark Blakeman,
the regional vice president
of external affairs
for AT&T California.
Mr. Blakeman manages
AT&T's relationships
with external clients
and stakeholders including
elected officials and community
and civil leads in the San
Francisco Silicon Valley
and central coast regions.
Mark is an active member of the
community serving on the Board
of Directions of the San
Francisco Chamber of Commerce,
as a member of the
executive committee
and as a founding board member
of San Francisco's
Citizens Initiative
for Technology and Innovation.
He is a founding board member
of Genesis Works Bay Area
and the Chairman of the Board
of the San Francisco
Asia Pacific American
Heritage Foundation.
Please join me in
welcoming Mark Blakeman.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you so much and
I will be very brief.
It's a pleasure to be here
on this momentous occasion
with the investiture
of Dr. Wong.
AT&T and proud to be a supporter
of this great week of events
that are going on throughout
the San Francisco community
to welcome Dr. Wong and
his wife to San Francisco.
Also I wanted to-- this
particular symposium is
of great importance to AT&T
because this is an issue
that is very near and
dear to our hearts.
About four years ago with our
contractor negotiations we were
bringing back about 4,000
jobs, repatriating jobs
that had been overseas,
mostly in call centers.
And we found that we were
having difficulty filling those
positions once we were bringing
them back to the United States.
And when we took a deeper dive
into this we began to realize
that although you don't
necessarily need a college
education to work on
some of our jobs at AT&T,
students just were not
being prepared well enough
to come into the work force.
And I had just a few statistics
that kind of highlighted that
and where we're going.
I should also mention that in
November AT&T announced a $66
billion capital investment
program in our network
across the country, which will
mean obviously a lot more jobs
that we're hiring.
In fact, just last week
we announced 450 new jobs
that were hiring
here in California.
These are engineers,
designers, network architects
that help build and
design our network.
And when you think about some
of the statistics that I'm going
to share with you, that over
the next six years stem jobs are
projected to grow by 17 percent
compared to just 10 percent
for all other fields,
and they expect
to create 2.8 million new stem
jobs in the next six years.
And just to pose that with this
statistic, nearly one-fourth
of all students in
our elementary
and high school classrooms
across this country won't
graduate with their class.
They will either drop out
or it will take them longer
than the normal amount of time.
And when you think that
stem worker usually make
on average 25 to 26 percent
more than non-stem workers,
it really just goes to show
you that we're missing out
and really from AT&T's
perspective, we have hundreds
of jobs that go unfilled
every year
because we can't find
qualified people.
And so the great work that
is happening here at SFSU
to encourage more and more
teachers to teach them,
to encourage more students
and college students
to take stem classes will
certainly make a huge difference
in the years ahead and certainly
we can't have it fast enough.
So I appreciate all
the great work
that you're doing
here on campus.
Dr. Wong, we welcome you
here and look forward
to having a great relationship,
continuing our great
relationship with SFSU
and I look forward to
hearing some of the comments
that are going to be made today.
So thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
>> Thanks very much,
Mr. Blakeman.
We certainly appreciate
AT&T's support for this event
and all the work you
do in the community
and for San Francisco
State in particular.
As Mark Blakeman was indicating,
STEM is a national propriety.
Reports indicate that
the US is falling behind
in STEM relative
to other countries.
For example, our research
and development expenditures
as a percentage of our
gross domestic product.
Reports also show the
declining US participation
in the national STEM
workforce of US born
and educated students.
Also US citizens
engagement with and training
and science is relatively low.
The United States therefore
has needed to import talent
from around the world in order
to accomplish its
scientific goals
as Mr. Blakeman was indicating.
And as we hear pressure from
our colleagues, particularly
in Silicone Valley, to up the
number of H1B Visas in order
to meet our STEM
workforce needs.
Some of us feel that
it's very important
to educate the students
who live in this country
so that they can
fill those needs.
At San Francisco State we
receive a substantial portion
of extramural sources of
funding for active awards.
In 2012 we received
about 35 million dollars
in STEM education.
The vast majority of that came
from the federal government,
about $32.5 million.
From the State of California
we received about $2.3 million
and then another--
slightly less than $100,000
from non-profit organizations.
Really STEM education
deficits affect our ability
to find cures, improve the
health of our citizenry,
to keep pace with technology
since we're now in
a global economy.
So it's extremely
important that we recruit,
retain and build a
dominant STEM workforce.
The US has encouraged, through
federally enhanced funding
to support STEM through
all levels, kindergarten
through doctoral training
and beyond through post-ops
and into the work force.
San Francisco State has put
efforts into hiring faculty,
whom you'll meet
today, committed to STEM
to prepare our undergraduate
students
and also these faculty
partner with the public schools
and other institutions in the
bay area to prepare students
who will be bridging
to our university.
I would now like to introduce
the first of our panels,
which is on STEM education.
This is going to be led by
Professor Eric Souix [phonetic]
from the mathematics department
in the College of Science
and Engineering who's also
the director of the Center
for Science and Mathematics
Education.
The panel members that will
be joining him to his right
and your left is Dr.
Larry Horvoth [phonetic],
assistant professor in the
secondary education department
in the graduate college
of education.
He's also the principle
investigator
of the National Science
Foundation,
San Francisco State Robert Noyce
Teacher Scholarship Program.
Next to him is Mia
Hyles [phonetic],
a student in the Single Subject
Science Credential Program.
That's someone who's going to be
a teacher, yes, in K through 12,
who received her BS in biology
with a concentration
in zoology in 2012.
Then to her right is
Professor Carmen Dimengo,
who is not only a professor
but also associate chair
of the biology department
in the College of Science
and Engineering at
San Francisco State.
She's also the program director
and principle investigator
of the California Institute
for Regenerative Medicine,
SERM [phonetic], bridges
to stem cell research,
and she's program director,
principle investigator
of the NSF Research Experience
for Undergraduates Program
in Ecological, Evolutionary
and Developmental Biology.
And we're hoping that
another faculty member,
Antwei [phonetic]
Akom [phonetic],
who's associate professor
of environmental sociology,
public health and STEM education
from the Africana Studies
Department in the College
of Ethnic Studies will make it.
He's also the cofounder
and executive director
of the Institute for
Sustainable Economic Educational
and Environmental Design.
Eric, I'll let you take
it away with the panel.
Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you very much.
So this panel is going
to be a extremely fast,
breathtakingly fast, almost
subliminal overview of a number
of interesting programs.
But the subliminalist will
make it more effective.
So last year there was a very
interesting research report
issue that was a survey of
existing research trying
to study, what are the keys
to improving STEM achievement
by underrepresented
groups in California.
And the keys that
they identify turn
out to be also great
for everybody.
And when we saw the report we
were really pleased because four
out of the five areas of
work are the areas of work
that the center is working on.
And so I'm going to give
you an example in each
of these categories and I
believe you'll find that most
of the work that's being talked
about today will also fall
into these categories.
So the first category is
STEM teacher training.
And we have a portfolio of
programs for preservice teachers
and in-service teachers,
science, mathematics,
elementary, secondary,
but I'm going to focus
on the teacher fellows program,
which is a professional
community of future teachers
but it's also an organized way
to coordinate service learning.
So you have about 70
plus undergraduate
and credential students
participating in the program.
We've served 158 since
the program was started
in spring 2008.
And they go out into the
community and they do service.
They've done thousands of
hours of service in schools
and districts around the bay
area and we've gotten money
from university funds and also
from generous private donations,
$382 thousand we've given
to Stipens [phonetic]
to encourage them and they have
made their own matching funds
by applying for outside awards
and they have been
awarded $285 thousand.
I'm really proud
of them for that.
And it turns out, if you
make a program like this
and make a place for
people, there are a lot
of future teachers out there.
So when the program
began there were
about twentyish math
teacher majors
and right now there are just
about, there are over eighty.
So we have more than
tripled the number
and I think it's no coincidence
that they increase began
with the founding of the
teacher fellows program.
So we think we're
onto something there.
I want to talk about the
second key that was identified,
which is K-12 STEM enrichment.
So you don't want to just wait
until students get to college.
You want to get people
excited about science
and mathematics as
early as possible.
And so at the center we have
a few different programs
in science and math.
I just wanted to talk
about the Sea Lion Bowl,
which finished up in February.
Basically you have 24 Northern
California High School Ascending
teams to participate in a
ocean science quiz bowl.
So it's kind of a
jeopardy-style game
and it's a great
diversity of schools.
It's not just the elite schools.
You have Oakland in there.
You've got Lowle in there.
So it's a really good diversity
of schools and it's more
than just a one-time event.
Yes, the winners get to go to
Washington, D.C. to participate
in a national game
show, but it's more
than just the one shot.
It's the nucleus at each
of these schools for
science interest.
And the leaders and volunteers
of these programs form a
year-long support community
for the coaches and
teachers at each school site.
So the first three
programs listed there serve
about 500 students directly
every year and about 50 schools.
The third area is forming
bridges to college.
And I wanted to briefly mention
the engineering career pathways
program, which has
begin last year.
It's serving various underserved
groups such as displaced workers
and veterans or disadvantaged
youths.
