CSU, Chico News

The California State University, Chico College of Agriculture’s Food Marketing Team competed at the Western Collegiate Food Marketing Competition in Fresno, Calif., March 20-21, 2010. With stiff competition from Fresno State and Cal Poly Pomona’s marketing teams Chico State placed 1st in the Domestic division and 2nd in the International. In addition, the International team received 2nd place through student votes for the Most Innovative Market Idea, and 2nd place for the Best PowerPoint Presentation.

The Domestic Team—consisting of Haley Hunt, Jillian Kehoe and Elle Karno-Palcic—outshined the competition with their idea for marketing organic and locally produced premium quality chevon (goat meat) in Northern California. The International Team—consisting of Kirby Swickard, Sara Spafford, and Tiffany Gomes—placed second in their division with their idea for marketing gourmet fruit butter in London, UK. All marketing teams were judged on the market analysis, competitive analysis, financials, and presentation of their products by industry experts.

Each year the agricultural marketing and planning class spends a semester preparing international and domestic teams to participate in the competition. The teams must create an innovative new product and then develop a strategic marketing and business plan to promote their product. These plans are then presented to a panel of industry judges who rate the quality of the plans and presentation. Assistant professor in agribusiness, Dr. Baohui Song, and lecturer Marnie Dalton were the coaches for this year’s teams. The coaches prepared the teams for competition with several meetings and practice presentations.

The Western Collegiate Food Marketing Competition is held annually, with a mission to prepare students for the rigors of full-time employment by having them complete a project that simulates expectations and real-world realities in the work force. The skills that students gain from such an experience include leadership, networking and fellowship.

For more information on the Food Marketing Competition, or to learn more about the agricultural marketing planning class, contact Dr. Baohui Song at (530) 898-3056 or bsong@csuchico.edu.

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There are two arboretum tours left this spring, one scheduled for Friday, April 9, and the second one during Founders Week, on Monday, April 19. Participants learn about the trees and plants on California State University, Chico campus. The campus was designated as an arboretum in 1982 in recognition of its superb collection of woody plants.

The tour begins at 10 a.m. at Bidwell Mansion and lasts for about an 90 minutes. It is led by Durbin Sayers, manager of grounds; Wes Dempsey, professor emeritus of biology; and Gerry Ingco, retired forester.

The trip leaders will discuss current horticultural and pruning practices as well as make suggestions for selection of plants for Chico yards. Participants are encouraged to bring in leaves from plants they wish to have identified or talk about problems they are having with insects or diseases.

A map and guide to the mansion and the University trees and shrubs, titled “Campus Trees” is available at the Bidwell Mansion Information Center and the AS Bookstore. “Campus Creekside Nature Walk” is also available. These can also be purchased at the Department of Biological Sciences office in Holt Hall.

Further information about the tours can be obtained from the Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park at 895-6144 or from the University at 898-6222.

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Get ready for the campus to be a little quieter. On Friday, April 16, students at California State University, Chico will join students across the nation in a Day of Silence to protest the discrimination, harassment and abuse—in effect the silencing—faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and their allies in schools.

The Day of Silence, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), will be held during school hours at California State University, Chico. Over 150 participants will be silent on Friday, April 16, wearing stickers and passing out “speaking cards” that read:

“Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies in schools. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and
discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?”

The Day of Silence, according to local organizer Krista Yamashita, “is especially relevant to California State University, Chico because all students regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation deserve to come to a campus that is a friendly and safe place.” Yamashita hopes that the event will work towards ending some of the silence and hatred students face. GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate Survey found that more than nine of 10 lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transsexual students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school, and 30 percent report missing at least a day of school in the past month out of fear for their personal safety. The Day of Silence is one way students and their allies are making anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and name-calling unacceptable in America’s high schools, colleges and universities.

About the Day of Silence

The Day of Silence, a project of GLSEN, is a nationwide, student-led event during which hundreds of high schools and colleges protest the oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. For more information and a complete collection of organizing materials, visit www.dayofsilence.org.

About GLSEN

GLSEN, or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on creating safe schools for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. Established nationally in 1995, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. For more information on educator resources, public policy agenda, student organizing programs or development initiatives, visit www.glsen.org.

For more information, contact Krista Yamashita at 530-898-6325 or kyamashita@mail.csuchico.edu.

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The California State University, Chico Career Center will host its spring All Majors Career Fair on Wednesday, April 14, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Bell Memorial Union Auditorium.

Attendees such as HP, FDIC, Frito-Lay, PG&E and Camp Adventure will have contact with a variety of students from across campus seeking internships and full-time positions.

“Career Fairs at Chico State continue to be strong, even in light of the extremely challenging economic times,” said Career Center Director Jamie Starmer. “Students continue to make significant professional contacts at our career fairs, which directly lead to professional jobs and internships.”

Starmer said he expects approximately 50 employers and 1,000 students to attend the fair.

For more information or to reserve a booth, contact the Chico State Career Center at 530-898-5253.

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AS Presents, the Cross-Cultural Leadership Center and the Office of Diversity at California State University, Chico will host “Racism on our Campus? A Student Forum on Race” at 7 p.m. April 12 in the BMU auditorium.

The forum will feature a discussion and question-and-answer session. Maurice Bryan, director of employment practices and dispute resolution in the Staff and Human Resources department, will facilitate the discussion.

Panelists include sociology faculty member Dan Pence, journalism faculty member Kurt Nordstrom and Chico State student leaders.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit aschico.com/presents or call 898-6005.

