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Tara
THE NEWSPAPER OF SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1913 VOLUME 99, ISSUE 54
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012
Aztecs come together for Kwanzaa
campus
Emily Ayers Staff Writer
The Afrikan Student Union hosted a Kwanzaa celebration on Monday, bringing students and community members together to present the history, traditions and meaning of the holiday. As African drums thumped in the background of conversations about food and finals, the event promptly commenced at 7 p.m. in the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center ballroom. Each round table was decorated with roses and African-printed place mats urging family-style conversations and laughter. The environment encouraged guests to relax and open their minds to a holiday that holds tremendous value in African-American culture. “We wanted to have a holiday where we could create ourselves, celebrate ourselves, sustain and develop ourselves and introduce ourselves to history and humanity,” Organization Us member Robert Tambuzi said. Kwanzaa, founded by Organization Us, is annually celebrated from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1 and originated from the first harvest celebrations in Africa from which the holiday received its name. “It is important to remember our past,” Tambuzi said. “We must never forget where we came from and we must always praise the bridges that carried us over.” The holiday was brought to life by Maulana Karenga, who sought to bring African-Americans together after the Watts Revolt during the 1960s. Karenga wanted to strengthen
campus
Caitlin Johnson Staff Columnist
christopher b . keller , staff photographer
Students lighting seven candles representing the seven days of Kwanzaa:(from left to right) psychology junior Dajanae Palmer, business senior Mariah Kelly, criminal justice junior Adrienne Baskin.
and encourage history, values, family, community and culture while providing recovery during a critical time. Instilled within the holiday is a common concern for core values and understanding. During the seven days of Kwanzaa a candle is lit every day to represent the celebration of one of the seven core principles. The first is Umoja (unity), then Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity) and lastly, Imani (faith). “It reminds African-Americans Kwanzaa continued on page 2
christopher b . keller , staff photographer
Speaker Robert Tambuzi reaches out to the Kwanzaa celebration attendees, which was hosted by the Afrikan Student Union.
IV campus seeks to restore trust
campus
Tara Millspaugh News Editor
In early October, faculty members at the San Diego State-Imperial Valley campus voted no-confidence in their school’s dean, David Pearson. SDSUIV faculty members sent out a statement of no confidence saying Pearson allegedly created a campus-wide atmosphere of fear and retribution. SDSU Senate Chair William Eadie and Vice Chair Julio Valdes had a chance to visit the SDSU-IV campus and create a report of their findings. According to the report, which was released last Friday, the reason for the visit was for both senate members to listen to whomever wished to tell their side of the story. The 20-minute meetings consisted of tenured, untenured and part-time faculty, staff members, administrators, alumni and community members. “We spent a very long day there. We left at 7 a.m. and got back at 10:15 p.m. that night,” Eadie said. “People in the Imperial Valley were very appreciative we came.” Eadie said some people didn’t want to be seen talking to him and Valdes. Some faculty members would only speak on the phone and one faculty member had them meet at their house.
Giving isn’t only for the holidays
After talking to many people in the Imperial Valley community, Eadie and Valdes noted two sides of the story. In the report, supporters of the administration described Pearson as “a proactive individual with admirable goals.” Supporters mentioned the dean’s partnership with Imperial Valley College brought undergraduate students together for mentorship activities. The report stated the dean’s supporters implied that his opponents don’t truly care about the needs of Imperial Valley because many of them don’t live in the area and don’t participate in community events. The faculty’s point of view offered another perspective. In the report, many members who spoke to Eadie and Valdes reported they felt, “the administration has treated faculty as subordinates rather than as colleagues.” The other concern the senate members discovered was some of the faculty members felt the decision-making process on campus was not inclusive and collaborative. Pearson joined the IV campus more than two years ago from the University of Brownsville in Texas. “I think Dean Pearson got off to a bad start with the faculty and it never improved,” Eadie said. After an analysis of their findings, Eadie and Valdes reported the issue stems from Imperial Valley’s ap-
proach to shared governance. The report stated SDSU’s model of shared governance is comprised of effective collaboration, shared decision making and a dynamic staff-leader partnership. Even though SDSU-IV is nearly 100 miles away, Eadie said he still sees the importance of trying to help sort things out. “They are a campus of SDSU,” Eadie said. “Our administration is responsible for that campus. The students over there are SDSU students and the faculty are SDSU faculty. It’s isolated, and I think that’s a big problem that we can’t solve.” In order to help the campus, senate members created a list of seven recommendations for SDSU-IV. The underlying message of the report was that faculty and staff needs to build trust with one another once again. The recommendation provided is for SDSU-IV to collaborate effectively on small projects because this will lead to the ability to positively collaborate on larger issues. “The very first thing is they have to be willing to talk to each other honestly and at the moment they don’t seem willing to do that. We’re hoping our recommendations will spur into thinking about what they can do,” Eadie said.
H
ave you donated during the holiday season or volunteered at a soup kitchen? We can’t all look as good as Paul Ryan while washing dishes, but don’t feel guilty about your lack of holiday altruism just yet. There’s still time to make Santa’s “nice” list before he shimmies down the chimney. Citizens are gearing up with their best red polyester suits, fake beards and collection buckets in tow. Across the nation, they will line up at storefronts and street corners, ringing their bells in hopes you will spare a penny or two for the needy. “Happy holidays,” they will say, voices muffled by the white mask of manliness, and you will smile in return, feeling good for contributing to society. GIVING continued on page 4
Grant helps researcher find autism brain patterns
campus
Elisse Miller Staff Writer
A San Diego State research assistant professor of psychology will receive $600,000 in grant money from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the brain development differences between youth with and without autism. Inna Fishman and fellow SDSU psychology professor Ralph-Axel Müller will study the relationship between the two brain networks that are responsible for social behaviors such as emotion perception and communication. Previous autism research has focused on pointed areas of the brain, but Fishman aims to study the brain as a whole and examine how the interconnectivity of different neurological networks reflects autism development. Fishman says that the networks within the brain are not so different from a network that we’re far more familiar with, such as a subway or trolley system. “It’s the daily traffic that makes this one whole system,” Fishman says. “You can never talk about just the Greenwich Village station, but it’s part of this bigger New York City subway network.”
Fishman’s research participants, 80 with autism and 80 without autism, will range from ages 7 to 17. “If we see any changes with age, it could be potentially due to some treatment they’re receiving, so the wide age range is really important and significant in that sense, we’d be able to make some inferences,” Fishman says. “Those are the things that the community is very interested in.” To comprehend the functioning level of their brains, she will study their brain activity in the resting state using functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. “We basically put the kids in this big magnet that takes pictures of their brain and we ask them to lie down for six minutes,” Fishman says. “Really, magic happens in the scanner. It continuously records level of neural activity in the brain and that serves as a base for our calculations of network connectivity.” With this information, Fishman will be able to identify patterns in the brain and see which networks change at the same time and in the same fashion, therefore displaying signs of connectivity. People suffering from autism usually display poor social skills such as misinterpretation of Autism research continued on page 2