And the idea is to
mentor these students
through community college and
then get them to transfer ready
to take engineering
classes at Cal State.
And how do you do that?
They come in usually at an
algebra level so they're going
to need an intensive math year.
Getting people from
algebra to calculus ready.
So this is a partnership
we've started
with five community colleges
and three workforce
investment boards.
We've got abo0ut 125 students
all together in there this year
and preliminary results
are very good.
They're passing their
classes at a much higher rate
than a normal community
college rate.
>> The fourth key I wanted to
talk about is higher education.
So the fourth key is to try to
find ways to improve retention
and recruitment at
the higher-ed level.
And I wanted to focus on the
Climate Change Scholars Program,
which is funded by the
National Science Foundation.
It's open to everyone, but
we especially recruit women
and underrepresented minorities.
And these undergraduates
work in research labs
on issues connected to
climate change science.
So it's really great to get
them doing research as early
as possible and they
get special mentoring
and they even have a special
seminar just for the cohort.
So hopefully you've seen enough
to get you curious
to learn more.
And if you want to know more,
there's a website there.
And now I'm going to
pass it to Larry and Mia.
>> Hello. Good afternoon.
I'm Mia Hyles [phonetic]
and this is my unexpected
journey into teaching.
It was totally unexpected.
I started my undergraduate at
San Francisco State in 2007
and I got my BS in
biology and zoology.
And just like a lot of students,
my senior year I didn't really
know what I was going to do
after I graduated until someone
came in and made a presentation
about Bio652, which is a science
educations in biology class.
And they take science
undergraduates like me
and they put me in
a K-12 classroom
to support the teachers
in teaching science.
And through that I
met Kimberly Tanner
who is the program director
of the Science Education
Partnership
and Assessment Laboratory,
SEPAL.
And they worked with
this Bio652 class.
And right now I am still
getting advice and resources
from this laboratory and I'd
like to give her a lot of thanks
and credit to where I am today.
I would not be standing
here unless I had met
Kimberly Tanner.
And through her I met Jamie
Chan as well as Eric Suix
who are both program
directors for the Center
for Science and Math Education.
And I became a teacher
fellow through the center.
And I'm allowed to collaborate
with a lot of educators as well
as my professors about science
education and math education.
And it was Jamie Chan
and Kimberly Tanner,
their concerted efforts,
that got me to apply and stay
at SFU's single subject
science credential program.
And through the science
education program I met Larry
Horvath [phonetic] who is
the principle investigator
of the Robert Noyce
Scholarship Program.
And at this time I would like to
introduce Larry Horvath to talk
about the scholarship program.
>> Thank you, Mia.
So yeah, I'm Larry Horvath
and I'm going to talk
to a little bit about the San
Francisco Robert Noyce Teacher
Scholarship Program.
Thanks, Mia, for
that introduction.
What this program is,
it's a five-year national
science foundation grant.
It's 1.2 million dollars,
got this grand two years ago.
The nice this was, we
were really ready for it
because of all the things that
Eric has done with the Center
for Science and Math Education
and the partners we do
that will be able
to fast track it
so we set our first cohort up.
Usually you wait a year.
We actually set them
up in spring of 2011.
Was that spring of 2011?
Yeah. In 2012-13 we have
our first full cohort
coming through.
What it is, it's ten
scholarships per year
for highly-qualified future,
middle and high school
STEM teachers.
And there's a key there--
committed to teaching
in high needs schools.
When we think of qualified,
we're really look for teachers,
with this particular
grant, who are committed
to becoming teacher leaders
and who have a natural bend
to really have a kind of--
an acquiring mind and who
really want to look at research
to think about the teaching
and learning of math
and science in deep ways.
So we identified then, then I
say again with Eric's program,
our first fall we
had 17 applicants.
We can only give ten
scholarships per year.
And then our first
spring we had 17 for ten,
then our first fall we had 24
applicants for 10 positions.
So it's been really competitive.
So it's been kind of hard
for me because we have a lot
of qualified students who
would be really committed
to this kind of program.
We support both undergraduate
STEM majors
and credential candidates.
So we can support
them for two years
in this program as
undergraduates.
They have a unique
program putting them into--
they are fully engaged
in [inaudible] teacher fellows
program but we ramp up on top
of that for all the Noyce
fellows, for the undergraduates
and the credentials, we
have a Noyce seminar.
The Noyce seminar meets
on Fridays from 4-6.
And you know from Friday
from 4-6 they're so committed
that they come in and they're
an amazing group to work with.
Friday from 4-6 is a tough time.
They're happy.
We just met last Friday.
We work. We feed them,
but that's when we do all
that bit so that's the set up.
Strategic school placements
for the undergraduates,
they work in classrooms here
in San Francisco Unified
that our researches occurring,
for example we have the
Strategic Educational
Research Partnership.
They're doing deep research
into thinking about improving
and the ways we work with
literacy and science education,
scientific argumentation.
So the undergrads are working
with teachers who are thinking
as researchers already.
Same with the mastery teachers
that our credential
candidates are placed with.
Inquiry projects, they all
do their own research project
over the year.
We're having a post
session on April 26th
where they've done what
we call action research
in the classroom.
Summer internships,
they're working
with city college students.
They're mentoring
city college students
with a Teachers Pathways Program
into San Francisco State.
Mentoring from CSME teaches and
residents, they actually work
as residents for the CSME
Fellows, working with teachers
that we have identified,
who come work with us
and do [inaudible] and
development and attend math
and science education
conferences.
And last, we're looking at some
of our research questions
around our program.
The first one is, initial
program evaluation is focused
on scholar developing
conceptions of what it's
like to be a teacher-leader
and action researcher.
The second one is
the big question--
longitudinal data collection
is going to be focused
on scholar's professional
trajectories when they work
in these high-need schools,
classroom practices.
How do they carry out
these kind of things
that are really meant
for urban schools?
And student learning outcomes--
how do these things
actually happen?
So that's quick and fast.
Thank you, sir.
I can turn it over.
[ Applause ]
>> Carmen.
[ Pause ]
>> So it's a real pleasure
and honor to be here today.
I'd like to talk about
three different examples
of projects happening in
the biology department.
The first one is focused
at providing undergraduates
with hands-on research
experience.
And I think it's very clear that
in order to prepare students
for the work force,
they really need
that individually mentored
research experience.
And so this is just one example
of programs that are funded
by the National Science
Foundation
and the National
Institute of Health
to bring undergraduates
working closely with faculty
in the biology department.
One program that's
been really successful,
and it's in partnership with the
Romberg Tiburon Research Center,
is a program that focuses on
the inner disciplinary area
of global, climate, ecology,
molecular and cell biology.
And so here are some lovely
images of undergraduates
in the field working
with faculty.
The program has grown in
popularity that this year alone,
just for this one program,
we received 350 applications
from universities across the
country and we're given the task
to select ten, which
is really unfortunate
because there's going
to be many,
many students that
we could fill.
So this is just showing you
the great need of young people
to work with a strong mentor
in the area of research
because they understand
that this is going
to be a stepping stone to
getting into the work force.
So I'll tell you another
program that we run.
This is now at the graduate
level and it synergizes
with research centers
in the bay area.
So this program is funded
by the California Institute
of Regenerative Medicine
and it provides students
in our masters program
an opportunity to learn
about a cutting edge field,
which is stem cell biology.
So we only accept ten students
in this program each year
and they get the opportunity
to work with scientists
in our collaborating
institutions
which is UC Berkley,
UCSF, the Buck Center
for Regenerative
Medicine of Aging,
Children's Hospital,
Stanford University.
So these students are working
with premiere researchers
in the area.
They take classes at
San Francisco State
and then they spend the
majority of their time learning
about stem cell and
regenerative medicine.
We've had 50 students go
through this program so far
and every single one has
completed it successfully.
Some will go on to medical
school or graduate school.
Some enter the biotech
workforce.
Some become educations.
And in fact, one of our
talented students is now working
in the Center for Math
and Science Education teaching
stem cell biology classes
at San Francisco State.
The last effort I want
to talk about is--
oh, actually here's
another slide.
It shows you a little
bit, the components
of the stem cell
program where you have--
it's a two-year masters program
and I think I just
mentioned all the implements.
So the last thing I wanted to
mention is a broader effort
in the biology department.
We have over 2,000
students in our program.
And as much as we would
like to give each one
of these students a tailored
opportunity to do research
with a faculty member,
it's beyond our capacity.
So another strategy
is to improve the way
that we teach science
in the classroom.
So this program is funded by the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
and the focus here is
to provide the latest,
greatest teaching advances to
our faculty and provide them
with the time and resource to
infuse it into their classrooms.
And the goal is that regardless
of the size of the classroom,
whether we're teaching
a 200 person classroom
or a 20 person classroom, that
we're going to bring innovation
into the classroom so the
students will all experience,
you know, hands-on,
inquiry based instructional
learning opportunities.
And so-- I think I did
it in four minutes.
All right.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> So we were hopeful
that Antwei Akom,
he's currently I believe
with some funders.