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A new facility, the Center for Veteran Education and Transition Services (VETS), is now open in Siskiyou 103 at California State University, Chico. The center provides a safe place where student veterans can find important information about veteran issues and benefits, connect with veteran-specific community agencies and services, receive and provide peer support and mentoring, and enjoy the camaraderie of the veteran culture in a relaxed atmosphere on campus.

This new service environment is in addition to the Office of Veterans’ Affairs (OVA), located in Student Services Center 220, which has been operating on campus for more than 40 years as part of the Student Records Office. OVA administers educational benefits in the form of six federal programs and one state program to more than 300 student veterans and 300 students who are dependents of veterans.

“In addition to other services, the center is a place for veterans to come and share and enjoy their unique culture or just talk to others,” said Larry Langwell, coordinator of Veterans Affairs. “Veterans use it for surfing the Internet, listening to music or participating in intellectual conversations with other student veterans.”

These centers are opening on campuses across the nation, said Langwell, and are considered essential to the success of the student veterans who are returning to rebuild their civilian lives. “Student veterans need to transition into a college environment that is very different from the military structure. The Chico State Student Veteran Organization proposed the need for this space and the university administration was able to oblige,” said Langwell.

A veteran and a Chico State alum, Langwell said that he works through the campus Veteran Education Support Team to build a meaningful network of services that supports the success of student veterans.

This new facility is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. An official opening will be scheduled soon.

For more information, contact Langwell at 530-898-5911 or e-mail him at LLangwell@csuchico.edu.

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Xiaoqin “Allen” Ding, Ph.D., currently a visiting scholar at the Harvard Law School, is paying a rare visit to Chico on his way to Munich and Brazil.

Ding will speak on the “China’s Economic Model—Unique or General” in Holt 170 on the California State University, Chico campus on April 8 at 7 p.m.

Professor Ding teaches at the prestigious Shanghai School of Economics and Finance.

He is the co-author of the book “An Economic Analysis of Economical Society” and the author of an extensive list of journal articles including “Global Crisis and the Democratic Governance of Economy and Politics,” (Economic Survey, 2009), and “Crisis and Its Solution: The Restructuring of Global Governance” (Contemporary Economic Research, 2009).

He is the vice chairman of the World Association of Political Economy and has served as deputy secretary general of the World Association for Political Economy.

For more information, call Michael Perelman, Department of Economics, at 530-898-5321 or e-mail him at mperelman@csuchico.edu.

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Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey will present “Why We Have Environmental Laws: Examples from Butte County” on Tuesday, April 6, 7¬–9 pm, Bell Memorial Union 210.

There will be a presentation by Ramsey and then a moderated question-and-answer period.

The talk is sponsored by California State University, Chico’s Institute for Sustainable Development, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Political Science and AS Sustainability.

The lecture and discussion are free and open to the public.

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California State University, Chico is participating with other colleges, universities and high schools across the country the week of April 5-9 in an awareness campaign to quell violence that takes place on campuses and in their communities.

The Enough is Enough Campaign to Stem Societal Violence is sponsored by NASPA, a national organization of student affairs administrators represented on 1,400 campuses including CSU, Chico.

On Monday, April 5, an information fair on efforts to reduce violence in the community will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Trinity Commons across from the Bell Memorial Union (BMU) on the CSU, Chico campus. A number of campus and community programs will be represented.

On Tuesday, April 6, a workshop on hip-hop and violence will be held at noon in the Cross-Cultural Leadership Center, Meriam Library 172. In addition, people are urged to wear black on that day as a symbol of awareness of the damage violence has done to communities.

On Wednesday, April 7, three Enough is Enough events will take place. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., CSU, Chico’s Safe Place program will have a display called Sole Survivors on the pathway by Glenn Hall. The “footprints” in the display detail the impact that violence has had on victims of sexual assault, intimate partner violence and stalking. At noon, the ongoing Conversations on Diversity program will hold a session in BMU 210 called “Let’s Play Violence” about the association of violence with video games, TV and other entertainment. At 6 p.m., a film about violence and schools, “Higher Learning,” will be shown in Plumas 205.

On Thursday, April 8, a panel of speakers will discuss violence from a law enforcement perspective at 6:30 p.m. in the BMU Common Grounds café.

All of the events are free and open to the public. For more information on the events or the Enough is Enough Campaign, contact CSU, Chico’s Office of Diversity at 898-4764. The Web site for the campaign is http://www.naspa.org/enough/.

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California State University, Chico will host the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Mid-Pacific Regional Conference April 8¬¬–10. Students from 12 universities in the region will compete in Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe and Water Treatment events, which they have been preparing for all year.

A committee of nine CSU, Chico students and faculty advisors have planned a weekend that includes a menagerie of fun mini-games and competitions, in addition to the Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe and Water Treatment competitions. The mini-competitions, created around the conference’s theme of sustainability, include concrete bowling, canoe tug-o-wars, volleyball, twister and recycled steel horseshoes.

Students from each participating school will also present a paper prepared for the Mead Paper competition on the ASCE Vision 2025 memorandum and the ethics behind it. The memorandum focuses on what an engineer should be in the year 2025.

“We encourage the public to attend, especially children,” said Andrew Langelier, the student coordinator of the event. “It will be an exciting set of events, and the engineering beneath the projects might serve as a gateway to recruit the next generation of engineers.”

For full conference details and to register please visit www.midpac2010.com/index.html.

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