Recent News
World Languages and Cultures classes incorporate virtual global engagement workshops in lieu of a cancelled abroad program
Jan 11, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
After her study abroad program in Sicily was cancelled due to Covid-19, ethnic studies professor Elvira Pulitano decided to offer students a different kind of virtual abroad experience this year.
MoltiVolti Team
Working with the Siciliy-based non-profit organizations MoltiVolti and Giocherenda, Pulitano arranged culturally-immersive Zoom workshops for students taking her Cultures of Italy class fall quarter.
MoltiVolti functions as both a restaurant and “a laboratory of representation of a new society in which the exchanges among the diversity are on the base of development,” according to their website.
Both the MoltiVolti team and the Giocherenda team consist of young immigrants and refugees coming from countries including Senegal, Zambia, Mali, Gambia and Burkina Faso.
According to Pulitano, the workshops had students interact with MoltiVolti and Giocherenda via Zoom to understand an increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural contemporary Italy.
“We focused a lot on how regional localisms in Italy play a strong role against a national sense of identity and examined the ever-changing nature of Italian identity since the country’s unification.” Pulitano said. “Today, as a result of the recent wave of migrations from Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, the significance of what it means to be Italian is once again shifting."
Fatima Salazar was one of Pulitano’s students fall quarter and was able to participate in the workshops offered through her class.
“These workshops were basically for us to better understand the Italian perspective as an immigrant,” Salazar said. “I didn’t realize Sicily was such a diverse part of Italy in comparison to the northern part.”
Different activities that the students did with the two Sicilian organizations included interactive games like “memory catcher cards,” MoltiVolti’s Heroic Imagination Project, virtual tours of Sicily and group discussion.
Though the online workshops may have been quite different from an in-person abroad experience, Pulitano said that there are benefits of having a virtual program.
“Most Cal Poly students cannot afford [to study abroad] because these programs are very expensive,” Pulitano said. “What I found out through the virtual exchange is that this type of education program can attract a diverse range of students by offering an enriching experience of global collaboration and learning without having to travel long-distances.”
Pulitano also said that she hopes to offer a longer virtual program working with the same two organizations, along with another partner organization based in Rome, for students during summer quarter. She would also like to continue to offer similar virtual programs in her ethnic studies courses once campus has reopened so that students who would like to participate in a more cost-effective cultural immersion experience may do so.
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Cal Poly Public Policy Alumna Co-Founded a Medical Interpreting Organization
Dec 18, 2020
By Sophia Lincoln
Herencia Indigena team
Since graduating with a master's degree in public policy in 2018, Cal Poly alumna Irebid Gilbert has created and co-founded her business Herencia Indigena, an initiative partly inspired by the work she did at Cal Poly.
Herencia Indigena is an organization that trains trilingual individuals to work as health care advocates and interpreters for partner agencies including Dignity Health. They also developed a cultural competency training based on Gilbert’s senior thesis at Cal Poly.
Gilbert said that her business was born out of the great need for on-site Mixteco-speaking interpreters at Marian Regional Medical Center, as well as other hospitals across the state. According to Gilbert, a lack of interpreters in medical facilities can lead to a large number of patients who cannot understand or communicate with health workers, something that Gilbert’s family once faced.
“I am also indigenous. Both of my parents speak Mixteco. Most of my family has worked in the fields. As a child, we worked in the fields, so I really felt that this was a way to give back,” Gilbert said. “I didn’t know what it was going to turn into, but I just knew this was what I wanted to do.”
Herencia Indigena’s mission is to ensure that Mixteco patients can understand their healthcare plans and to communicate with their providers.
“We want to change the way that medical providers sometimes view the Mixteco or indigenous population,” Gilbert said. “Sometimes we have been categorized as people that don’t really want to participate in our health care, but we very much want to be engaged and we very much want to be informed.”
In addition to helping patients, Herencia Indigena also aims to provide trainees with good work opportunities.
“We really had to show that there were interpreters here, and we had to really advocate for full-time [positions], fair wages, things like that,” Gilbert said. “We want this to be taken as a real career and a real skill.”
