Recent News
Graphic Communication Alumna Starts Reusable Fabric Gift Wrap Business
Jul 14, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Cindy Estes
Since graduating from Cal Poly in 1989 with a degree in graphic communication, Cindy Estes has worked as a freelance graphic designer, a children’s clothing designer and an entrepreneur.
While she enjoyed her work designing clothes for her children’s clothing line, Seam, a few years ago, Estes was ready for something new. Around that same time, Estes’ longtime friend Monica O’Neil came up with a business idea while Christmas shopping.
“I’m at the register with a lot of giftwrap, about to spend a ton of money and I looked at the cashier, looked at my cart, looked at the cashier and I said, ‘this is such a waste’,” O’Neil said. “I said, ‘do you sell reusable gift bags?’ and it was a store that sold a lot of giftwrap. [The cashier] said ‘no, that’s a really good idea’ and I literally got in my car, and I was like ‘this is a really good idea. I’m going to do this.’”
In need of a creative partner, O’Neil called Estes to tell her about the idea.
“Monica called and I had all of the contacts,” Estes said. “So, we used all those contacts and a lot of those fabric sources to reach out to a lot of people, and then, we actually took some of the old Seam fabrics we hadn’t used, and we put them into Rapt.”
Estes’ and O’Neil’s business, Rapt, offers sustainable, reusable giftwrapping fabric. It is based off of the Japanese art of gift wrapping, called Furoshiki, which uses a simple folding technique to wrap gifts.
“The more Monica and I played with snap tape and extra stuff and elastic, we realized that the easiest way was just to build a square and then place the gift on a diagonal in the center, which is part of the history of Furoshiki in Japan,” Estes said.
Rapt Gift Wrap
During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Estes began creating additional ‘accents’ to purchase with the fabrics, including pom poms made out of yarn and remainder ribbons and fabrics.
While her role at Rapt involves less design and creativity than some of her previous jobs, Estes says she is still able to utilize her graphic communication education.
“It came out in designing clothes [for Seam], and now, it’s coming out in designing the [Rapt] website, designing all of the printed materials and in photography,” Estes said.
Estes said that her main objective with Rapt is environmental.
“I feel like we really got into this from the standpoint of saving waste,” Estes said. “It feels kind of good all around, actually.”
Estes also said that the environmental priorities of younger generations makes her proud of Rapt.
“The other thing that’s been wonderful for us is that people in their teens and twenties are some of the people reaching out to ask about what we’re doing,” Estes said. “That is wonderful for us, as parents, to be able to know that we are doing something that means something to our children’s generation.”
Rapt offers three classic ensembles in red, navy and neutral, as well as seasonal ensembles, limited edition sheets, individual accents, gift tags and ribbon spools.
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Four CLA Projects Receive Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities Grants
Jul 14, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Cal Poly’s Research, Economic Development and Graduate Education (R-EDGE) division recently awarded funds to 14 projects for the Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities (RSCA) grant’s 2021-22 cycle, four of which are from the College of Liberal Arts.
Anuraj Dhillon
The RSCA grant is supported by funds from the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Office and the Cal Poly Provost’s Office and is “designed to enable faculty to contribute new knowledge through robust programs of scholarship focused on strengthening California socially, culturally and economically,” according to R-EDGE.
Professors of Communication Anuraj Dhillon and Megan Lambertz-Berndt were awarded one of the grants for their project, “Interaction of Gender (Sex) and Race While Carrying the Burden of Relational (In)Equity: Relational maintenance strategies and coping mechanisms for mothers in higher academia during the pandemic.”
Lambertz-Berndt said the project examines how mothers in higher academia are handling the overlap between professional life and personal life during and after the COVID-19 pandemic while caring for children.
Megan Lambertz-Berndt
“We want to identify relational maintenance strategies, coping mechanisms and employer accommodations that have helped mothers working in academic achieve work-life balance,” Lambertz-Berndt said.
She and Dhillon hope to use the study to help provide practical advice for working mothers with children, which professionals can also analyze and help deliver.
“Additionally, universities like Cal Poly will be able to use these findings to better support their faculty members during challenging times,” Lambertz-Berndt said.
Another CLA project that received funding through the grants is Professor of World Languages and Cultures Silvia Marijuan’s study, “Documenting Bilingual Practices on the Central Coast: From Home to the Public Space.”