We're very hopeful he would
come in with bags of money,
but I've just found out
he won't be joining us.
So I think instead
we'll take a few minutes
of questions if there are any.
Yes.
>> I would just like to
know who Robert Noyce is.
>> You want to know
who Robert Noyce was.
>> Oh, okay.
>> I believe it is the
person who's made Seminole
contributions to
Silicon engineering, yes?
>> I just have a comment.
I wanted to thank you
because my kid's math teacher
in public school in San
Francisco is a graduate
of your program and she's shaken
up math at the whole school
and she's a brilliant teacher.
>> Oh, wow.
>> So thank you very much.
>> Wow. Fantastic.
Thank you for that comment.
[Inaudible]
>> Robert Noyce founded Intel.
>> I think he invented
a transistor which turns
out to be pretty important.
President?
>> You'd think the odds are
good that once the students move
through the process
that they'll stay here?
>> Oh, yes.
I'm staying.
>> Are you talking
about the teachers
and the stem cell
researchers, etcetera?
I can't speak about the
researchers but the teachers--
actually, this is
something we want
to work more closely
with the district on.
I mean, we have a lot of
excellent teachers coming out
and we want to make sure
that the ones who want
to stay here can be hired in
some kind of systematic way
and I don't think we're
quite in line right now.
Yes, sir.
>> How do you determine how
students are placed in terms
of the program [inaudible]?
>> Did you want to say
something about the process?
>> [Inaudible] the next one is
to actually identify teachers
who have worked with some
of the research things.
For example, Mia's placed
with a master teacher
at [inaudible] Valley Middle
School who's been a member
of the research community
and done actually research.
And so we're looking to find
mentors in these schools
who are really well aligned
with working in urban schools
and doing those kind of thing.
So the Noyce is a
much smaller group.
The overall [inaudible]
program is slightly different
in terms of placing them.
Again, we don't just
work with San Francisco.
We work with other districts in
the larger credential program.
I have 16 students right
now placed in schools
in San Francisco unified in
the East Bay and Berkley,
Albany and [inaudible]
city and [inaudible].
>> Thank you.
[inaudible].
>> Five years from now when
you look at what you're doing,
where would you like to
be with these programs?
What's your goal over time-- the
whole [inaudible] that you've--
>> Yeah, I think given
the demand, I would love
to see these programs grow.
I mean, the students
emerging from any
of the three programs I just
spoke are much more likely
to enter graduate
programs, enter biotech.
Most of the students who
enter the biotech company
after finishing [inaudible] make
more money at entering salary
than a starting salary as
a faculty member at state.
They do extremely,
extremely well.
So if we could just broaden it
to include just more students,
you know, that would
be wonderful.
>> Will it just take more
money or just more faculty or?
>> It's a combination
of both, right.
So it requires more resources
because it limits in faculty.
You can only take on so many
students in a research lab.
And then with added resources
the science itself is
very expensive.
So the supplies and things
that the students need in order
to conduct their research
requires funds as well.
>> This is also for the
Robert Noyce Program,
there is a phase two.
So I'd live to see five
years that we jump on
and get the second set because
we have the capacity here
with the Center for Science
and Math for phase two.
There's a second piece.
When you hear Robert
Noyce, you hear the name,
there's multiple Robert
Noyce portfolio grants.
And what I'd also like to
see happen is work with--
that we work more
with end-students--
end service teachers as a Robert
Noyce teacher fellow master
teaching grant to work
with getting the teachers
in the district [inaudible]
unified to work with us
to become master teachers,
support our student teachers
and also support them
in their own sense
of content pedagogy particularly
with new science centers
that are coming out right now.
So we're looking
at multiple things,
keeping the preservice
going then also expanding it
to in-service and
[inaudible] who are in schools.
>> Thank you.
>> Yes.
>> I wanted to throw in
the library element in this
because there's a lot
of wonderful data bases
so that students can do research
and find out what's been done
and if they have ideas
that are different
than what their mentor
has they can kind
of set out on their own.
So I wondered what
they're doing there.
>> I would say they
have to have access
to wonderful data
bases and resources.
And so moving towards online
resources has really expanded
some of the materials and
journals that are available.
The students who are
placed at the UC,
the range of information
they can get
at those libraries
far exceeds our own.
And so a lot of times
there's cross-pollination.
So the students can bring
in resources to our campus
through their connections
with all the other
universities in the area.
>> Do you have a mentor in the
library that can help them?
>> Well, Pam has been
a wonderful mentor.
In fact for the undergraduate
program, the summer program,
we have a training
session in the library
so that they can learn
how to use those resources
and Pam has led that
effort so thank you.
>> I don't even know you.
>> Barry, do you want
to say something?
>> I think we have time for
maybe two more questions.
Go ahead.
>> So my question's
about supply and demand.
Have you figured out whether
what you're doing is actually
commensurate with
what the demand is?
How do you know how to grow?
>> A deep question.
I mean, I would say first
of all there's different
kinds of demand.
So there's demand
by the students
to be part of the program.
And so far we're not close
to filling the demand
for these programs.
And then you're probably
talking about things
like producing teachers.
I'm not quite sure what
the answer to that is,
but I believe right now a
number of school districts are
in a position of not being able
to be as picky as they'd like to
about the teachers they hire.
And so I think it would be nice
if there was so much supply
of excellent teachers
that districts could really
hire in a very picky way.
>> I'll say one thing.
The demand for the teachers,
[inaudible] that piece,
is actually in the school
that to me is committed,
are not always [inaudible]
committed high-needs schools
that literally they get--
their scholarship is $10,000 a
year [inaudible] 290 schools.
Those schools cannot fill
their standard positions.
So that's the case
of going in there.
They-- it's actually
difficult so there is a demand
in the schools where
most of the need is.
All of the candidates that come
through [inaudible] right now,
if they want to teach science
and/or math in California
and they're willing
to move sometimes,
they will be doing so.
We're hitting that point where
there is a still a demand,
especially for high-qualified
thoughtful math
and science teachers
in the STEM.
So I don't see a
problem with any
of those program
finding positions--
so from that perspective.
>> This all sounds so wonderful.
I hate to bring up
something negative,
but with the federal
sequestration of funds
and you get federal funds,
is that eventually going
to be a problem and is that
something you're looking at?
>> Well, I think eventually
but right now the NSF grants
I believe will be fully-funded
and I--
>> Can I say something
from the federal level.
>> Yes.
>> I'm retired federal
statistician.
And I just wanted to
let you know that STEM--
to have our own children to
be involved is very critical
because when we look at--
in our competition globally,
right now from the federal
statistical systems,
from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics,
from the National Center
for Education Statistics,
the USA Bureau, we
cannot fill the positions.
We don't have enough of our--
because we need to
hire US citizens.
We don't have enough
of our kids.
And it's terrible because
now what we're doing at NIH
and NSF is bringing
in people from abroad
on three-year renewable
contracts.
And to us that's a real shame
when we should be hiring
our own [inaudible].
And so I worry about
the sequestration.
We got to do this.
We got to do it now.
And I'm so proud of
San Francisco State.
I'm an alumni.
>> Thank you.
I think we have time for
maybe one more question.
Yes.
>> So I may have misunderstood
the presentation, but it seems
to me that, you know, we
lose a lot of students early
on before they hit high school.
We lose their-- we lose them and
their interest in pursuing STEM.
And so while I think
it's really important
that we train high-qualified
and passionate science teachers
at the secondary level, I'm--
as a former elementary school
teacher, I've met too many who--
too many of my colleagues
who were afraid of math,
disinterested in science.
>> Thank you.
That's a good point.
If we had another 24 minutes,
I'd love to talk about some
of the elementary programs
that we're involved with.
But we have a partnership with
the district focusing on math
and also with science, so.
I think we are out of time.
So thank you all.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> The next panel
that I am pleased
to introduced is
STEM beyond the lab,
technology, community
and health.
This panel will address
how active
and interactive partnerships
with community residents,
with the medical
community in particular,
and also through good old
fashioned data crunching help us
to understand what works
to effect cures and
prevent disease.
The panel lead is Dr.
Cynthia Gomez, who is director
of San Francisco State's Health
Equity Institute, which focuses
on health equities and
disparities in our country
and particularly in the State of
California and the bay region.
Next to her is Professor
Christina Sabey [phonetic]
who is an associate professor
in communication studies
in the College of
Liberal and Creative Arts.
Next to her is Anoshiwa
[phonetic] Chowdery [phonetic],
an associate professor in
the economics department
of the College of Business.
And at the far end of the table
is Sean Gabelle [phonetic],
a senior undergraduate student
who is majoring in economics.
Cynthia.
>> Good afternoon.
President Wong, Mrs. Wong, I
hope you're enjoying your week.
Wonderful.
So I, you know, might
mention to my neighbor
that we're talking STEM today.
And sometimes they think
I'm talking maybe plants,
bicycles or cells.
So I try to explain, no, that's
not what we're talking about.
We are talking about science,
technology, engineering
and math.
But even within the
discipline of STEM, if you will,
it is often perceived as more of
the laboratory computer science
and not the broader agenda
of STEM, which is really
to create synergy
across disciplines
and really link what we're
doing to the broader society.