The training program that Herencia Indigena offers is 10 weeks long and requires trainees to attend lectures, take quizzes, participate in activities, submit homework assignments and ultimately pass a cumulative exam before they are offered a job at a hospital.
“[Dignity Health] will only take interpreters from Herencia Indigena because of the rigorous training that we have,” Gilbert said.
In the past year, Herencia Indigena has trained over 300 healthcare staff members including doctors, nurses, technicians, and social workers, according to Gilbert.
While Gilbert's current work at Herencia Indigena mostly focuses on data analysis, she said that her time at Cal Poly and the support she received there helped allow her to achieve what she did.
“Cal Poly was very supportive,” Gilbert said. “I had amazing counselors [who helped me] to look at it from all different directions, and I think my public policy degree definitely helped with the writing, the data analysis, the policy writing, all of that.”
To date, Herencia Indigena has helped over 900 patients, according to Gilbert.
“This is more than just a passion: it’s a purpose, and I am trying to give back in the only way I know how to those who I feel are often underrepresented,” Gilbert said. “It’s really important not to be afraid and to just put yourself out there and really go after something that really makes you feel passionate and makes you feel like you have a purpose in life.”
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Two Cal Poly Journalism Alumni Wrote a Book Together
Dec 17, 2020
By Sophia Lincoln
The Insider's Guide to Media Training
Cal Poly alumni and Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalists Rick DeBruhl (Journalism, '77) and Kevin Riggs (Journalism, '78) provide insight to interviewing with various media in their new book "The Insider’s Guide to Media Training: 99 Tips to Survive Your Interview in the Digital Age."
DeBruhl and Riggs met each other as undergraduates in the Cal Poly journalism department where they both worked for KCPR, Cal Poly’s radio station.
The two have since made impressive careers in broadcast journalism covering news for companies including ESPN and NBC-affiliate KCRA.
DeBruhl ultimately left his career in broadcast journalism to pursue media consulting. Similarly, Riggs currently works at Randle Communications in media training.
According to DeBruhl, the two worked together in various newsrooms at the start of their careers and remained in touch even after separating to work for different companies. They recently decided to collaborate once more to share with readers what they have learned from their careers in media.
“We thought it would be fun to have a pair of Cal Poly buddies write a book,” DeBruhl wrote in an email.
Kevin Riggs at KCRA News
Their book, which can be found on Amazon, covers topics including how to handle difficult interview questions, understanding how reporters think and creating compelling quotes and soundbites.
DeBruhl had already written and published a similar book on media training, "Communicating at the Right Speed: 52 Ways to Fix Your Professional Communication Troubles," but wanted to work on the new book with Riggs because of his experience in broadcast journalism and at Randle Communications.
“Of all the people I wanted to write a book with, Kevin was at the absolute top,” DeBruhl said.
Rick DeBruhl with ESPN
According to Riggs, while the idea for their book predated the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March, much of the tips and information they wrote about are very relevant to today’s virtual media practices. “During the pandemic, media practices have obviously changed, and the Zoom platform is a great example of that,” Riggs said.
“Part of why I wanted to work on the book was to explain a little bit about how media practices have shifted and to help people to understand that and be a little more effective in doing that.”
The book also distinguishes different media platforms and focuses on how to best prepare for an interview depending on the media platform.
“For most people, getting a media interview may just be a once in a lifetime event or something that will happen very rarely and it can be very intimidating and the goal of the book is quite simply to make it more comfortable,” DeBruhl said.
DeBruhl and Riggs both plan to continue their current work in media training in their respective jobs. In addition to working at Randle Communications, Riggs is also a member of the Alumni Advisory Board at Cal Poly.
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Six Cal Poly Graphic Communication Students Won PIASC Awards
Dec 14, 2020
By Sophia Lincoln
Cal Poly graphic communication students Kristy Leung, Toni Forsythe and Tanya Ravichandran placed in the top three for the Printing Industry Association of Southern California (PIASC) 2020 Poster Competition, with Leung in first place, Forsythe in second and Ravichandran in third.