Silvia Marijuan
According Marijuan, this research project will analyze how Spanish interacts with English and indigenous languages at home, at work and in public spaces on the Central Coast, and how non-Spanish-speaking immigrant groups adapt to the use of Spanish in the community.
“Understanding the bilingual and bicultural practices of the Latinx population who live and work in this region is critical for Cal Poly students and others who interact with members of those communities,” Marijuan said.
Professor of Political Science R.G. Cravens was also offered a grant for his project, “The Politics of Queer Religion: Assessing the Effect of Religion on LGBTQ+ Identity and Political Development.”
R.G. Cravens
“For LGBTQ+ people, religion can be a source of identity-based conflict, especially after ‘coming out’,” Cravens said. “Namely, the coming out process often results in lived experiences that require LGBTQ+ people to ‘update’ their political and social behavior, contributing to distinctiveness from heterosexuals.”
Cravens said he plans to study this issue using “primary data collection by a faculty-undergraduate research team, where the students will learn survey design and data analysis to explore how the coming out process affects religious and political behavior among LGBTQ+ people.”
Lastly, Professor of Psychology and Child Development Kelly Bennion received a grant funding for her study, “Trigger Warnings and Exposure to Emotionally Provocative Stimuli: Implications for Education.”
Kelly Bennion
“We seek to investigate whether triggering material has a negative, lasting effect on individuals who have experienced trauma,” Bennion said. “By presenting individuals with upsetting content, we will determine how the framing of trigger warnings impacts emotional reactions, whether those with PTSD or triggering trauma-experience-exacerbated symptoms and whether distress levels depend on the similarity of the trauma to the presented content.”
The results of her study are expected to have practical applications for college-level instruction.
A complete list of all 2021-22 RSCA grant awardees is available on the R-EDGE website.
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Psychology and Child Development Professor Named Director of University Honors Program
Jun 18, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Jasna Jovanovic
Professor of Psychology and Child Development Jasna Jovanovic has been named the new director of the University Honors Program, starting Sept. 1, 2021.
Cal Poly’s Honors Program was founded in 1999 with the mission to provide “an academically enriched learning experience for the university’s most outstanding and highly motivated students,” according to their site.
The program also offers curricular and extracurricular programming designed to reach this goal.
Jovanovic will succeed Gregg Fiegel, who directed the Honors Program for more than seven years. Fiegel will return to the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department on a full-time basis.
Prior to obtaining her new role with the Honors Program, Jovanovic was the chair of the Psychology and Child Development Department for six years.
“I stepped down because I felt like my work was done, I accomplished what I wanted to and I wanted to give somebody else the opportunity for a leadership position,” Jovanovic said.
While Jovanovic had initially planned to return to teaching, when she saw the University Honors Program Director role had opened, she decided to take her experience there instead.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to really get in there,” Jovanovic said. “I think the program is strong, but I’m sure there’s room for new initiatives and that is what is exciting to me.”
One of Jovanovic’s responsibilities as the new director will be conducting an institutional review to determine the success of the program.
In addition to conducting the program’s first ever institutional review, some of Jovanovic’s other objectives include gathering data on the demographics of the Honors Program, supporting underrepresented students in the program and starting an alumni advisory board to help fund the program.
“One thing I would like to figure out is, who does it? Who does the program attract?” Jovanovic said. “My sense is that it may not be attracting as many underrepresented students or first [generation] students, and so, I’d like to understand how we could do a better job of attracting those students.”
Jovanovic will serve as the new director for a two-year term, after which she may reapply.
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Emeritus Theatre Professor Releases Two Novellas Based on Cal Poly Plays
Jun 8, 2021
By Sophie Lincoln
Zero by Al Schnupp
On May 29, two novellas by retired Cal Poly Theatre and Dance professor Al Schnupp were released.
One of the novellas, Zero, began as a play produced at Cal Poly and showcased at the Region 8 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, according to Schnupp.
Zero is a political satire published by Cabal Books. It tells the fictional story of how an unqualified man with no talent becomes the “darling political celebrity” of his country, according to Schnupp.
“It was a response to outrageous and often typical behavior on the part of many politicians,” Schnupp said. “I wanted to spoof the process of a candidate running for national office.”
Schnupp also said that the Cal Poly student actors and crew members helped refine the initial script which the novella was based on.
The other novella, Goods and Effects, also began as a screenplay over 20 years ago.
Goods and Effects by Al Schnupp
Goods and Effects, which was published by Golden Antelope Press, follows the story of a women who, after becoming widowed, starts a new life as a traveling saleswoman and ultimately blossoms as a feminist.
