From the Director...
As the Marian Wright Edelman Institute moves into its 10th year of service, we take pride in the accomplishments of faculty and staff in advancing the goals of the Institute and turning them into dynamic realities.
The Child and Adolescent Development Program has grown to a current enrollment of 600 students. Faculty have created courses to meet workforce demands and the program has collaborated with Head Start, First Five San Francisco and the Miriam and Peter Haas Fund to create a CAD/Head Start Dual Language baccalaureate degree program, Soy Bilingue, to prepare preschool teachers to work with bilingual and monolingual children and their families.
Gateway to Quality assessors have evaluated quality in over 900 San Francisco childcare sites using the Harms Environmental Rating Scales. We are seeing improvement in the quality of care on the majority of sites within three years of our initial assessment. Our efforts constitute a major investment of City funds and results are showing that the program is making a difference.
Volunteers for WiRED International continue to provide essential medical and health information to physicians, nurses, community health practitioners and individuals on four continents: Africa, Central America, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Of these, WiRED’s 39 medical health information centers in Iraq present the greatest difficulty in the area of funding. To help meet this challenge, the Edelman Institute coordinated and hosted a house party fundraiser in April that raised much-needed funds as well as interest.
These are just a few of our success stories, brought about by those who coordinate, implement and support our programs. We thank them all.
-Charlotte Ferretti
CAD Welcomes New Faculty Dr. Soyeon Park
We are pleased to welcome Dr. Soyeon Park, our newest tenure track faculty in CAD. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, in Human Development and was Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire for four years before she returned to Korea. Her research interests include cultural influences on children’s social/cognitive development, multiculturalism, and early childhood teacher education.
Professor Carol Stevenson Retires
After five years of teaching in the CAD Program, Carol Stevenson is retiring. She has the distinction of being the first tenure track faculty in the CAD program and pioneered the way for those who follow her. Her expertise was in public policy, specifically for families and young children. While she was here, Professor Stevenson taught CAD 300, CAD 600 and 601, and developed and taught CAD 625, the policy course. She advised hundreds of students, wrote countless letters of recommendations, guided the fledgling CAD student association, served on numerous committees, and demonstrated her passion for teaching and students each time she taught a course. We will miss Carol and wish her the best in her retirement.
CAD 680 Students Experience China
In June, 2007, eight CAD students and their instructor, Janet Egiziano, experienced what everyone declared “the trip of a lifetime”, 17 days touring China as the culminating experience for CAD 680: International Experiences in Child and Adolescent Development. The tour’s demanding schedule combined iconic visits to The Great Wall and Tiananmen Square with intimate exchanges in a private home and offered a wealth of emotionally moving professional experiences and site visits.
Day one brought the group to Beijing. Writing in her journal, CAD student Lauren Smith, observed that in China “the air seems thicker and hotter, almost like walking in a sauna filled with other people…a mixture of fresh fruit, cooking meats, baked goods, cigarettes….”
Chinese tour guide, Tony Zhao, provided an ongoing history lesson along the way and background on Chinese policies that helped ground our observations and inform our experiences. We learned that most Chinese feel that China’s one child policy produces “spoiled” children and that there is concern for what this policy may mean in future generations. We learned that the one child policy is enforced through birth registration: only one child from each family may be registered, and only those whose birth is registered may have access to education, employment, health care and housing. Students learned of the 9 years of mandatory education and the extraordinary urgency to score well on tests to that are the gateway to higher education. All were impressed by the high standards of teaching and rigors of the classroom, even in kindergarten.
Traveling to five cities–Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Suzhou and Shanghai–we experienced a full array of the Chinese transportation system: bus, rickshaw, subway, plane, and overnight train. Professional visits and experiences included Beijing Normal University, touring a public elementary school, visiting with caregivers and patients at Songtang Hospice, touring, dialoging with administrators and playing with children at Children’s Welfare Institute (school and home for unregistered special needs children), teaching English to a 5th grade class in a small rural school in Guilin, visiting a private kindergarten, and having a dialogue with high school students at a private foreign language school outside Shanghai.