Also, Cal Poly graphic communication students Erica Taylor, Hannah Lee and Vivian Tran placed in the top three for the PIASC 2020 Packaging Competition, with Taylor in first place, Lee in second and Tran in third.
Kristy Leung won first place for the poster competition
According to Forsythe, the prompt for the poster competition was to create an infographic that showcased careers in the Graphic Communication industry. The poster Forsythe created was also part of an assignment for her GRC 203 class on digital file creation, she said.
Toni Forsythe won second place for the poster competition
“I was excited to have received this award and for my work to be recognized,” Forsythe said. “I am glad to know that my design followed the prompt and was good enough to have received second place, considering there were a lot of other great designs submitted as well.”
Tanya Ravichandran won third place for the poster competition
Forsythe also said that the work she has done in previous graphic communication classes and especially the GRC 203 class helped her achieve second place in the poster competition.
“I gained a lot of design skills that helped me create my infographic in a way that would be well-designed, while also following the prompt,” Forsythe said.
Erica Taylor won first place for the packaging competition
Similarly, Erica Taylor, who won first place in the packaging competition, said that the opportunity was brought to her attention through her GRC 337 class on consumer packaging, wherein many students also submitted their final projects to the competition.
According to Taylor, the prompt for the packaging competition was to supply a perfume or cologne bottle and design a label and corresponding box “with branding that would stand out on a shelf and make consumers choose our design over others,” she said.
Hannah Lee won second place for the packaging competition
Like Forsythe, Taylor said that previous graphic communication classes helped her achieve success in this competition.
“The fact that we got to incorporate spot varnish and foil on our packaging definitely gave Cal Poly students an edge in this competition, because special printing elements like that would stand out to the judges,” Taylor said.
Vivian Tran won third place for the packaging competition
Both Forsythe and Taylor said they are very grateful to the graphic communication program and its resources and teachers who helped allow them to create their products for the competition.
“I was already interested in pursuing a career in designing for the packaging industry, but this win definitely affirms this choice,” Taylor said. “I am thrilled that the judges liked my design enough to have it win first place, especially since our class produced many beautiful perfume packages.”
Both the poster and packaging competition were put on by RAISE Foundation, a non-profit corporation formed by PIASC to foster graphic communication careers in primary, secondary and post-secondary educational institutions.
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Graphic Communication Professor Malcolm Keif wins the Hartman and Dennis Support of Education Award
Dec 10, 2020
By Sophia Lincoln
Malcolm Keif
Graphic communication Professor Malcolm Keif was awarded this year’s Hartman and Dennis Support of Education Award by the Graphic Communications Education Association (GCEA) board of directors.
The GCEA is a collaboration of educators from across the country dedicated to sharing theories, principles, techniques and processes relating to graphic communications and imaging technology.
The award annually recognizes one GCEA member “who has devoted many years of service to the association” and is nationally recognized through contributions and accomplishments in graphic arts teaching, research or service, according to the Award’s site.
Keif said that he has been involved in the association for a while, including time spent as an association conference host, association secretary and association president. He was also the lead author on the association’s Five-Year Strategic Plan.
“Collaborating with other faculty outside of Cal Poly not only strengthens my teaching at Cal Poly, but helps the graphic communication education field in general,” Keif said. “Since we are a tight-knit profession, we all support each other.”
“I think of how many senior faculty members from various universities around the country provided mentorship for me as a young professor,” he said. “Now that I am in the senior stage of my career, I plan to continue that tradition and help other [graphic communication] professors from Cal Poly and other colleges and universities’ strengthen their academic skills.”
Keif is grateful for the professional growth that GCEA has helped him achieve, as well as for the recognition of the award.
“So many people have supported me along the way, it seems natural to give back,” Keif said. “Serving in a professional organization is a terrific way to give back and my time serving on the board of directors at GCEA was wonderful.”
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Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Welcomes Five New Faculty Fellows — Four are from the CLA
Dec 9, 2020
The new cohort includes faculty from English, journalism, philosophy, psychology and experience industry management disciplines
Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) has added five faculty to its interdisciplinary cohort of faculty fellows.
