Recent News
Communication Studies Lecturer Receives Effective Practice Award
Jun 9, 2017
Martin Mehl, senior lecturer in communications studies, along with Dr. Luanne Fose from the Cal Poly Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology, were officially recognized with the Online Learning Consortium’s (OLC) 2017 Effective Practice Award for their digital mentorship pedagogy. They received their awards and shared their research during a post keynote breakout session at the OLC Innovate/HBCU Affordable Learning Summit in New Orleans in April.
Cal Poly Students Participate in Model UN Conferences
Jun 8, 2017
Nine Cal Poly students participated in Model United Nations conferences across the country and abroad in 2017. Model United Nations (MUN) is an extra-curricular activity where qualified students role play as United Nations delegates and simulate UN committees.
Art and Design Adjunct Professor Receives Davyd Whaley Art Grant
Jun 8, 2017
Adjunct art and design professor Laura Krifka received the 2017 Artist-Teacher grant from the Davyd Whaley Foundation. The Davyd Whaley Foundation is dedicated to supporting artists of the LA area, and grants are given to artists to "fulfill their vision."
Mustang Media Group Earns Numerous Awards at National Contests
May 31, 2017
Mustang Media Group (MMG), the Journalism Department's student-run news organization, has had a very successful last few months. MMG won numerous awards at both the College Media Business and Advertising Managers Annual Content and the Midwinter National College Media Convention.
English Grad Student Wins Cal Poly’s Academy of American Poets Prize
May 17, 2017
Cal Poly Master in English student Marissa Ahmadkhani won the university’s Academy of American Poets (AAP) contest for her poem “Only Half,” which investigates her Iranian heritage expressed metaphorically through the complexity of pomegranates.
Political Science Major is Cal Poly’s 2017 Panetta Representative
May 17, 2017
Political Science junior, Maryam Quasto, was accepted into the 2017 Panetta Institute's Congressional Internship Program.
English Grad Student Wins Cal Poly’s Academy of American Poets Prize
May 15, 2017
English Master's student Marissa Ahmadkhani (Gilroy, Calif.) won Cal Poly’s Academy of American Poets Contest for her poem “Only Half,” which investigates her Iranian heritage. Ahmadkhani will receive a $100 award from the Academy.
Marissa Ahmadkhani
“Through precise description and gentle repetition, Marissa Ahmadkhani has made a deeply moving poem of origins,” said Maggie Anderson, nationally recognized poet and judge for this year’s contest. “The delicate fruit of the pomegranate (apple of many seeds) is a brilliantly realized metaphor for the poet’s half-heritage.”
Cal Poly English professor Mira Rosenthal said, “In Marissa’s finely tuned short poems, I hear the sorrow of strained relationship, but always tempered by the individual’s belief in connection, as much with others as with the self.”
First honorable mention goes to English major Morgan Condict from Paso Robles, Calif. for “The Shimmer of the Turning Rabbit,” a poem that renders our own mortality through the metaphor of a rabbit turning on a spit over an open flame. Anderson said that Condict’s poem “creates a strange and somewhat unsettling atmosphere. The image is of a rabbit cooking over a campfire; yet, when the poet enters the poem, we are led skillfully from that image to a surprising metaphor for our own ‘mortal’ (and ‘axial’) coil.”
Second honorable mention goes to Jacob Lopez from Huntington Beach, Calif. for his poem “Light on Breathing,” depicting the experience of exploring underwater reefs. “What I admire in this poem,” said the judge, “is the music created by its internal rhyme, alliteration, and phrasing that vividly recreates the act of breathing underwater.”
The Cal Poly English Department and the Academy of American Poets (AAP) sponsored the contest. AAP was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. The University and College Poetry Prize program began with ten schools in 1955 and now sponsors more than 200 annual poetry prizes at U.S. colleges and universities. Ahmadkhani is one of the nearly ten thousand prize-winning student poets since the program’s inception.
Contest entries were judged by nationally renowned poet Maggie Anderson, author of four books of poetry, including Windfall: New and Selected Poems, A Space Filled with Moving, and Cold Comfort. Her awards include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, fellowships from the Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts, and the Ohioana Library Award for contributions to the literary arts in Ohio. The founding director of the Wick Poetry Center and of the Wick Poetry Series of the Kent State University Press, Anderson is Professor Emerita of English at Kent State University.
Marissa Ahmadkhani
Academy of American Poets Prize Winner—Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Only Half
Pomegranates are native to Iran.
Much like my father—
who peeled them on our kitchen counter,
liquid pooling, thinner than
the blood-
red you’d expect.
Much like my blood—
half-steeped in that same soil
and somehow not thick enough.
And I run my fingers through
my coarse hair, half-curly,
and I think about those pomegranate trees.
How they
dig those deep roots,
how I half-cling to those
thin branches.
Read the most recent stories in The Link
English Master's Student Wins Prestigious Fellowship
May 15, 2017
English Master's student Ian Fetters (English, '15) has been awarded the S.T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship to study the literature of horror-fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.
Public Relations Students Create Campaign for California Cadet Corps
May 4, 2017
Throughout the past four academic quarters, students from Cal Poly’s Central Coast PRspectives team have been working closely with the California Cadet Corps (CACC) to recreate CACC’s image and how the organization connects to the public.
Central Coast PRspectives (CCPR) is an on-campus, student-run public relations firm founded by Cal Poly students in 2005. CCPR executives and staff members provide services to clients that need assistance in marketing communications, social media and web-based communications and public and media relations.
From left to right: Mariam Alamshahi,
Grace Edinboro (Exec. Officer of CACC),
Audra Wright
CACC is a paramilitary organization that aims to create leadership opportunities for students ranging from elementary school to college.
“The goal of Cadet Corps is leadership development — to turn students into tomorrow’s leaders,” said Major Kirk Sturm of CACC.
Two CCPR students headed the campaign with CACC: Audra Wright and Mariam Alamshahi, both fourth-year journalism majors with a public relations concentration.
Wright says CACC was looking to change the public perception of their organization to attract a wider array of youth and their parents.
“When parents hear about California Cadet Corps, they think of it as a stepping-stone into the military or a program that is intended for children with behavioral issues,” said Wright. “We wanted these parents to understand that the choice is not military training or education, the CACC combines the two.”
Sturm says that each quarter the CCPR students have given recommendations to CACC on how to better demonstrate their organization’s goals.
“The CCPR students helped CACC refresh our mission statement and learn how to improve our relationship with students, parents and schools,” said Sturm.
Sturm says executives at CACC were so impressed with the work and recommendations from the CCPR students, that the organization decided to start their website over from scratch, implementing the theories and research the CCPR students urged CACC to utilize.
“Working with the Cadet Corps was very fulfilling,” said Alamshahi.
Cal Poly’s Journalism Department is known for its hand-on, Learn by Doing approach to education. Alamshahi worked with CCPR for a journalism course requirement, and says it was an important experience for her education and professional career.
“This is probably the most hands-on class that I have had for journalism, because this wasn’t a hypothetical campaign,” Alamshahi said. “I actually got to work with the Cadet Corps and implement a strategic plan for recruiting more cadets.”
Read the most recent stories in The Link
Art and Design Students Defining Words With Videos
Apr 20, 2017
Art and Design students from the Art 383 Digital Video course developed creative ways to help people define commonly misused or unknown words. The students worked closely with representatives from Dictionary.com to make videos that illustrate the proper use of a word through a unique story.