“Of all the things I’ve written – over a dozen plays – this is the most personal piece,” Schnupp said. “It reflects my heritage and charts the journey of a woman who comes to celebrate diversity and inclusion.”
Schnupp said while he currently does not have any plans to write more novellas, he is not opposed to the idea.
Schnupp taught as a professor at Cal Poly for 29 years from 1989 to 2018. Some of the classes he taught include playwriting, script analysis, stagecraft and improvisational theatre, among others.
The two novellas by Schnupp are available at numerous stores and sites.
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Cal Poly Music Department to Present Multiple Virtual Shows This Month
May 31, 2021
This month, Cal Poly’s Music Department will put on at least three virtual concerts before the end of spring quarter.
Cal Poly Choirs to Present ‘Ubis Caritas’ Concert Virtually on Saturday, June 5
First, the Cal Poly Choirs will present a virtual concert titled “Ubi Caritas” at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 5.
“Ubi Caritas” will feature a variety of selections on the themes of charity and love.
Cal Poly’s Chamber Choir will present three 20th century settings of the Latin text “Ubi Caritas,” all loosely based on the ancient chant melody. This portion will feature works by Maurice Duruflé, Ola Gjeilo and Luke Mayernik. The group will also perform several Italian and French secular works.
The Cal Poly Women’s Chorus will present “Someone Will Remember Us” by Jocelyn Hagen. The choir will be accompanied by animal science major Hana AbdulCader on harp, plus a string trio of Music Department faculty members Emily Lanzone, Michael Whitson and Laura Gaynon.
PolyPhonics, Cal Poly’s premier ensemble, will perform music by Carlos Guastavino and Joseph Rheinberger, as well as a special comical selection.
Lastly, the University Singers will present music by J.S. Bach and R. Scott Coulter, among others.
Tickets to the virtual event are $10 and can be purchased online from the Performing Arts Center.
Cal Poly Wind Bands to Present Virtual ‘Voices in the Wind’ Concert on Sunday, June 6
The same weekend, Cal Poly’s Wind Ensemble and Wind Orchestra will present a virtual concert titled “Voices in the Wind” at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 6.
Most of the works on the program were composed within the last decade, including “A Mother of a Revolution!” by Omar Thomas, which was inspired by the Stonewall uprising of 1969 and brought to national attention the systemic oppression of the LGBTQ community in New York City.
Faculty oboist Heidi Butterfield will perform “Hidden Currents” for oboe and wind ensemble by Katherine Bergman. Cal Poly is among several universities involved in supporting this new work and is presenting the West Coast premiere.
The piece depicts the seasonal changes along the northernmost stretch of the Mississippi River.
Travis Cross’ “Let the Amen Sound” will conclude the concert. Cross uses the 17th-century hymn “Lobe den Herren” as the musical material to build a work that evokes the playful exuberance of childhood, the sentimental dance of youth, and the triumphant celebration of lives well lived.
Chamber performances by small ensembles from the Wind Bands will be included in the program.
The concert will be recorded in Miossi Hall of the Performing Arts Center’s Christopher Cohan Center.
Director of Bands Christopher J. Woodruff and Associate Director of Bands Nicholas P. Waldron will conduct the concert. A live Q&A session with the conductors and some of the performers will be held following the concert.
Tickets to the virtual event are $5 and can be purchased online from the Performing Arts Center.
Cal Poly Symphony to Present ‘Voices Past and Present’ Virtually on Friday, June 11
Finally, the Cal Poly Symphony will present its season finale, “Voices Past and Present,” virtually at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 11.
The program will include music for winds and brass, music for string orchestra and music for everyone together. The winds and brass will conclude their yearlong exploration of Gordon Jacob’s “Old Wine in New Bottles,” a set of pieces based on old English folk songs.
The orchestra’s string section will perform Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop’s “Lo Yisa Goy,” an instrumental setting of the Jewish prayer for peace.
Everyone will come together to play two works: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “English Folk Song Suite,” orchestrated by Jacob, and Nkeiru Okoye’s “Voices Shouting Out,” written in response to the events of 9/11.
The Cal Poly orchestra has rehearsed and recorded as a hybrid ensemble since the fall. This included an inside in-person string ensemble meeting, an outside in-person wind and brass musicians meeting, and other student musicians joining remotely from home. The combined efforts of these three methods of performing will make up the presentation.