This newest group of CIE Faculty Fellows bolsters an interdisciplinary community that is committed to being a resource for the university as it evolves its role in innovation, entrepreneurship, technology commercialization and regional economic development. They join 24 previously appointed faculty fellows who connect students to Cal Poly’s highly regarded and nationally recognized entrepreneurship program.
“CIE Faculty Fellows have reimagined curricula, crossed disciplines, and pushed the boundaries of what interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education can be,” said Lynn Metcalf, director of the CIE Faculty Fellows program and a professor of entrepreneurship in Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business. “They are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive and innovative problem-solving students who will thrive in a rapidly changing world and are deeply committed to interdisciplinary collaboration and to strategic research initiatives that create positive economic and social impacts for the region.”
The CIE has fellows from throughout all of Cal Poly’s six colleges; this year’s additions include one professor from the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences and four from the College of Liberal Arts. These educators incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship into coursework, serve as CIE ambassadors within their discipline and help guide motivated students through the different entrepreneurial career paths. This year’s fellows were selected from a pool of applicants based on specific plans to introduce innovative measures into the classroom.
“Entrepreneurship has never been more important to Cal Poly and our region,” said CIE Executive Director John Townsend. “Our students are taking on today’s challenges with the creativity and passion to make a real difference. Our faculty fellows provide the inspiration and insights to make that a reality, whether our students take that entrepreneurial mindset into the workplace or launch their own startup company.”
The latest CIE Faculty Fellows include:
Deb Donig
— Deb Donig is an assistant professor of English literature in the College of Liberal Arts. Her research and teaching focuses on ethical technology: technological understanding and practice that is equitable in process and outcome and that strives to serve human values. As a CIE fellow, she will focus on increasing diversity in tech culture and participation in entrepreneurship.
Kim Bisheff
— Kim Lisagor Bisheff, a multimedia journalism lecturer who has taught classes in the College of Liberal Arts since 2004, will tackle the struggle to provide creditable and comprehensive news through her Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship course. She will incorporate ideas from environmental science, political science, computer science and business to inspire products that appeal to a broad population while strengthening the pipeline to CIE’s Hatchery and Accelerator programs.
Laura Cacciamani
— Laura Cacciamani, an assistant professor of psychology and child development in the College of Liberal Arts, plans to share how cognitive neuroscience provides insights into entrepreneurs, and how their brains are activated differently as well as their decision-making processes and creative approaches to problem solving. She plans to increase her own knowledge in this area and support psychology students with entrepreneurial interests.
Andrew Lacanienta
— Andrew Lacanienta, an assistant professor in the Experience Industry Management Department of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, will spearhead the creation of a new Experience Journey program for the CIE portfolio. The program will prompt student innovators to think about live interactions, services, experiences in addition to products. He will also establish class content promoting participation in the CIE programs.
Zachary Rentz
— Zachary Rentz, a lecturer in the College of Liberal Arts’ Philosophy Department, specializes in the ethics of emerging sciences and technologies. He will focus on how abstract and unrelated business concerns, such ethical issues, if undetected and unmitigated, can create significant legal, financial and public relations risks for new businesses.
The 2020-21 fellows join 24 colleagues: Hani Alzraiee, civil and environmental engineering; David Askay, communication studies; Philip Barlow, construction management; Lauren Cooper, mechanical engineering; Enrica Lovaglio Costello, art and design; Bob Crockett, biomedical engineering; Ahmed Deif, industrial technology and packaging; Dale Dolan, electrical engineering; Lorraine Donegan, graphic communication; Mary Glick, journalism; Brian Granger, physics; Christopher Heylman, biomedical engineering; David Janzen, computer science; Bo Liu, bioresource and agriculture; Lynn Metcalf, entrepreneurship; Stern Neill, marketing; Clare Olsen, architecture; Erik Sapper, Western Coating Technology Center, chemistry and biochemistry; Christiane Schroeter, agribusiness; Lynne Slivovsky, computer and electrical engineering; Taryn Stanko, management and human resources; Umut Toker, architecture; Javin Oza, chemistry and biochemistry; and Michael Whitt, biomedical engineering.