Cultural experiences included dining on scorpions (!) and Peking Duck, visiting the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, a Buddhist Temple, the Forbidden City, Shanghai’s Bund, and a Muslim village; cruising on the dreamlike Li River and the nightmarish Grand Canal; seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors; exploring public museums and private gardens. It was noted that our tour included 5 places listed in the currently popular book, “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” and 3 are listed among the wonders of the World.
Student Grace Baldoz summed up our collective thoughts in the closing pages of her journal: “It’s been quite an experience…a reflective experience….a time to take in as much of the Chinese culture as possible and take pictures of it in my mind to remember this awesome experience forever.”
Come join us next time. Preparations for CAD 680: Kenya are underway.
By Janet Egiziano
CAD Off-Campus Programs Serve the Bay Area
Did you know that CAD offers courses at three community colleges and a full BA degree program at one of them? Through SF State partnerships with Cañada College, College of Marin/Indian Valley Campus, and City College of San Francisco, CAD is making it easier for students to work toward a baccalaureate degree while remaining close to their community. With courses offered only in the evening hours once per week, these partnerships programs are ideal for students who work full-time and are unable to commute to the SF State campus. Students who normally take courses on the SF State campus are welcome to commute to classes held off-campus.
At Cañada College in Redwood City, CAD offers a full BA degree program in both the Young Child and School Age concentrations that may be undertaken full or part-time. This program includes all courses required to complete the major as well as ENG 414 and one cluster of Segment III General Education. JEPET is also offered once each fall on the Cañada College campus for the convenience of students in our program and advising in the major is offered on a weekly basis throughout the academic year. Fall 2007 semester courses are CAD 300, CFS 325, EED 602, EED 610, COMM 353, DANC 340 and, for Segment III, HIST 469. A partial listing of our Spring 2008 schedule includes HIST 450, ENG 414, REC 380, CAD 600, KIN 401 and EED 615. One additional core course and one additional in the Young Child concentration will be offered. For program information or advising on the Canada campus, contact Janet Egiziano through the CAD office at 405-3564 or by email at jmlziano@sfsu.edu.
At College of Marin/Indian Valley Campus, two courses are offered each year in the fall and spring semesters as CAD and the University gauge interest in and demand for a BA completion program. CAD is actively working with the Early Childhood Education (ECE) community of Marin County in this process. Students are able to move through most of the CAD major (core and Young Child concentration) in this part-time program designed for students who live or work in Marin County. Courses are offered once weekly from 7:00-10:00 pm. Fall 2007 courses are PSY 435 and EED 602. The Spring 2008 schedule includes EED 668 and AFRS 515. To learn more about the CAD program at College of Marin, contact Jeanie Jacobson, College of Marin/SF State Partnership Coordinator, at 415/457-8811, extension 8237.
At City College of San Francisco, CAD offers two to three classes every fall, spring and summer in the core and Young Child concentration. These courses serve to enrich the ECE program of City College and help students gain confidence in making the transition from the community college of SF State. Courses are offered once per week in fall and spring during late afternoon and evening hours and at other times during summer sessions. Our Fall 2007 courses are MUS 230 and REC 445. Course slated for spring 2008 are CFS 426, EED 610 and PSY 455. For program information, contact Janet Egiziano through the CAD office at 405-3564 or by email at jmlziano@sfsu.edu.
Upcoming Events
September 20th: Read for the Record!
Join Jumpstart in encouraging early literacy and trying to break the
Guinness Book of World Records for the number of people reading the same book in the same day! This year's book is The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. For more information, please visit the website http://www.readfortherecord.org
September 29th: Health Fair at the San Francisco Zoo!
A collaboration between HeadStart and Jumpstart will be bringing dental and health screenings to the SF Zoo! For more information, please contact HeadStart at 415-405-0500.