And so this panel is really
going to focus on that piece
and really talk a little
bit about applied sciences,
if you will, and how
we involve our students
with projects such as those.
So the typical version is, of
course, we have our academic,
the world of academia.
We prepare our students to
then be sent into the world
and we generate new knowledge,
we really build the skills
that we need in the
global society.
But at San Francisco State,
as I think you're hearing over
and over again, we
actually want it
to be a two-way situation
rather than one unidirectional.
And so we bring the
world to our students.
And really, it's making
sure that the education
that they're getting is in
the context of the real world
and that really allows them,
by the time they actually
graduate they are really
at the top of their fields
because they've been involved
in the actual application
of what they're studying.
And so there's something
very, very unique about that
and I can tell you as
a high school student,
that's what got me excited, was
to actually be around people
who were helping me understand
why what I was learning
actually mattered.
And so we see a lot of that
at San Francisco State.
Health Equity Institute
is one place
where we really try to do that.
We have been founded
as a transdisciplinary
institute at the university.
We bring together different
disciplines of the university
and we're trying to
link science to practice
to really achieve
better health for all.
Health and equities, you know,
have really been described
as things that are
really health differences
of what our systemic,
avoidable, unfair and unjust.
And so the purpose of our
institute is really to try
to combat those injustices and
really continue the real spirit
of equity and social
justice with the focus
on health specifically.
This is a sample of
some of the research
that our faculty are leading.
All of these projects have
student teams associated
with it.
It runs a variety of topic area.
And again, these are
really significant works
that are contributing to the
fields that they're a part of
and really, again,
towards the focus
of improving the health
of our communities.
I'm going to tell you a little
bit about one in particular.
Hope SF Housing Initiatives,
some of you may know
about this initiative.
This is an effort to transform
our public housing units
that have been really,
over time, dilapidated
and really falling apart
and really reconstruct them
and bring in new housing,
but not displacing anyone.
And what's been great about
our association with Hope SF is
that it's really an
opportunity again,
to bring together
students, faculty,
community for a common good.
In this project, which
our collaboration,
we call it the Health Equity
for Hope SF Collaboration,
began in 2011.
And it involves the actual
Hope SF Campaign or Hope,
the Department of Public Health,
the San Francisco Department
of Public Health, our institute
and the Department
of Health Education.
Importantly, what
we've been able to do
in this partnership is have
students, who are masters
and public health
students, do assessment
within public housing units with
the residents to try to find
out what their priorities in
achieving their public health
in their particular conditions.
The renovations of the
housing units are intended
to not only be physical
renovations,
but to include focuses
on health improvement,
education improvement and
workforce development.
We've had the great opportunity
to become the health pillar
for this movement, if you will,
that will take several years.
And so last year the
students had a chance
to really ask residents
about peer leadership.
Peer-to-peer health, is it going
to work in a public housing unit
to have peers be the educations
about health promotion?
So they went out and did
a series of assessments,
created great reports
that really started
to then inform what's really
going to be happening in terms
of programs that can be
implemented within these areas.
And then we also then
collaborated with the residents
and wrote a proposal
to NIH in hopes
that we will gain more
support and resources
to help them implement what they
want in their resident areas.
So it's really about meeting
people where they are,
seeing what they want
to do for themselves
and helping it happen.
The final piece which is
happening this semester is
really focused on mental
health, which is the second area
that the residents are really,
really wanting to improve.
And so we're working with
a group, again, of experts,
a group of students, and
together trying to come
up with what will
be the solutions
that can be implemented within
the public health settings.
So that's just an
example of how we're
in the real world
doing real work.
And our students, again, are
walking out really knowing how
to do things that they'll be
doing in a position, in a job,
and they've already
been doing them.
So it's very, very exciting.
Finally, I'm just going to
say about the institute,
that we also have documentaries
for social justice and health,
students in cinema and in
other health areas get together
and develop a documentary
in collaboration
with a community-based
organization.
I encourage you to take
a look at our website.
We have over 30 documentaries
at this point.
They're available
free of charge.
They're really meant
for communities
to use them for dialog.
And again, it's another
way in which students
across disciplines get together
and impact their
own communities.
So that's an example.
I am going to now
move to Christina
to talk about In Touch.
[ Applause ]
>> One of the nice things
about getting beyond the lab,
especially with younger people,
is sometimes it's just playing
around with the science
and playing
around with the technology
that gets people involved.
So over the past couple of
years I've been working with one
of the faculty from the health
equity institute on a project
that we're calling In Touch,
which is getting high school
students more involved
in using a mobile
device to help them
with their own health
management goals.
I probably don't have to tell
you about the extreme epidemic
of obesity that our country is
seeing, where every year more
and more children are
heavier and heavier.
We see a lot of health
effects because of it.
And so what we looked
into was thinking
about how do we meet the
challenges for especially youth
that are-- find themselves
in low-income status
that are obesity or overweight
and that are also dealing
with feelings of
anxiety and depression
which are often associated with
that particular health problem.
We discover that trying
to meet their needs
through technology was going
to be specifically challenging
because of their
low income status.
They often didn't have access
to computers, smart phones,
technology, things like that.
Also, youth that feel sick--
or youth that are obese
or overweight don't feel sick.
They don't realize that
they have some specific sort
of condition or concern
and the hospital
or medical model isn't
important to them.
It's not appropriate.
They don't go see a
doctor or a nurse.
So how do we get them involved?
In realizing that we had
really a lack of tools to reach
out to those patients,
and also noticing
that this was a real
communication issue,
particularly youth who are not
talking to healthcare providers.
We worked on this project
to make this what we
call-- let's try this one.
Sorry. My slide is not changing.
Well, what we we're calling
For Youth By Youth specifically
to look into how we could
make that work for youth.
And so we created a
youth advisory board,
which made up of San Francisco
State students and students
around the bay area,
looking into different ways
that they could use
technology to try
to manage their own
weight problems.
We brought their recommendations
into the field and worked
with Mission High School and
the San Francisco Unified School
District to try to get
students using applications
on smart phones to get them to
help manage their own weight
and notice different things
about their daily living.
In do that, we actually found
we had a lot of success.
We did employ health
coaches, which were people
that we trained to help those
high school students use the
technology to become
familiar with it,
to record things
about themselves.
And we were very
happy with the results
of that particular
project getting involved
in the high schools
with our own people.
So over the course of the next
couple of years our plan is
to really expand to
this pilot project,
to start training our own
San Francisco State students,
to get them in there helping
our high school students learn a
little bit more about
social media and technology
and how they can use that
to really help themselves
in their own health situations,
and finding out that those
students really learn
about a lot of opportunities
that they otherwise
might not have.
And so we've been
really happy with that.
I am unsure how to get the
slide to-- [inaudible].
Let's see.
The escape button
wasn't working for me.
>> So it's frozen.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> [Inaudible] and many
times I get this question,
what the heck is
health economics?
And I believe that we
can go beyond the lab
and make STEM education more--
strengthen STEM education
by having people--
having these students use
their scientific approach look
at the world around them and
analyze policy and be able
to evaluate the real world
and think outside the box
and become better policy makers,
better innovators as well
as be more informed
advocates and activists.
So what do we do in health
economics and what do we do
in the social sciences and
the business education?
It's going to focus on two
main things, to look at jobs
and something that
everybody's talking about.
You may have seen the
latest Time Magazine,
that devoted the entire
issue on cost of health care.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you, Sean.
So I wanted to point-- I wanted
to point you to this slide.
During the period of 2007-2009
which we now call the great
recession, we're looking
at the label market, the entire
manufacturing sector was losing
jobs and what-- which were the
sectors that were gaining jobs.
You see the ones in blue,
these are mostly
healthcare and education.
And more than 50
percent of sectors
that were gaining jobs
were all in health care
and I've listed these.
So this is where our, you know,
future work force is
going to get into.
The second thing that I
wanted to point out is
in the United States my little
[inaudible] didn't come up
but you-- all of you may
have, or if you haven't,
pick up the Time
Magazine from last week.
It's really an interesting read
that talks about what's going
on with cost in health
care in the United States.
And I want to point you
to these two graphs.
The one on the left shows that
health spending is a share
of GDP has been steadily
increasing in the United States
and how do we compare
with the rest
of the other countries
that spend the most?
If you look on the
right, US is way up there
and everyone else is, you
know, trailing far behind
with OS80 is the
average right here.
This is the average of
all the western countries.
And US seems to be
spending the most.
Why is this so?
What are we spending on?
We pay more than everyone
else on everything that we get
in the healthcare sector.
Does that mean that
we provide more care?
Well, evidence is mixed on that.
We definitely get more
MRI scans, more CT scans,
more knee replacements,
more angioplasty's
but we have less physicians,
we have less hospital beds,
we have lower hospital
stays compared to everyone
in these other western
countries.
So how does this
impact our students?
Well, there's the negative
side as well as opportunity.
I'm going to quickly go
through the negative side,
but I also talk about
the opportunity
for students in their sector.