For more information on the CIE Faculty Fellows, visit https://cie.calpoly.edu/learn/cie-fellows/.
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Ethics Professor Patrick Lin Joins Artificial Intelligence Task Force
Dec 1, 2020
Patrick Lin
In April of 2020, philosophy Professor Patrick Lin joined the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a leading think tank in Washington, D.C.
Lin, Director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at Cal Poly, specializes in technology ethics. His published research includes the ethics of autonomous military robotics, nanotechnology, cybersecurity, and bioengineering. The AI Task Force examines how the U.S. should respond to the national security challenges AI poses and is a component of CNAS' multi-year Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Initiative. It is co-chaired by Robert O. Work, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Dr. Andrew W. Moore, Head of Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence. More information can be found on the CNAS AI Task Force webpage.
Cal Poly Debate Team receives national recognition
Dec 1, 2020
By Sophia Lincoln
Cal Poly’s Debate Team has recently received some acclaim for both ranking in the top five teams at the Schuman Challenge and finishing the Social Justice Debates Opener as semifinalists.
The Schuman Challenge is an annual contest hosted by the European Union’s Washington, D.C., Delegation wherein undergraduate students in the U.S. present and defend transatlantic policy initiatives before transatlantic experts, according to Cal Poly Debate Team member and political science junior Parker Swanson.
This year’s contest was carried out from October 28 to 30 via Zoom, and the topic focused on how the European Union and United States should respond to China’s alternative models of governance.
Swanson, along with Cal Poly Debate Team members, Isabel Barbee (History) and Rory Dinkins (Environmental Earth and Sciences) put together a policy proposal for the contest and ultimately placed within the top five out of more than 25 teams that participated.
They were recognized with an honorable mention for their written proposal and competitive oral defense.
At the Social Justice Debates Fall Championship, two Cal Poly Debate Team students placed within the top four teams. The championship, which was hosted by George Washington University, included 35 debate teams from across the country. This year, teams engaged the question of whether social justice movements should make abolition of the police their top priority.
Communication studies major Matia Mathes and computer sciences major Julian Rice finished as semifinalists. Additionally, Swanson and communications major Carly Peeters finished within the top 10 teams, with Swanson being ranked the eighth best overall speaker at the event.
The next event in the series will be the Social Justice Debates National Championship, hosted by Morehouse College January 16-17.
In the video below, Debate Team members Barbee, Dinkins and Swanson discuss what being on the team has meant to them.
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English Major Wins Modern Language Association Student Paper Contest
Dec 1, 2020
Alyiah Gonzales
Senior English major Alyiah Gonzales was selected as one of five winners in the 2019 Modern Language Association Student Paper Contest.
Gonzales’ essay, “Disrupting White Normativity in Langston Hughes’s ‘I, Too,’ and Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif,’” written for a literature course at Cal Poly, was chosen out of more than 200 essays submitted by college writers across the nation.
The selection committee wrote that her essay “is a strong, bold essay with a clear thesis and a sound analysis of two pieces," calling her essay “a marvelous work – elegant, insightful, and concise.”
Students Attend Women Studies Conference
Dec 1, 2020
Students attend Women Studies Conference
The Women’s and Gender Studies Department took 16 students and recent graduates to the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) in San Francisco in November 2019.
This marked the first time that Cal Poly students attended the NWSA conference. Student travel was funded by a successful Spur Change crowdfunding campaign in spring 2019. The students were able to attend the conference thanks to the generosity of 102 donors.
NWSA is the premier conference in women's studies, and it was transformative for the students. Professor Jane Lehr, who organized the fundraising campaign also wrote: "Taking a big delegation of students will impact (positively!) the ways in which other programs engage with Cal Poly as a site for producing new knowledge in [women's studies] areas."
In addition to attending, multiple Cal Poly students had their work accepted to present as part of the main conference program. "Our students are recognized as emerging scholar-activists at the leading conference in our field!" said Lehr.