From the Director...
Faculty and staff of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute welcome Head Start and Early Head Start staff, children and families into the Institute. As of February 1st, the Head Start Program has relocated from the Urban Institute to the Edelman Institute and we thank the staff at the Urban Institute, specifically Acting Director Susan Alunan and Andrew Johnson for their assistance in the transfer, and for their support and assistance in helping to create a successful program in San Francisco.Moving forward, we have a shared vision for Head Start with the Executive Director, Juanita Santana, who took over the position in May of this year. What drew Ms. Santana to the San Francisco Head Start position was the potential to create a model program by increasing the integration of SFSU faculty and students into Head Start and by creating Citywide systems. to improve the quality of child development. She has already made progress in this effort through faculty meetings with Lynette Landry in Nursing, Marci Hanson in Special Education, Barbara Henderson in Elementary Education and Rene Dahl, Director of the Child and Adolescent Development Program.
The Institute has planned a get-acquainted reception the evening of April 13th to formally welcome all Head Start employees. We are all very excited about enhancing existing connections between Head Start and Institute programs. such as CAD, Jumpstart and the Gateway to Quality, and the potential new collaborations with faculty and students across the campus. Dean Joel Kassiola and Associate Dean Dawn Terrell join us in welcoming Head Start, and they have offered their support to create a strong academic presence that will enhance the program's outcomes for children.
-Dr. Charlotte Ferretti
CAD Connections
By Rene Dahl, Ph.DProgram Director
Welcome back to spring semester! We're running a bit late with our newsletter, so rather than welcome you to the start of the semester, I'm welcoming you back from what I hope was a wonderful and restful spring break.
Graduation plans are underway! Those of you who will graduate or walk this spring will want to mark your calendars for Saturday, May 28. In addition to the formal University graduation ceremony, CAD will host an event for you, your families, and friends that morning from 9:30-10:30 at the Seven Hills Conference Center on campus. Invitations will be mailed the last week of March. This event is a special time to recognize the hard work and determination that has led each of you to this day, and to convey individual honors to some of our top students. We hope to see all of you there!
For those still working toward graduation, please remember to schedule an advising appointment once each semester to ensure that you are on track with the major. Call the CAD office at 415/405-3564 for an appointment. I also recommend that you schedule a general education advising appointment to ensure that you are on track to meet all graduation requirements. This appointment should be made with the Undergraduate Advising Center, 415/338-2101.
Alex Keller(l) and Andrew Roderick from BSS IT Department
BSS Information Technology Department and WiRED get connected.
During the past two years, the Edelman Institute and WiRED International have collaborated on several overseas health-related projects. In one recent alliance, the two organizations developed and delivered a unique nurses' training program for medical schools and teaching hospitals in Iraq. This special curriculum, delivered on CD-ROMs, allows Iraqi health professionals to adapt modern nursing practices to current medical traditions. This Edelman/WiRED curriculum offers a stop-gap nurses' training program that can assist the medical community until security conditions permit more formal studies. Another recent collaboration, which will touch medical information programs. in many countries, involves upgrading two computer-based, medical libraries. For the past several years, WiRED has delivered its computer-stored medical information on CD-ROMs. Now, the size of the libraries has grown so large that delivering information on disks has became almost impossible.
With the help of Alex Keller, Network and systems. Manager, and Andrew Roderick, Director of Information Technology for the College of Behaviorial and Social Sciences, WiRED will begin housing its two main library collections on transportable hard drives. These libraries will then be transferred to servers at each of WiRED's Medical Information Centers in Iraq, Kosovo, Serbia, Kenya and six other countries.
This conversion will allow much larger medical collections, including entire technical libraries downloaded from major Web sources (for instance the entire CDC Website and Medline Plus). This approach will also permit more frequent information updates and the integration of two valuable new features: an access portal that provides a complete resource inventory, and a sophisticated search engine. Keller and Roderick expect to release WiRED's Professional Medical Library (for doctors) and Community Health Care Library (for grassroots populations) by early spring. This information will touch nearly one million people a year, helping save lives and improve health care in many developing and post-conflict counties.
Head Start's Juanita Santana (l) with Dr. Rene Dahl, CAD Director
Welcome Juanita Santana San Francisco Head Start/Early Head Start Director
Juanita Santana comes to San Francisco Head Start from Oregon where she directed a Head Start program for families of migrant workers across the state that included 5,000 children and 10,000 employees. While directing the Oregon program Ms. Santana increased Head Start's budget from $1.5 million to $35 million, a goal that she attributes to not only non profit experience, but a masters degree in business.
Juanita Santana has enthusiastically embraced the San Francisco childcare community and is an active participant in many of the ongoing efforts including Pre School For All, the Gateway to Quality Project and the Child Care Planning and Advisory Council.
We feel fortunate to have Ms. Santana as a part of the Institute. She comes with a history of recognized contributions to improve the lives of migrant workers and has testified in the Senate in Washington, D.C. on their behalf. She spent a year as fulltime assistant to the Program Operations Branch Chief in the Head Start Bureau in Washington, D.C., as a National Head Start Fellow, and was selected to participate as the first Head Start Johnson & Johnson Management Fellow through the Anderson Graduate School of Business at UCLA. Ms. Santana was also featured in the Oregon Business Magazine in May 2003 as one of eight businesswomen "changing the face of leadership across Oregon."