A live Q&A session with conductor and music Professor David Arrivée and students will follow the recorded performance.
Tickets to the virtual event are $5 and can be purchased online from the Performing Arts Center.
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Political Science Student Wins First Place at CSU Research Competition
May 24, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Isabella Abelgas
Political science senior Isabella Abelgas won first place for the Business, Economics and Hospitality Management category of this year’s California State University (CSU) Systemwide Student Research Competition.
According to Abelgas, the competition is tiered and starts within the individual California universities. There are multiple different categories for the competition, which tend to be split up by college and major. Ultimately, two winners were chosen from each of Cal Poly’s six colleges, Abelgas being one of two from the College of Liberal Arts.
For the Business, Economics and Hospitality Management category, Abelgas submitted a presentation on the impact of export cash crops on developing countries.
“The countries are no longer able to provide domestic food security for their people, and instead, their economies are geared toward these cash crops that disproportionately positively affect the United States,” Abelgas said. “Because of these export cash crops, there’s a lot of labor exploitation.”
Abelgas said she first started studying this topic in her Technology and International Development class (POLS 452). After submitting a similar paper on the topic for a class assignment, Abelgas said her professor told her to submit the paper to the CSU Research Competition.
The submission itself includes an essay along with a pre-recorded video wherein the students present their research. At the competition, which was held virtually this year, the videos are played live for the judges, who can then ask follow-up questions.
The competition includes both graduate and undergraduate students from all 23 CSU campuses. The first-place winners are awarded a $500 cash prize, and the second-place winners are awarded a $250 cash prize.
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Cal Poly’s Mustang Media Group wins 37 national and state awards at CCMA and CMBAM ceremonies
May 12, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
MMG Staff at CMBAM Virtual Ceremony
Mustang Media Group (MMG) won a total of 37 national and state awards at this year’s College Media Business and Advertising (CMBAM) and California Collegiate Media Association (CCMA) virtual ceremonies.
The student-run media organization won third place for Best Newspaper, third place for Best Newspaper Website and first place for Best College Media Sales and Marketing Program.
The group also took home a variety of individual awards including Best Social Justice Coverage, which was received by recent MMG graduates Aidan McGloin, Austin Linthicum and Kailey O’Connell and journalism junior Diego Rivera.
MMG Places 3rd For Best Website
MMG Advisor and CCMA Board Member Pat Howe said this award is particularly impressive.
“If you think about it, this contest included news organizations who are based in places where the [social justice] riots were really happening, where the protests were much larger, where the conflict was much greater than what we saw here,” Howe said. “I think that one is probably one that we should be proud of.”
MMG Wins Best Social Justice Coverage
MMG also won first place for Best COVID-19 Response Plan in the Nation, which Editor in Chief Sabrina Pascua said is very rewarding.
“I think just having that recognition of things that were produced, while we've been doing this work remotely was extremely validating,” Pascua said. “It just goes to show how much people really pushed continue to push themselves during these times.”
According to CCMA Vice President for Conference and Cal Poly Journalism Chair Brady Teufel, MMG was one of more than 60 organizations at the CCMA awards show.
Teufel said that more than 90 participants attended the virtual event for a one-hour show that featured all of the award-winning work, videos from winners and new award categories.
Teufel said that MMG’s ranking so highly among acclaimed journalism schools including University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley is a testament to Cal Poly’s media organization.
“These are schools with long, storied histories of producing excellent student journalism,” Teufel said.
MMG also took first place for Best News Series for their coverage of the controversial hiring of Paulette Granberry Russel.
Teufel said this is “especially commendable when you consider it was published during the summer when students are not working for Mustang News in any official capacity.”
MMG Wins Best News Series
Pascua also said that the summer coverage “shows how committed people on staff are to making sure that we are keeping our audience informed.”
The media organization covers a diverse range of topics over a variety of platforms including print, web, TV and radio.
For a complete list of their awards, see the Journalism Department’s website.
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Sociology professor develops new course based on epigenetic research
May 3, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Martine Lappé
Over the past year, more data has arisen regarding how genomics might play a role in a person’s susceptibility to different diseases and illnesses, most notably in terms of the Coronavirus.
Various research and findings have revealed that both nature and nurture can affect a person’s health and in fact, environmental factors that result from the systematic inequities between races seems to have a large impact on health and immunity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sociology professor Martine Lappé has been studying this phenomenon since she was first introduced to it during her undergraduate education at University of California, San Diego.