So healthcare is
getting less affordable.
It's creating inequities.
It's creating higher
drop out rates.
It's creating less
disposable income for students
who go on and get jobs.
More and more proportion
of their income is getting
spent on health care.
But this also means
opportunities.
If we can think outside the
box and innovate to reduce cost
of health care, this is where
our STEM education is going
to get us more bang
for our buck.
I'm going to quickly talk
about, what is health economics
and how would this
help students?
These are some of the things
that we do in health economics.
We try to understand the
US health care system
and compare it to other
health care delivery systems
around the world.
And more so we evaluate health
outcomes, evaluate impacts
of policies and programs
and help people
to understand the world around
them and analyze it better.
What I'm going to do next year
is have my economic students not
do a data project just
being in the classroom.
But actually, I'm going to
get them out in the community,
partner with community agencies
and have them do
the data analysis
with the community
agency to get them
to get the real world experience
as well as feel the ownership
that they're making a
difference in the community,
at the same time learning a
good real world application.
I'm going to now
introduce Sean Gavel,
my student in health economics,
and as of this weekend,
this is March and he's
going to graduate in May
and he's already got placed
to Deutsche [phonetic] Bank
and he will be placed in Manila.
[ Applause ]
>> Okay. So hello.
My name is Sean Gavel.
And I'm, of course, econ major
and today I'll be presenting
to you health and the student.
The reason my health
is so important,
especially for STEM is
because that when we--
we're the product of whatever
all of you professors teach us.
But however, if we're let's
say obese or have some type
of health-- imposed
health defect,
then that knowledge
we have will end
up burning out within 3o years.
And what's the point of teaching
when the knowledge
isn't fully utilized.
So as an example, here is me.
As you can see, before economics
you can say I was undeclared.
I had a major but it
was really undeclared.
And on the right side
it was pre-economics.
I was 250 pounds and on the left
side it was actually exactly a
year later was-- I
was 170 pounds and--
yeah, this didn't mean to
become a Subway Jared talk.
But what the point
is that in general,
all of us are connected
to each other.
Everyone here is connected
and any choice we make
actually affect each other.
Oh. So and on top of
that, as I stated before,
there's some type
of obesity crisis.
I actually-- 24 million
Americans now have diabetes
and that will come at a great
cost later in our nation.
So what caused this was
actually our friend,
the United States
government back in the 1930s,
which created subsidies for
the fork farmers, for corn
and soy beans which later
down the line actually
produce hydrogenated fats
and high fructose corn
syrup which can be found
in all of our food products.
So the thing about high
fructose corn syrup is
that when we eat it,
we don't stop eating.
It doesn't release a chemical
that actually tells us hey,
you're eating too much.
You're going to get sick later.
So what happens,
coupled along with our--
what we do during our leisure
time, and believe it or not,
we actually have
four extra hours
of leisure time compared
to 1970.
So as a economist theory--
it's hard to believe, but yeah.
So as a economist theory is
that because it tastes better,
because it's cheaper and because
we do less with our time,
as students we become more
sickly, we become less likely
to go to class because,
you know, we're sick
or too lazy to get out of bed.
And so it actually ends
up rally being a detriment
to the student body as a whole.
But I would like to
propose something to you,
President Wong, in order to help
students-- all these students,
and actually even everyone here.
We students are a product
of what you guys teach us.
Everything you do we actually
internalize and keep on doing
that throughout our school time.
So down the line I would really
like to see SF State
become a hydrogenated-free
and a high fructose corn syrup
free campus so that the health
of the student body as
a whole will increase.
Also--
[ Applause ]
>> Also I would really like
that everyone here would talk
to their students
and really say that,
you know, yeah, study hard.
Do what you got to do to really
understand and internalize
that knowledge but make sure
you take care of yourself first
because last week I was actually
hospitalized and now I'm like--
everything was like pushed back
and I'm still trying
to play catch up, so.
And everyone knows when you're
sick you can't produce as much
and that is my presentation.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
We'll take a couple
of questions.
Any questions?
Yes.
>> There was an interesting
study done about 15 years ago
about why students don't
complete their doctoral degrees.
And a surprisingly
high percentage
of the reasons was poor health
and that really surprised me.
>> Wow.
>> Yes, President Wong.
>> [Inaudible] we are
[inaudible] food sources
to on the campus so
your first wish is
on its way to being granted.
The second one is that I did
sponsor a 5K run yesterday.
>> Yes, you had a
beautiful day for it.
>> I was looking around the room
to see how many people
were there.
Everyone's [inaudible].
I wish I did in fact run.
>> Great. Yes?
>> I was curious on
the health issues,
both your equity project,
health equity project in terms
of the health services
in San Francisco Unified School
District, do you have a link
with the school nurses and
other health practitioners
in the district [inaudible].
>> We work very closely
with a school nurse
at Mission High School and
who was very interested
in referring us toward
other school nurses
who heard about the project.
So yes, I don't think you
can do a project like that
without having a
link [inaudible].
>> Absolutely.
Many of our school-based
projects,
we depend on the
district nurses and others
that are working
closely with us.
>> They just got the
contract from [inaudible].
>> Right.
>> Yes.
>> Great.
>> Just a quick question for you
because [inaudible]
just left Michigan.
Detroit Public Schools conducted
a very large study of nutrition,
etceteras and actually found
out that one of the problems is
that the African
American families
that comprise the majority
of Detroit Public Schools had
the least access to stores
that even sold healthy--
>> We have a very similar
problem in San Francisco.
>> That was my question.
>> Yeah, and we-- part of
the health coach's job,
in addition to sort of helping
the students track their own
sort of observations
of daily living--
I'm sorry, observations of daily
living and helping them figure
out what was going
on in their life was
to help them identify those
issues and try to come
up with different ways that they
might get around those issues
for now because we can't
solve the systemic problem
at this point, although I
believe there are many other
people kind of focusing no that.
But our health coaches, along
with different tracking,
were able to help those students
try to figure out, you know,
are there different places in
the city that they can exercise,
are there different methods for
them to obtain healthy food,
Revolution Foods, I imagine--
this is before Revolution Foods,
but I think that will
really make a big difference
because that's an
important contract too.
>> Well, [inaudible]
must be doing something
to get grocery stores
and [inaudible].
>> Actually working very hard
with food security issues
and also the exercise issues.
You know, Sunday Streets is
something San Francisco State is
very involved in, bringing
exercises into communities.
So we're trying to
make it happen.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> One last question.
>> It's more of a comment.
>> Please.
>> I was wondering if
working with the students
at San Francisco State, if
you're also encouraging them
to take advantage of the
amazing rec health classes.
I mean, there's so many yoga
classes and wonderful classes
that are available to
students that a lot
of students don't seem to
know about and it's available
to faculty and staff and a
lot of people don't know.
And so in terms of balance, I
think that's really [inaudible]
to let people know about and
also about the arts events
and the arts facilities that we
have on campus because I would
like to see this referred
to as [inaudible].
>> There you go.
>> [Inaudible] is a very
big proponent of [inaudible]
into this whole equation and
I just think on campus we have
so many resources for
health and for the arts
to make more well-balanced
[inaudible].
>> Absolutely.
And again, the documentary
of course is a great
example of that.
But our hope is that we become
models for ourselves, right,
we start with our own healths,
try to get our own health
in-- more 5K runs maybe.
Thank you very much.
>> Can I just make
a quick comment
about the classes offered?
I actually took that yoga class
you were talking about and I had
to crash it too and I was
twentieth in line and just
by randomness I got picked to
actually go into the class.
And I convinced many
of my friends
to take those health
classes, the workout classes.
And what's interesting even this
semester, which is a lot better
than when I was in
sophomore year, they still had
to crash those same classes.
There's a huge demand
for it, or well,
that's my personal
experience, but they're not able
to get in at two of them--
>> These are not, like, classes
that you sign up for for credit.
These are just [inaudible]
rec see.
The Department of
Rec [inaudible].
I go to yoga classes and there's
five or six people there.
>> Okay.
>> So I think that
there's like a missing link
of communication there
about, they're not classes
that you sign up for for credit.
They're classes that you
take just outside of that.
>> Oh, okay.
>> In addition to.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Our final panel this
afternoon will also stimulate
considerable discussion I know.
This panel is called
Education Equity,
science for the social good and
preparing the next generation
of STEM leaders, the Metro
Academy's Initiative.
Metro Academy is, for those
of you who are not familiar
with it, is a partnership
between the Departments
of Health Education at San
Francisco State University
and City College
of San Francisco.
It's a two-year program
that focuses on retaining
and graduating underrepresented
low income
and first generation
college students.
You'll recognize those
adjectives as correlated
with some of the other issues
we have been discussing,
particularly on the last panel.
The program uses numerous high
impact practices supported
by research to benefit student
learning and these include,
learning communities, tutoring,
extra academic counseling
and electronic portfolios to
exhibit student's new skills.
Students receive one-on-one
support from faculty
and construct individual
education pads
with an academic counselor.