Held from 9am until 4:30pm in Knuth Hall on the San Francisco State University campus, the ECE Academy is designed by Jumpstart for valuable training and fun! There will be workshops on the following:
Language and Literacy
Second Language Acquisition
Families & Stress
Family Involvement
Music & Movement
Social and Emotional Development
as well as a keynote speech given by Rosemary Wells! Rosemary will be talking about the importance of early literacy and showing a slide show about her bookmaking process. For more information, please contact Jumpstart at 415-405-3593.
October 31st: Marian Wright Edelman Institute's 10th Anniversary Celebration!
Marian Wright Edelman will be coming into town to celebrate the Institute's achievements these past 10 years and a party will promote past accomplishments and future endeavors.
November 16th: Ratification of the Rights of the Child
The Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a human rights treaty outlining the basic rights of all the world's children, regardless of national boundaries. Though many countries have already ratified this treaty, the U.S. has yet to do so. The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child is organizing a nation-wide CRC event to increase awareness about the treaty. Faculty at San Francisco State are involved in efforts to create an awareness of this issue among campus colleagues and students. For more information you may visit the website of the CRC U.S. Campaign at http://childrightscampaign.org
Important Deadlines for CAD Students
Internship Deadlines:
To intern in the Spring 2008 semester, apply by September 15, 2007
To intern in the Summer* 2008 semester, apply by January 22, 2008
To intern in the Fall 2008 semester, apply by February 15, 2008
*Please note that the Summer Internship is not available for students in the School Age concentration
Graduation Deadlines:
If you expect to graduate at the end of the Fall Semester, apply to SFSU by the last Friday in September.
If you expect to graduate at the end of the Spring Semester apply to SFSU by the third Friday in February.
Last Day to Add a Class (with a late permit number): September 24th, 2007
Last Day to Drop a Class: September 24th, 2007
From Sept. 25th-Nov. 16th you must submit a withdrawal petition and it will only be considered for serious and compelling reasons.
Last Day to Request CR/NC option: October 22nd, 2007.
Please note that courses taken to fulfill CAD major requirements must be taken for a letter grade.
Congratulations to CAD Graduates!
On Sunday, May 20, 107 of the 176 CAD graduates from August 2006, December 2007, and May 2007, marched across the stage at the McKenna Theatre on campus to receive congratulations and roses upon their graduation with a B.A. degree in Child and Adolescent Development. Two ceremonies were held to accommodate the numerous friends and families of our graduates - the first ceremony was for graduates in the Young Child & Family and the Research & Public Policy concentrations, while the second one was for graduates in the School Age Child & Family and Youth & Family Services concentrations. Both Dr. Don Taylor, the Dean of the College of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Charlotte Ferretti, Director of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute for the Study of Children and Families, congratulated the graduates and wished them well as alumni of SFSU.
Special awards were also handed out. Zdenka Sautner from the Young Child & Family concentration received the CAD Program Honoree award for the highest earned overall college grade point average, and represented the CAD Program at the university-wide Undergraduate Honors Convocation. Congratulations are in order for Diana Taur-McMillan who received the Perry Achievement Award for academic excellence. This award is named after Dr. Shannon Perry, one of CAD’s first directors who exemplified excellence in her work to build the CAD program. Diana is in the Research and Public Policy concentration and has earned high academic honors throughout her time at SFSU. Mason Musemecci received the CAD program’s Seashore Achievement and Service Award, for his excellent academic work at SFSU and his exceptional service to the community. The Seashore award honors Dr. Marjorie Seashore, former Associate Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and one of the founders and advocates of the CAD Program.
By
Dr. Rene Dahl
Sun Shines Brightly on Jumpstart for a Day
Almost 1,300 young children along with their families and teachers participated in Jumpstart San Francisco’s annual Jumpstart for a Day celebration held on the campus on April 24th. The event marked the culmination of a highly successful year for the program during which 135 Jumpstart Corps members from SF State and CCSF served more than 500 children.
For the event, 160 Jumpstart Corps members facilitated 26 hands-on learning stations for children ages 3-5, their families, and teachers to explore. Live fish and worms at the “science exploration station” proved to be popular as did the “body station” where children had the opportunity to have their bodies traced and decorated with lung and heart cut-outs.