“That really got me interested in questions about not only the social environment, and the way it shapes our experiences, but also they ways in which particular areas of scientific investigation can impact the way that we experience our lives,” Lappé said.
In addition to teaching courses on the issue at Cal Poly, Lappé is also involved in her own epigenetics research, recently co-authoring an article analyzing the ethics in using new technology like epigenetic clocks.
“I had the underlying questions about equity, the underlying questions about social implications, the underlying questions about ethics,” Lappé said.
During the spring of 2020, Lappé launched a new Cal Poly course based on her research.
The course is on the sociology of health and illness and focuses on “the ways in which race, class and gender, as well as sexuality and other axes of oppression, influence both experiences of health as well as our conceptualizations of health or disease,” according to Lappé.
Since the course started right during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lappé said the experience was very unique and provided an important opportunity to discuss the broader questions of health equity.
“Each week, we would address core readings in sociology, but also readings in the popular press about the pandemic, so that we could wear this question about how do we understand health and illness as these sociological experiences with what we were actively seeing unfold and experiencing in relationship to the pandemic,” Lappé said.
While Lappé’s research initially grew out of curiosity about epigenetics and its social impacts, she has become more focused on the issues of racial equality, gender equality and the role intersectionality in health and specifically, the Coronavirus pandemic.
“Now, I would say one of the goals of the project is to really bring the findings and the collaborations that I’ve been able to establish across different disciplines, into the moment that we’re experiencing now, and to create opportunities for conversation, but also some critical engagement with the kinds of impacts that science and my findings about it might have going forward,” Lappé said.
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Cal Poly Child Development Students and Alumni Overcome Challenges Amid Virtual Learning
Mar 17, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Sheighlin MacAskill
It is 8:15 in the morning and Miss MacAskill’s kindergarten class is beginning on Zoom. Various children in various different environments continue to emerge in the little squares on the computer screen.
A little dark-haired boy sniffs loudly. “You got a sniffly nose?” Miss MacAskill asks him. He nods animatedly.
One girl unmutes herself and starts to tell Miss MacAskill about her wiggly tooth that was bleeding yesterday.
After a few minutes of interacting with her students, Miss MacAskill shares her computer screen on the Zoom. A computer-animated illustration, or “bitmoji”, of Miss MacAskill appears on the screen. The students call the animation “Flat Miss MacAskill”.
Sheighlin MacAskill has been teaching at Moreland School District in San Jose since she graduated from Cal Poly with a bachelor’s in child development in 2014. Like many other recent graduates who are currently starting their careers in education, MacAskill has faced many challenges learning how to teach virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MacAskill said when the pandemic first started to hit our country in March of 2020, she didn’t expect it to last nearly as long as it has.
“We were all hearing whispers about how [the virus] was spreading, and that certain countries were starting to close down and take all these crazy precautions,” MacAskill said. “But we weren’t really doing anything on our end yet, because it hadn’t really gotten to us at that point.”
While Moreland School District had initially planned to close for only three weeks in March, MacAskill said they have been doing virtual learning for nearly a year now.
According to MacAskill, the school’s methods for virtual learning have bettered since they first halted in-person learning and the children have since gotten the hang of it.
“It reminded me that kids are far more resilient than adults are in this situation,” MacAskill said. “They’re all just really adapting to what we’re doing right now, which I think was probably harder for teachers than it was for especially the younger students.”
Still, MacAskill said it has been challenging for her to teach certain skills that tend to require physical interaction with people and materials.
While MacAskill had the benefit of in-person teaching experience prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, others are starting their careers in child development right now. For many though, career options in education are very limited at the moment, according to some Cal Poly seniors entering the field.
Ana Bernardo is a child development senior and psychology minor at Cal Poly. Bernardo is currently interning for Transitions Mental Health Association as her field study for her child development major.
Bernardo works as a call handler at the Central Coast Hotline, which is part of Transitions Mental Health Association.
“Mainly, we deal with people who deal with mental health issues,” Bernardo said. “We get a lot of crisis calls, whether that’s suicidal intervention, panic attacks or even third-party concerns about people who have mental health problems and are needing resources in the San Luis Obispo area.”
Bernardo said she ultimately hopes to use her child development and psychology education to go into marriage and family therapy, specifically focusing on child and family dynamics.
Part of the pandemic’s effect on this industry is the resulting lack of options for those starting out in the field, as many organizations are no longer recruiting interns, Bernardo said.