We hope that many of you will have a chance to meet and work with Ms. Santana as she is a most welcome addition to the Marian Wright Edelman Institute.
Mission Science Workshop on the move.
City College of San Francisco, which has generously housed the Marian Wright Edelman Institute's Mission Science Workshop without cost for the past 10 years, temporarily closed its Mission campus a few days before the Winter Break in order to renovate the existing structure and to add a much-needed new wing. Construction is scheduled to begin in April, 2005. This temporary closure will last approximately 24 months and, when the campus reopens, it will once again house the Science Workshop in a new and improved space.
City College officials have permitted the Science Workshop to continue operating from the Mission campus through March and part of April. That accommodation has come to an end, however, and the Science Workshop must vacate the premises in order for construction to begin.
After a long and exhaustive search for an appropriate temporary facility, we are pleased to inform you that the San Francisco Unified School District has agreed to provide space for the Science Workshop at Mission High School, 3750 18th Street. Crews from both CCSF and SFUSD are working now to clean and refurbish the space.
In order to disassemble and pack almost 2,000 square feet of classroom, materials, and exhibit space, the Science Workshop has had no choice but to interrupt services at its Mission site for approximately 4 weeks. At this time, we anticipate resuming operations the week of April 25, 2005 in its new space at Mission High School.
Unearthing a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Child Study Center
By Norman Manglona (Teaching Assistant)
On March 8, 2005, a complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was unearthed outside of The Child Study Center. A team consisting of thirteen four-year old paleontologists began their excavation following the discovery of the billion year old skeleton. As a result of the excavation, the diligent scientists were able to share their own knowledge of dinosaurs with each other as well as identify the different bones/parts of the dinosaur's body (categorization). During the first day of the dig, Miles announced, "I found the foot!" He and four other children were busy brushing off the delicate find using tiny brushes in order to ensure the preservation of the skeleton. This particular task required great fine motor skills as well as a great deal of patience. While the dinosaur's parts were being identified, Jack asked his colleagues, "Did you know that the T-Rex was the only one who lives in San Francisco?" This question sparked a dialogue regarding how all the other dinosaurs in the city of San Francisco became extinct because of the T-Rex's presence (social interaction). Also, the young scientists were able to identify the "meat-eaters" and "plant-eaters" by the shape and size of the dinosaurs' teeth.
By the third week of the excavation project, the children were sketching their findings and digging other parts of the yard in search of more skeletons (use of fine/large motor). That very same week another discovery was made - a nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs! "I think the eggs are this guy's," said Adrian pointing to the skeleton. He and a few other scientists brushed the eggs off and carefully examined each individual egg. Some of the scientists noted the different lengths of the eggs as well as the weight of each one. This application of mathematics extended from last week's examination of the bones. It was Joshua who compared the length of the "leg bone" to the "arm bone" during the initial dig. A few of the paleontologists also touched on the development of a dinosaur from an egg to an adult. This illustrates the young scientists' grasp of sequencing. Following a three week study of the dinosaur skeleton and eggs, the discoveries were carefully shipped off to a museum in San Francisco to be displayed.
The Child Study Center is a project-based program in which curriculum is designed according to the present interests of the children. In this particular instance, the children were fascinated by dinosaurs. Books about dinosaurs were the initial motivation for this three week long project. It was my goal to provide the children with a more hands-on approach to learning about dinosaurs. Props were then created and provided to simulate a paleontological excavation, transforming the children's fantasy into their own reality. During the process, concepts such as categorization, sequencing, and mathematics were applied and mastered as they used their fine and large motor skills.
The above is a tongue-in-cheek report chronicling the three week long project.
Jumpstart For A Day, A Huge Success!
Participants showing off their creative talents at one of the many stations at this year's JFAD.
What do you get when you add 800 preschoolers, 150 families, an army of volunteers, and maybe an animal or two? You get this year's, wildly successful, Jumpstart For A Day (JFAD).
On April 5, 2005, the Seven Hills Conference Center and the adjacent Technology Tower were taken over by the Jumpstart Crew. In years past, the Jumpstart event needed only one space. This year was quite different. Jumpstart planned the day with lofty goals and came through with flying colors, enough to have to take on a second location to accommodate the different activities.
The focus of the event was education. The goal was to educate families to the community resources available to them, educate the kids about literacy and the fun world of science, and to educate the volunteers who have shown an interest in working with children as a possible career path. In addition to the different events, free fingerprinting for children was offered by the SFPD Operation Dream.
From the 7-year old rap artist, that showcased his MC skills for his fellow peers, to touching frogs and worms at the animal observation area, those that participated left knowing more about the world in which we live and the Jumpstart Volunteers left with the comfort that they helped make a difference in our community.
New Additions to the Edelman Institute
Marian Wedekind - Office Assistant
Patrick Troup - Student Assistant
Aga Rahman - Student Assistant