The lead for this panel
is Dr. Mary Beth Love,
who is the co-principal
investigator
of the Metro Academy's
Initiative and she's also chair
and Professor of Health
Education in the College
of Health and Social Sciences
at San Francisco State.
To her right is Dr. Savita
[phonetic] Mallick [phonetic],
the Director of Curriculum
and Faculty Development
for the Metro Academies
in the College
of Health and Social Sciences.
Immediately next to
her is Marilyn Thomas,
the STEM coordinator for
the Metro Academy of Health
and a San Francisco State
graduate student working
on a master's degree
in public health.
And at the far end of the table
is Arye [phonetic] Buendia
[phonetic], a senior
undergraduate student
who is majoring in
health education.
Welcome, Mary Beth
and the panel.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> President Wong and
Mrs. Wong, I really want
to extend a warm welcome to you
to not only a wonderful
university
but a wonderful university
in a wonderful city.
And I'm entering my twenty-sixth
year at San Francisco State
and I'm thrilled and delighted
at the new energy
you're bringing to campus
and we're really
happy to have you.
So welcome.
I hope this week is
very rewarding for you.
Our goal today is to talk to you
about the metro economy
initiative.
And to begin, we are going to
present you with a overview
of the Metro Academy,
which is a partnership
between San Francisco
State and City College.
And it is a redesign
of the first two years
of higher education,
both at the City College
and at San Francisco State.
I'm very proud of
the work we're doing
because I think it's
really important.
Most of the students in
those two institutions,
in those two tiers of education
are students who we need--
we need, we need as a
country, we need as a democracy
and they deserve the
very best from us as far
as public higher education.
And so I'm very proud of the
work that's going on both
at City College and at San
Francisco State in general,
but particularly in the work
that mostly my colleagues
helped make happen.
There are three academies
right now
which house about 500 students.
We do have one in the
broad area of health.
So they're broad career-themed.
The other one is in early
childhood development.
And the third is in science
technology, engineering
and math, in STEM, which is
why we were invited here today.
We're now in our fourth
year so we do have seniors
who are graduating this
year, which is quite unusual.
It usually takes six years.
We're hoping to cut down on that
time through this intervention.
And also we want to
share with you our plans
for the next five years
and we were lucky enough
to be awarded a grant that is
going to help us to do that.
But to begin with I want to talk
first about why in this election
and the last I wanted the buy
line to be, it's education,
stupid, because we
have a problem.
And if you look at
this graph you can see
when comparing the 34
countries in the organization
for economic cooperation
and development,
that is those countries who
are considered high income
or developed countries, the
US ranks number four, not bad,
four, with 41 percent of our
citizens between the ages of 24
and 64 who have at
least a two-year degree.
Oh, now this is going
to upset me.
How come this isn't
going, Mark-- Eric?
Where's Eric?
I have my computer.
You want to hook mine up?
Okay.
>> Good.
>> There. All right.
Now, here's the next one.
However, when you look
at the world standing,
our world standing, it's
weaker for younger students.
Those who are the next
generation of leaders
in the United States, who we
all know face a more competitive
and more complicated world,
when ranked against fellow OECD
countries, we fall to fifteenth
in the percentage
of young adults
who have a post-secondary
education with Caria, Ireland,
Norway, New Zealand, England,
Australia, Denmark, Luxemburg,
France, Israel, Belgium
and Sweden outstripping us.
Now watch this.
When we take another view of
data, which is very compelling
and of great concern,
we are near the bottom
of intergenerational progress.
The difference between
adults, you and me over 55
who have a post-secondary
education
when public education
was supported in the way
that it should be, and the
percentage of young people
between the ages of 25 and
34 who are buried in debt
to get a higher education,
we see that we have fallen
to nearly the bottom
on this listing.
So what this means--
this is a product
of American exceptualism,
our belief that we're
on top just because.
We're on top because we
invested in our citizens
and we had the first
public education well funded
in the world.
What this is telling us is
everybody else is funding while
we are disinvesting--
big problem.
It is why it's so important.
It's why having you as
members of our community here
to support is-- San
Francisco State, the CSU,
the community college, our
students get stellar education
and they graduate with less debt
but because of where we are now,
we really need a lot of help
from our communities
to make this happen.
So it is not only
an economic issue,
it is important for
our democracy.
It's important to have
engaged, well-educated citizens
to make decisions about
how we spend our resources
and about the equitable
distribution of our resources.
So I'm going to turn the podium
over now to Marilyn Thomas,
who's running our STEM
program and is a product
of the science cozy college
at San Francisco State.
And she's going to talk to you
about the economic
argument [inaudible].
>> Thank you, Mary Beth.
Now you guys know why
she's one of my Sheroes.
I've got some heroes, but she's
one of Shera's [phonetic].
Okay, thank you.
So it is an economic
issue, right.
So a report issued by the
president's council of advisors
on science and technology
concluded
that if the United States is
to maintain our historic
preeminence in the STEM fields
and at the same time
gain the social, economic
and national security benefits
that come with that preeminence,
they we're going
to have to produce
about a million STEM
workers in the next decade.
So in addition to that,
Georgetown University Center
on Education and the Workforce
predicts that 92 percent
of STEM workers will need
post-secondary education
by 2018.
So in addition to that,
65 percent of STEM job
openings will require
at least a bachelor's
degree, at least a bachelor's.
And we're not really addressing
the 35 percent of jobs
that will require
an associate degree
or a certification of some kind.
So it is an economic issue.
And in addition to that, it's a
retention and graduation issue.
So 60 percent of students
who enter college with a goal
of majoring or graduating with
a science degree and graduating
with a non-STEM degree, and
what's even more significant is
that women and minorities are
the most under represented
in the fields of science,
in the STEM, science,
technology, engineering
and math.
So we have an idea of
what's causing this trend.
So as mentioned before by
Eric Souix and Mr. Blakeman,
the first two years are a really
leaky pipeline at university.
We lose about 40 percent
of our first-time freshmen
in that first two years.
In fact, when we studied all of
the black and Latino students
that entered San Francisco
State declaring a science major
and followed them until 2011,
only one, one student graduated
with a degree in STEM.
So there's, you know,
there's a lot
of contributing factors
for that.
One is the lack of preparedness.
So we're finding
that remediation is an
issue for our students.
About 57 percent of the students
that enter San Francisco
State require remediation
for math and science.
And remediation just means
it's not college-level.
They're not ready for
college-level math and science
so they have to take these
remedial courses before they can
take the college-level courses
and those courses don't
offer college credit.
So that's impactful.
In addition to that,
students feel like they are
on a solo journey within
those first two years.
So we know that general
education is very,
very important for
well-rounded scientists
and professionals in all fields.
However, lower division
courses are multidisciplinary
and they're not interconnected
so you're not sharing
those classes with students
that show the same
interests and majors as you.
So that leaves students feeling
disconnected from each other
and from the university.
And we know that community, a
sense of community is, you know,
especially on campus, it really
does increase student engagement
and retention.
So another issue that impacts
retention is insufficient
academic support.
So as mentioned, you know,
the State of California is
digressing, disinvesting,
and one of the things
is the academic support.
So we are 49th in
counselor to student ratio,
the State of California is,
and at San Francisco State we
serve a little over 26,000,
almost 26,000 undergraduate
students.
And our advisor to student
ratio is 1 to 2,000.
So that's significant.
And finally our students to tend
to spend a more limited
time on campus.
You know, San Francisco
State is a commuter school.
Our students live
very complicated lives
and we know that, right.
They're, you know,
they're parents.
They're full-time workers.
They have families.
And sometimes they come
to school and as soon
as their class is out,
they're gone to go take care
of their personal business.
So that can also leave
students feeling very, you know,
a weaker sense of community and
social support on their campus.
So our mission at the Metro
Academy's initiative is
listed here.
But we understand that
learning really happens
when students are
engaged with the material.
So here is our mission.
Our mission is to increase
equity in college completion
through engaging,
supporting, rigorous
and socially relevant education.
So I'm going to hand it
over to Dr. Savita Mallick
and she's going to
give you a little bit
of an overview about
our program.
[ Applause ]
>> Thanks, Marilyn.
So our program is a school
within a school basically.
We're trying to make San
Francisco State just a little
bit smaller for our students.
We serve 140 students
every year in the program
and it's a long-duration
learning community.
Many of you may know the
learning community literature,
you make this school
a little bit smaller,
you give students
linked courses,
you give them a little bit
more support, they're going
to do bettering their classes
overall, even the classes
that are not the learning
community classes.
So this sequence that's
up here exists both
at City College and at SF State.
And you'll see that
there's courses
that they're taking
simultaneously
over the course of two years.
They take a critical thinking
course their first semester
that's linked with a first
year experience class.
And that class gets the
acclimated to the university,
tells them all the amazing
services that we have
at San Francisco State,
gets them acclimated,
gets them around.
And that's linked to a
critical thinking class
that students have
to take anyway.
One really important
piece of this,
every class that they take rings
up for graduation
and/or transfer if you're
at the community college.
So everything they take is
useful, it's meaningful,
it moves them towards
their bachelors degree.
The curriculum's really
structured and sequenced.