“I wanted to work for like a family care network, but they actually weren’t accepting anybody just because all of those are supposed to be in person,” Bernardo said. “It just almost got to a point where you just can take what you get and unfortunately, that can sometimes not directly align with what you want to do.”
While her internship at Transitions Mental Health Association doesn’t exactly correspond with her child development major and future career goals though, Bernardo said she is very glad she ended up there and that she is learning a lot.
“I think maybe it was like a hidden gem. I honestly learned so much from the process,” Bernardo said. “I think it has really prepared me for [post-graduate] and just like an insight into what the mental health community will look like.”
Similar to Bernardo’s experience, psychology senior and child development minor Adian Alseth started his field study during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adian Alseth works remotely
Alseth is currently working as an intern with the Men and Masculinity Program at Cal Poly to raise awareness and educate on masculine roles within society in order to counteract sexual, social and power based violence against women.
“Most recently, we’ve been working toward creating community inclusivity for men of color on campus, since they are a highly impacted group, they have the highest rates of loss retention, so most likely not to complete a degree at Cal Poly,” Alseth said.
Like Bernardo, Alseth struggled with the limited options for field studies near the start of the pandemic.
“I think the limitations that were originally set made it difficult to find exactly what I was looking for, in terms of what I was hoping to do,” Alseth said.
Unlike Bernardo though, Alseth is not entirely certain of what he would like to do with his psychology and child development education. Though he said he would like to do “something along the route of mental health and mental awareness” as we start to see the effects that the pandemic has had on mental health, particularly in children.
Though Alseth values his current work with the Men and Masculinity Program, he is a bit concerned about finding work post-graduation.
“I wasn’t expecting to graduate in such an unstable economy,” Alseth said.
Additionally, Alseth said that the experience of working virtually has had some drawbacks in terms of preparing him for a future career.
“It was really unexpected to do this internship, or this part of my coursework, remote,” Alseth said. “You definitely lose the interpersonal connection you have when you’re in person with people.”
Despite how different his experience is from what he might have imagined, Alseth is grateful to have had this opportunity with the Men and Masculinity Program.
“The skills I’ve been developing are certainly applicable to a wide range [of careers],” Alseth said.
According to child development junior Tami Amer, the options for field study and internships have become even more limited since last year when Bernardo and Alseth started their field studies.
“Especially being a junior and this being one of the most important times to have field work and that kind of stuff, I’m just really scared for the future and reflecting if not having experience directly in the field will affect my later career,” Amer said.
Amer even had to take the Preschool Learning Lab class online last quarter, which she said also makes her nervous about not having enough experience.
“Not that I didn’t get any experience out of it, but it just definitely wasn’t as fulfilling as it would have been in person,” Amer said. “Not being able to physically interact with the kids and see them face to face, but kind of just over Zoom talking to them.”
According to Amer, she and other child development students in her year are worried that they might not be able to graduate on time next year due to the current lack of opportunities for field study, which is a requirement of the major.
Amer hopes to use her child development education to ultimately become a speech therapist for children.
As teachers are beginning to get vaccinated and we enter what seems to be the beginning of the end of this pandemic, some schools are moving back to in-person learning while others will remain virtual for some time.
The same is true for other careers related to the child development major, including those which Bernardo, Alseth and Amer are interested in.
MacAskill's district will remain virtual for the time being. In the meantime, it is up to her to keep her kindergartners as engaged as possible over Zoom.
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Brady Teufel appointed new Journalism Chair and Christy Chand appointed new Theatre and Dance Chair
Mar 17, 2021
By Sophia Lincoln
Brady Teufel
On March 1, it was announced that Brady Teufel was appointed as the new chair of the Journalism Department and Christy Chand was appointed as the new chair of the Theatre and Dance Department.
Teufel, who will be replacing former Journalism Chair Mary Glick, teaches courses in multimedia journalism and is the advisor for Cal Poly’s award-winning student-run newspaper, Mustang News.
Teufel was also awarded the Journalism Educator of the Year award by the California Journalism and Media Affiliates in 2018.
Chand started a position as interim chair of the Theatre and Dance Department in January. In September, she will begin her position as the official chair.
Christy Chand
Chand is also the director of Cal Poly Orchesis Dance Company and she has directed numerous Cal Poly dance productions, including the most recent virtual show, Floor Plan.
Both chairs will start their three-year terms this September.