The event was designed for exploration as well as entertainment. While some children held turtles and snakes at the interactive Tree Frog Treks table, others were entertained by Bayview Children’s Librarian Darcel Jones, Taiko drumming, and popular storybook characters from Wild Thing, Pig and Pancake and Miss Bindergarten Goes to Kindergarten.
Community partners who generously contributed to the success of the event included members from Jumpstart’s Early Literacy Initiative who made digital personalized ABC books for the children; members of the San Francisco Fire Department who gave tours of a fire engine; and personnel from the San Francisco Police Department Canine Unit allowed children to get up close and personal with a police dog. Valencia Health Services employees and a host of other community organizations provided staffing and assistance for a variety of activities.
Diversifying Leadership in Nursing Program Recruits 7 Students for Fall 2007
The Diversifying Leadership in Nursing Program recently recruited seven new students for the Fall 2007 semester. Six of the seven are currently enrolled in SFSU’s Generic Masters in Nursing program. The seventh is enrolled in the Masters in Nursing program at the University of San Francisco (USF). Monica Miranda, our USF student, represents the third university to participate in this collaborative program. We also have a student from the Masters in Nursing program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), Sharee Anzaldo.
Our grant-supported program has grown from recruiting two students each year to recruiting 7-8 students each year, and from the initial collaboration between UCSF’s Comprehensive Cancer Center at Mount Zion to the current three-way collaboration, adding USF to the partners. It is very gratifying to see how well the students are doing, and to watch how the program has grown over the past five years.
The focus of the program now encompasses beyond health inequities in cancer to include the full scope of health inequities in all fields of nursing. Our students and their interests remain diverse, and we continue to be fortunate in recruiting students of top caliber from the participating institutions.
We have eight students enrolled in the cohort from 2006 who are now working with preceptors and plan to graduate in December 2007. Sharee Anzaldo (UCSF) is interested in geriatric nursing and the differences in nursing care for the elderly among different cultural groups. Samuel Kim (SFSU) and Tino Tuyapala (SFSU) are working together to analyze a 5-tier triage system and its implementation in the emergency department. Kevin Liau (SFSU) is working on a clinic-based registry system to improve care for diabetic patients. Yonis Mudey (SFSU) and Shetaye Shemsu (SFSU) are exploring the possibility of using telemedicine to help prevent blindness in the homeless population in the Tenderloin Community Clinic. Emilia Patrick (SFSU) is interested in nursing care for patients with chronic illnesses who live in rural areas, and is working on a project to examine the characteristics of primary hospice caregivers in four frontier communities. Sann Situ (SFSU) is working on a project to explore physicians’ inquiry about sexual orientation of their patients, and how these inquiries might affect the comprehensive care of lesbians with breast cancer.
Headstart Makes Way in 2007
The SFSU Head Start/Early Head Start (HS/EHS) Program has been extremely busy this year in preparation for our triennial federal review. During the week of May 6-11, 2007, federal reviewers from across the United States came to visit our centers, interview families, meet with our Board of Directors, Policy Council members, staff, and review records and files.
We are pleased to report that the outcome for our federal review was spectacular! San Francisco Head Start/Early Head Start citywide (Grantee-Operated, Partners and Delegates) was found to be n 100% in program service area compliance.
The outcome of this review shows that SFSU Head Start has met its commitment to deliver high quality comprehensive services to Head Start children and their families in the City and County of San Francisco. We want to recognize and thank all of our program staff, managers, administration, Policy Council representatives, Grantee, Mission and Kai Ming’s Board of Directors, and SF State’s administrative staff for your contribution(s) to the mission of HS/EHS in making our program an overall success.
Among our program’s accomplishments for program year 06-07 are:1. Submittal of Refunding Grant Application for HS/EHS FY 2007-2008.
