Briefly told news

James Hermon, Fanny Cano, Victor Kamont / Roundup

First psychology showcase

Assistant professor Angela Belden was inspired by a professor from the Media Arts Department who provides their students the opportunity to share their work with members of the Pierce community, so she created a platform to showcase her students’ work as well.

The first annual “Psychology Showcase” took place Monday in the Great Hall.

“This is my second semester here, and I really wanted to give my students a chance to display their work,” said Belden. “I want them to feel as if their hard work is not going unnoticed.”

Eleven of Belden’s students created posters, each explaining the findings from their semester-long research projects.

Jessica Anne Bagood, a 19-yearold psychology major, researched whether or not Rap music effects stress levels of college students.

“Nurses often play classical music to their patients as a form of musical therapy, so I decided to study the effects that rap music has on the stress level in college students,” said Bagood.

Achieving their dreams

In an effort to help more students succeed at Pierce College Bob Martinez, who is part of the Student Success Committee, is working on making the Achieving the Dream program eligible to students.

The Dream program initiative seeks to help more students reach their individual goals. The program’s goals emphasize successfully completing the courses they take; advancing from remedial to creditbearing courses; enrolling in and successfully completing gatekeeper courses; enrolling from one semester to the next; and earning degrees and/or certificates.

“The students at Pierce College will benefit from this program and it will encourage them” said Bob Martinez.

The Student Success Committee will begin its journey to bring this program to Pierce College by attending the Kickoff Conference June 12-14, it’s intended that by Fall 2011 the program will be eligible for students.

Professor to be published

A Pierce College astronomy professor’s discovery of new stars will be published in the July 2011 issue of “Astrophysical Journal.”

Carolyn Mallory, instructor of physics and planetary sciences, headed a year-long research project in the California Institute of Technology that involved the application of infrared to discover new stars.

She presented her findings in a presentation called “Finding the Stars,” using the Spitzer telescope data.

They discovered 29 new stars by heat, because they were not visible to the naked eye.

They didn’t know if there were a many stars, or just a few, in the nebula so they had to use infrared to see in the dark mass.

“It was a really, really good scientific feat,” she said.