So students, when they first
come in, we have an expectation
of how they're going to write
when they first come
into our program.
By semester four, we have
a different expectation.
We expect that after four
semesters of doing this work,
you're going to be writing
at a different level
than when you came in, and
that's across the board
in both the learning
community classes.
Same thing with critical
thinking.
We think you're going
to be a different kind
of critical thinker two
years in than you would be
when you first start
our program.
You can see the four skills
that are across the top.
Those are individual
courses that are requirements
for graduation and transfer,
but they're also really critical
skills in the workforce today.
We need students that are
able to critically think
and solve problems on the job.
We need them to be able to
communicate effectively,
in teams and in the public.
We need them to be able to
write well and we need them
to have a basic quantatitive
math literacy before
moving forward.
We also, as Mary Beth mentioned,
integrate our support services
into our classrooms, which
is a little different.
It meets the need that
Marilyn was suggesting
about commuter students.
If we're not addressing them
in the classroom,
we're losing them.
So we have academic
counselors that come
in that do education plans
with each of our students.
We have a financial aid
counselor that comes in
and makes that personal contact
with our students that says,
hey, you have a problem
with financial aid?
Come talk to me.
Here's my name.
Here's my contact information.
Our students are much
more likely to go
and receive services
once they've met her.
And as Mary Beth mentioned,
we also have e-portfolios
as a really integral
part of what we do.
With all the focus on
student learning outcomes both
with the common core in K-12
and now in higher education,
we really need to know, are we
doing what we say we're doing?
Are we assessing-- we need to
assess our students but we want
to assess them holistically
not just
through test scores,
not just through GPA.
Are they really gaining
the learning outcomes
that we really think
that they're getting
in our classrooms?
One other piece of this
program that's really important,
and it's especially
important to me.
I just finished my dissertation
on the faculty learning
community
in the metro academies.
It's a piece of this
that if we're
in a learning community
with students.
We have to also address
the faculty development
of what we're doing.
Faculty have to be
trained to teach better.
Why? Because they aren't.
We're content experts.
We get doctoral degrees
in our content.
We don't necessarily get
training on how to teach
when we enter higher education.
And so having this community
of faculty, they come together.
They work on teaching practices.
There's a deep analysis
on active learning.
How do you interact
with your classes?
Engaged teaching strategies, a
lot of what Eric was mentioning
that Kimberly Tanner does we're
doing with our education faculty
across the board in our
seven disciplines as well.
So you're seeing kind of an
interaction with faculty,
both at the community college
and at the four-year
and that's unusual.
They're having conversations
across institutions as well.
How do we make our
teaching practice better?
Your teaching common at
the community college.
I'm teaching it at four-year.
What are you doing?
What am I doing?
How do we make that work
better for our students?
And ultimately, it benefits
our students and it leads
to greater student success.
I'm going to turn it back
over to Marilyn a minute
and she's going to talk
to you a little bit
about how we engage our
students in the classrooms.
>> Thank you, [inaudible].
>> It's me again.
Okay. So a really
important component
of what we do is we strength
classroom engagement--
did we flip that?
Yes. Through interactive
learning with relevant material,
the curriculum's engaging
because it's relevant to--
it meets the students
where they are.
So each course is infused
with real world content.
For example, students learn to
make graphs by using public,
and it's real, public health
data bases about things going
on within their own
neighborhoods,
their own communities.
And then they can write a
letter to the editor about it,
you know, that kind of thing.
And in Metro STEM what we do
is we infuse the material with,
you know, topics that are really
relevant for science majors.
You know, an example of
that would be reading,
or researching rather,
individuals or communities
or organizations
that are, you know,
leading the current development
in scientific innovation
but in their specific
field of interest.
So it's really relevant and
they're really engaged in it.
And again, as mentioning
before, some of the challenges
that students face with the
multidisciplinary nature
of the lower division courses.
And our students can work
together to support each other
through that first two years.
So it's very impactful.
And again, you know, we believe
that our program, of course,
you know, would benefit
anyone at university.
But our program targets the
students that we are most likely
to lose and those are our low
income students, our students
who are the first generation in
their family to attend college,
and of course, underrepresented
minorities.
And so we're really
fortunate today to have
with us one of our students.
This is a Metro Academy student
who will be graduating
this year.
And she would like to share
her experience with all of you.
So it's my pleasure to
introduce [inaudible].
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
Thank you.
So my name is [inaudible]
and I am a fourth year health
education graduating senior.
I'm so happy that I made
it within four years.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
Thank you.
So I also want to share a
little bit about my experiences
in the Metro Health
Program because well,
I am a first generation woman
in my family to go to college.
I am Latino.
And what was the other one?
I am a minority.
So as the statistics
were clearly against me,
but I managed to almost complete
my degree and that's partly due
to the experiences that
I had within Metro.
So there is more [inaudible]
program [inaudible] students
to form relationships
with each other
and really form support
groups and go to each other
and be there for each other.
Even though I commuted all
my four years from Berkley
to SF State, I managed to know
what was going on on campus,
where the financial
aid office was,
where the consultant services
was, even more than the students
that actually lived near
campus, which is-- or on campus.
So I always thought that
it was just a coincidence
but no, it wasn't.
It was because of Metro.
Like, Metro really
helped me with even
in my first semester
get to know my teachers,
like have the confidence
and support to go to them,
ask them questions during
office hours or email
or even during lecture.
I think one of my most memorable
experiences with asking support
for teachers was in my
biology class with Dr. Tanner.
I actually ask her-- she was
going through the photosynthesis
and carbon cycle lecture.
And I raised my name and I was
like, can plants get diabetes?
And she was like, I don't think
she expected that question.
And she kindly replied,
you should email me
about this question.
And I did and she said, she sent
me this really complex article
about why plants
don't get diabetes.
And just in case you don't know,
it's because they process
sugars a little bit differently
than we do.
So-- which I was very thankful
because I clearly
didn't know that.
So, but you know, having
the confidence to ask her
in the middle of lecture when
many of my peers sitting next
to me didn't-- they
have questions
but they never had the
courage to ask her.
I think that was one of
the other things that I got
from Metro, having the
confidence to really do so
and going-- and I go to my
teachers and critically think
about all this concepts like,
okay, she's talking about sugars
but what does it really mean in,
like, a grater, broader aspect.
And so within that, like,
I managed to build
different relationships,
not just with my
biology teachers
and my science teachers, but
also with other disciplines
like hospitality and management.
And now I'm a TA for one
of the teachers this
semester [inaudible ]
I'm graduating.
And also, like, building
close relationships
with my major teachers
and faculties, so.
But really, like, Metro really
emphasized that, that there is--
there really isn't--
there shouldn't be, like,
a very big bridge between
teachers and faculty but rather,
like, push to really talk
to faculty and, like,
get them to talk to us
about other questions
that we might have.
And so, but another
focus for Metro was focus
on social justice and,
like, critical thinking.
Like, not just having
a class in the sciences
or in health education as
my major, but really, like,
answering the questions, how
can I contribute to better--
how can I contribute
to-- in order--
to society in order to
change how disparities
as a person of color graduating?
You know, those are
really big questions
that no grade can
provide or give you.
So and really thinking
about concepts like,
those type of concepts,
you know.
So I really understood
why that was important--
why it was important to
take the Metro core as part
of my general education because
when I was taking the classes,
not just from Metro, but like
the other required CE [phonetic]
classes, I had no idea
why I had to take them.
I was like-- and then
later on I understood.
Oh, I had to take them
because it was, like,
time management skills, studying
skills and having the confidence
to talk to other
teachers and that's--
that's really like the main
part of the Metro Program,
really getting students like
me to succeed in college.
And I think I'm very-- I don't
think, I know, I'm very indebted
to the Metro Health Program
for a really stimulating
college experience.
I don't think I would have gone
through my whole
college experience
without their help and support.
And even now, I'm still
getting support from them.
And with that, like,
I cannot say
that I know all the answers--
that I know all the answers.
On the contrary, I'm
left with more answer,
but I think I have a whole
lifetime to answer them.
And I want to congratulate
Dr. Wong
and welcome him to
the SFU community.
It's a very diverse community
and I think you'll
have fun with us.
And I will turn it on to Savita
for more exciting data on Metro.
[ Applause ]
>> So we're getting
ready to get the hook.
So I'm just going
to kind of blow
through a little bit of this.
If you have more
questions about our data,
there's actually a sheet in
your pocket that you can look
at that's got a little bit
more of that information.
So we're serving our
target population.
These next two slides,
again, I'm just going
to move through them quickly.
We are serving who
we say we are.
It's in your pocket.
We are also, our
students are doing well.
They're persisting and
we're retaining them
and hopefully we'll have
some data actually at the end
of this semester on how quickly
we're graduating them as well
out of San Francisco State
since this is our first cohort--
[inaudible] is part of the
first cohort of four-year grads.
Quick mention of City College,
we're doing similarly
well at City College.
We are transferring
students at a higher rate
than the institution as a whole.
And again, we're
more cost efficient.
And again, I can
answer some questions
for you a little bit more
about this at the end.
I'm going to turn
it back to Mary Beth
for the last final words.