2. Cost-of Living Adjustment of 1.5% for all Head Start staff retroactive to October, 2006.
3. Conducting tours of our centers for SF State President Robert Corrigan, SF State HS/EHS Board of Directors and Grantee Council members.
4. Collective bargaining agreement between the CSU and SEIU 790 representing the Grantee’s non-exempt staff.
5. Establishment and/or continuation of Memorandums of Understandings with the following departments within SF State:
r School of Nursing (Year 5)
r Department of Psychology (Year 1)
r Department of Kinesiology (exploring)
6. Adding two new additions to our Head Start Team: - Human Resource Administrator, Tom McCaffrey - Disabilities Manager, Craig Zercher, Ph.D.
Our program continues to strive for excellence to develop and implement the best systems to better serve our families and the San Francisco community. We look forward to another exciting year working with you all.
Jumpstart Named Among Top 43 Non-Profits in America
Jumpstart is among the 43 winners of the 2007 Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards. This marks the fourth consecutive year Jumpstart has received this prestigious award.
The program honors nonprofits, or "social entrepreneurs," across the nation that combine creativity and ingenuity with business-solutions to address the most challenging social problems today, ranging from poor healthcare in developing nations to unequal education access, homelessness, unemployment and substance abuse in the United States.
Today, 1 in 3 children in America enters school unprepared to succeed. To address this school readiness crisis, Jumpstart recruits and trains college students to work one-to-one with at-risk preschool children and their families to give them the support these young children need to succeed in school and in life.
Since 2000, Jumpstart has realized, on average, more than 30% annual growth in college students engaged and children served. Currently, 3,100 college students are serving at 64 sites in 19 states, reaching nearly 12,000 children. As a result of this growth, Jumpstart has increased the number of adults serving low-income 4-year old preschoolers by 5% nationwide, and as much as 70% in cities such as Boston and San Francisco. At the same time, network-wide assessments continue to demonstrate that Jumpstart is having a statistically significant impact on the children enrolled in its program.
"Jumpstart is a nonprofit organization, but we operate like a business whose product is social impact," said John Tarvin, Jumpstart's Interim President. "We maintain rigorous standards of quality and continually seek innovative solutions to improve our service delivery, expand our impact, and ultimately reach more children. Fast Company and Monitor's acknowledgment of ‘social entrepreneurs' like Jumpstart is critical to pushing the social sector to ever higher levels of performance."
Jumpstart at San Francisco State University continues to grow, this year serving more then 700 children and families.
For more information about the Jumpstart program at San Francisco State University contact:
Nichole Schultz
Site Manager
nschultz@sfsu.edu
415.405.3780
Japanese Students Experience San Francisco Early Childhood Education
This October, SF State's Child and Adolescent Development program will host an international experience in child development for a contingency of 68 students and faculty from Tokyo Seitoku University's Department of Children Studies. This visit is the second in less than a year for the Japanese private university. CAD coordinated a similar event for the group in November, 2006, in which more than 70 students participated. While sightseeing will be a popular activity, the star attractions of the trip will be site visits, observations and exchanges with teachers and students at a variety of child development and school sites in San Francisco.
Tokyo Seitoku University is a newly established private university, the first of its kind in Japan. The school offers programs in child development and in education, and students in these programs are preparing for careers in the field of child development and teaching.
As part of their academic program for which the students receive credit, Tokyo Seitoku University students participate in two international experiences. During the freshman and sophomore years, students visit regional locales, and during their junior year, students visit the U.S. Travel expenses are subsidized through a grant from the Japanese government. The purpose of the tour is to learn more about the American system of child care, child development, and K-8 education through on-site visits to schools and attendance at SFSU faculty lectures.
In 2006, five sites graciously permitted this large group to visit their facilities and observe teacher/student interaction: Associated Students Children Center, Westside Head Start Center, Lawton Alternative K-8 Public School, Mission Science Workshop, and Florence Crittenton Infant-Toddler Center. Dr. Beverly Kong, principal of Lawton Alternative School, not only welcomed students to observe her elementary, middle and special education classrooms, but also facilitated a brown-bag lunch to enable her middle school students to interact informally with the Japanese students. We anticipate that these sites and others will participate in the 2007 event.
SF State and Tokyo Seitoku are in the process of forming a sister relationship through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow for student exchange, faculty exchange, and joint research.
These international experiences for Tokyo Seitoku University students and faculty are planned and executed by Janet Egiziano, Associate Director of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute.
Marian Wright Edelman Institute Celebrates 10th Anniversary!
The year 2007 marks the achievement of 10 years of service, collaboration and scholarship to SF State students and the Bay Area community by the Marian Wright Edelman Institute. A celebration will be held on October 31 and with special guest Marian Wright Edelman.
The Institute was formed in 1997 and was charged with the mission of bringing together the University'ss best scholars and students to address the ever-changing needs of children, youth and families. This was the culmination of a campus-wide interdisciplinary effort spanning several years in which more than 120 faculty members participated. The founding faculty members envisioned the Institute as a powerful tool for outreach, advocacy, and research, and the home of an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree program in Child and Adolescent Development whose graduates would be ready to become leaders in their fields - the teachers, service providers, policy developers, and graduate-level researchers.
The mission of the Institute is three-fold:
- To offer an interdisciplinary degree program in Child and Adolescent Development (1997)
Outcomes then and now: The Child and Adolescent Development Program (CAD) accepted 14 students in the fall of 1998, and graduated its first class--a total of 6 students--in 2002. Ten years later, CAD has over 600 majors; 176 students made up the Class of 2007. CAD's first tenure-track faculty was hired in 2000; Dr. Soyeon Park will join the CAD this fall as our 4th tenure-track faculty member.
- To promote collaboration among faculty, and to create public outreach, social advocacy, and other partnerships between San Francisco State University and the community
Outcomes then and now: The Institute has developed a productive history of attracting grants and contracts related to the study of children and families that has included funding from federal and local government agencies and private foundations. Grant-funded projects currently housed within the Edelman Institute include Head Start, Early Head Start, Jumpstart San Francisco, SFSU Child Study Center, WiRED International, SHINE/SAIL Literacies Project, CAD/Head Start Dual Language Baccalaureate Degree Program funded by the DHHS' Hispanic Education Fund, Pathways Community College Partnerships (Cañada College, CCSF, and College of Marin), Valencia Health Services, Diversity in Nursing Leadership, and two research/evaluation projects; Gateway to Quality and Cultivating Emotional Balance in the Classroom. Among the Institute's many current contributors are the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, First Five San Francisco, San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, Americorps, Health Resources and Services Administration, The McKesson Foundation,
- To foster research and scholarly work
Highlights include:
Dr. Rene Dahl
Linking people to the outdoors: Connections for healthy lands, people and communities. Welcoming Address. Proceedings of the Fourth Social Aspects and Recreation Research Symposium.
Dr. Laurie Meschke -- Guest Reviewer for Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and Family Relations
Peer Reviewed Presentations:
Meschke, L. L., & Holl, J. (November 2005). Factors related to prenatal alcohol use: An analysis by race. Presented at the annual conference of the National Council on Family Relations,
Dr. Gary Selnow -- "A Rhetoric of Peace in A Time of War." Heilmann, C. [Ed.], Slembek Festschrift, 2005. (Chapter)
Roundtable Moderator, "Broadband Strategies in
"Providing Medical and Healthcare Information to Disenfranchised Populations: Healthcare Communication as A Global Unifier," International Colloquium on Communication,
Dr. Carol Stevenson
Conference: Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Families in Child Care, Workshop on "Becoming an Advocate," February 25, 2006
Panel member: Early Childhood Mentor Teacher Project -- "Successful
Partnerships between 2 year and 4 year early childhood
programs,"
Janet Egiziano
Panel Member: "Moving to a Higher Degree:
Panel member: Early Childhood Mentor Teacher Project -- "Successful
Partnerships between 2 year and 4 year early childhood
programs,"