>> You know, why Metro
works, we said these things.
It's really nationally known.
This is self-evident.
I will say that we, the cost
study we did with Jane Wellman,
who is one of Obama's major
consultants on college class
and she presented with us
when we were in Washington.
The marginal additional cost
for Metro Academy
per student is $660.
That is, like, miniscule
compared
to what we can save
both the state
and the students moving
them through more quickly.
We are privileged
and so grateful
that we have this Strengthening
Institutions Program grant.
It's a title three grant
which will allow us
to offer the Metro Academy model
to all low income students,
or 25 percent of the
low income students.
And we need you and you
and all of the leaders
at San Francisco State.
We are putting together a tool
kit because our intention is
to disseminate so that other
places can easily do what we do
more without the startup.
And I will say, really I
think San Francisco State
and City College,
California educates one
in eight college
students in the country.
We have 25 percent of all the
community college students
in the country that are
in community colleges are
in community colleges
in California.
And 75 percent of the young
people in this state are Latina.
So if we don't get better
at doing what we need to do
for the students that we're
serving our, again our democracy
and our economy is at risk.
So thank you very much
for your attention.
And Steph, do we have time
for a question or two?
We don't. Okay.
So thank you very much
and you have information.
>> Thank you.
>> Well, a big thank you
to all of our panelists
for their great presentations
today.
Please join me in thanking them.
And I'd like to open
up the floor
to additional questions
or comments.
So I'd ask all the
panelists to come up here
and we'll take a few
minutes for that.
Robert?
>> So last year San Francisco
State required [inaudible]
status [inaudible] under
serving institution status.
So what steps is the university
taking towards acquiring HSI
status because we've
reached the magic 25 percent
Hispanic population.
And so I think it would be
really good to pursue HSI status
through purchasing [inaudible].
>> Right. Well first
I'm going to say
that there is reaching the
status with our numbers
and then receiving the status
from the federal government,
which is a slightly
different designation.
And the data usually lags at
least a year, if not more,
in my understanding of that.
But I would defer
to my colleague,
Jay Lon Turnkan [phonetic],
who has really looked
into this extensively
because those grants come
through that office.
And so Jay Lon.
>> [Inaudible] for
the Metro Academy
for strengthening
institution program funding
[inaudible] greatly.
We did get [inaudible]
five designation last year
from the federal government
that makes us eligible
for the title [inaudible]
funding.
And one of the results of
that was, Mary Beth jumped
into [inaudible] and was able
to get [inaudible] grant.
During the period of the
[inaudible] grant we're unable
to apply for funding,
title five funding.
But we should start
preparing right now
because we've gotten very close,
if not we're over the goal
of achieving HSI enrollments
and it's right now that we need
to start thinking about
preparing proposals
to the Department of Education
so we can get the HSI funding.
>> I would mention also
that with the SIP grand we
receive certain benefits
for work study students
and that we don't have
to pay our part for that.
So it benefits the
entire campus on that.
Other questions?
Yes.
>> All right.
I just wanted to mention that
there's actually a task force
on campus [inaudible] faculty
and staff that have been looking
at the HSI for over two years.
[inaudible].
Great. So we're setting
infrastructure for that.
So we'll be [inaudible].
>> Thank you very much.
>> [Inaudible] wonderful,
wonderful program.
How have the use of technology,
especially in addressing
the issue
of [inaudible] relation
[inaudible] and the use
of social media, specifically
targeting social media
so the students can take these
classes and also membership,
membership of the faculty
[inaudible] a student based
on [inaudible] technology.
This way would be addressing
the issue of [inaudible]
from my own experience
email [inaudible].
I got a whole nother [inaudible]
set up students [inaudible]
and I get text from everybody.
>> Yeah, so I'll address that
just a little bit about Metro.
I know actually-- I'm
glad that she's here
because she's grinning at
me because she actually came
into my office last week and
she said, you need to do more.
You need to more at
Metro with social media.
Well, how come you're
not doing this?
We have a Facebook group,
we have a Twitter account
that we're using
for the program.
As far as getting faculty
to work with the technology,
it's a little bit
of a slower process.
>> They need a Metro program.
>> It's a slower process
although they're not opposed
to it.
It's just it's not
part of everyday life
for a lot of our faculty.
And so we're working with
faculty around e Portfolios
to start because
we really want them
to use the academic
technology and then we'll work
on the next piece of it going
forward, but thank you for that.
It is part of our
next big thing.
>> Juanita.
>> I just have a
comment and a question.
And the comment is, you guys
are wonderful and, you know,
we're coming full circle.
The ones of you who are
younger, remember that we used
to take the California
achievement test.
We were the gold standard
of the world when I went
to San Francisco State in 1968.
Don't forget that.
So it's coming full circle.
I'm also a demographer.
Yes, you know, demographer
is the future.
My question is, the next
time you do this I suggest--
have you thought about
maybe the last panel,
which is what we're doing
now for those of us women
and minorities who of course
cohort in the late '60s
and '70s to go into STEM.
What we're seeing now and
there's going to be [inaudible]
of Research and the National
Science Foundation on the fact
that you're talking
about losing freshmen.
I can't hire people
to be managers.
The women drop out.
The minorities drop out.
We get them all the way up.
We get them through tenure
and then they don't want to be
in management and leadership.
So my question is, can
you guys [inaudible] now
because five years is
going to go quickly.
Five years is going
to go quickly.
>> You're right.
That is a huge issue and there
are some programs dealing
with that, not so much
at San Francisco State,
but more on the national level
because it's a huge gap as those
of us who are old and gray are
looking towards stepping out,
the succession planning is huge.
Yes?
>> [Inaudible] disabilities
within every single minority.
And the strongest program
in the country for bringing
and integrating students
for disabilities
into the sciences is AAAS,
working with NASA, with Intel,
with other [inaudible].
They've brought scores of
students into life long careers
in the heavy sciences.
It's particularly a problem
in the laboratory based plants
and the engineering field.
We have a long established
program
within the engineering
department
to [inaudible] students for at
least an introduction to tools
to hand work with all kinds
of disabilities [inaudible] more
disabled students than the rest
of the [inaudible] together.
I don't know.
But in any case, how can
we help you from our school
to integrate more students with
disabilities from every minority
into these STEM courses?
>> One comment I would make
from the institutional
perspective is we just hired a
new director of the
Long Moore Institute
for Disabilities studies,
Kathleen Kudlick from UC Davis
because we did want to continue
Paul Long's more significant
work in that area.
And she is particularly
committed to making
that program more
interdisciplinary and working
with all of the colleges.
In the past it had been more
restricted to the humanities
and social sciences
with Paul's location
and the Department of History.
But she has reached
out significantly,
including to the sciences.
And I think as she's
on campus longer,
we'll be forging more
of those connections.
And so that will be important.
That's one aspect of the
question you're asking.
But I don't know if some
of the panelists would care
to comment further on that.
I would also mention
the NSF program.
When I was a program officer
at NSF my office was next
to the disability
study's program director.
So NSF has a significant program
also for supporting scientists
with disabilities
and particularly during
their undergraduate
and graduate training as well
as principle investigators.
Anybody want to comment?
Or there was-- okay.
Yes, please.
>> I wanted to make
a [inaudible].
And I wanted to say to
Dr. Wong and [inaudible]
to open the door
to invite us in.
We've got some people
from [inaudible] here.
And I want to introduce
everybody
to Dr. Louise Valentino
[phonetic].
If you could just stand up here.
Louise is the new
chief academic officer
at the San Francisco [inaudible]
and he is [inaudible] watching a
STEM initiative which is why all
of us were trying
to make this happen.
We wanted to come
today and I want
to thank Eric Thompson
[inaudible].
I'm excited of the possibilities
of us all working together
because as you said to me, Dr.
Wong, the first time I met you,
70 percent of the teachers
that go into the district are
from San Francisco State
and at least half the
students come back
as students that graduate.
So we're linked together
and we would
like to be a part
of [inaudible].
>> Well, thank you very
much for your comments.
Perhaps that is a good note
on which to close the program.
And I'd really like to thank
all of you for attending
and participating in
today's STEM symposium.
We appreciate this opportunity
to share with you some
of the exciting work that's
going on at San Francisco State.
I could say that when Jay
Long Turkan and I talked
about who would participate in
this, and we did try to have
at least one person from
each college who was invited
to participate, and you can
see that it's across all
of the colleges at
San Francisco State.
We had many selections.
There were many more faculty
whom we could have tapped
because there's a
tremendous amount of work
in this area going on.
So please look at this as the
beginning of a conversation
and as the tip of
the iceberg, in fact,
of what San Francisco
State is doing
in this area, to reach out.
And we also are so grateful
to our community partners.
But again, you folks,
well, the critical mass
and the important
significant partners.
We do have partnerships
with other folks
within the community too.
So in a sense that's just
the tip of the iceberg
as know that you do too.
We hope that all of
you are able to join us
for other investiture
activities this week.
And again to President
and Mrs. Wong,
welcome and congratulations.
We're very happy that you're
at San Francisco State.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.