Provost's Awards Lecture Series

Spring 2023 Presentations

This lecture series is to honor and showcase each year's recipients of the Provost's Awards.
Please remember to sign-in to Zoom through your Fresno State Zoom portal.

THURSDAY, March 16, 2023

WATCH THE RECORDED PRESENTATIONS - Click Here

2021-2022 – Promising New Faculty
Varaxy Yi Borromeo, Department of Educational Leadership

“You, Me, and Our AANAPISI: Building Our Capacity and Enacting Our Commitments as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution”

In Fall 2021, 12.4% of our student population identified as Asian American and/or Pacific Islander (AAPI), with more than half of these students identifying as Southeast Asian American (SEAA). Yet, our identity as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) is not well-understood. Programs, resources, and support for AAPI populations are limited. How do we enact our commitments to ourselves and our students as an AANAPISI? This lecture focuses on past and current efforts to build our capacity to support our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities at Fresno State. Contexts that shape AAPI experiences, including the state and (dis)use of data disaggregation, persistent educational disparities, and invisibilization of AAPI communities, are explored and deconstructed. Recommendations and future considerations for owning and coming into our AANAPISI identity are offered. 

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2021-2022 – Promising New Faculty
Luis Fernando Macías, Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies

“Hall Passing, Schemin’, and Organizing: Undocumented Students’ navigational strategies and what they tell us about the state of Higher Education”

This presentation explores the navigational strategies that undocumented students employ in their pursuit of higher education. The focus on students’ strategies serves to showcase their resourcefulness, ingenuity, and their various approaches to resisting the inequalities related to post-secondary education. This presentation also shares research-based possibilities and actions that institutions of higher education and governing bodies can take to promote equitable access for undocumented students. 

 

THURSDAY, April 20, 2023

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2021-2022 – Promising New Faculty
Kimberly Stillmaker, Department of Civil and Geomatics Engineering

“Why Do We Need Women Engineers, Anyway?"

It's widely known that women are under-represented in engineering, but why does this under-representation matter? Dr. Kimberly Stillmaker, Associate Professor in Civil Engineering, will discuss the ways in which this under-representation impacts society followed by an overview of her research in the area of gender equity in engineering, which focuses on increasing the representation of women in the engineering professoriate.

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2021-2022 – Promising New Faculty
Ettore Vitali, Department of Physics

“A Quantum Journey in the Central Valley”

From novel materials to superconductors, from cold atoms to neutron stars, quantum physics gives us the foundations to explore some of the most mysterious systems in the universe. At the same time, quantum physics is the science underlying several tools that we use in everyday life, like smartphones and computers. Moreover, many scientists are convinced that the 21st century will be remembered as the era of quantum technologies. Dr. Vitali will discuss his research in the development of new computational tools to understand the behavior of quantum systems, and the recent discovery of novel exotic phases of matter. At the same time, Dr. Vitali will discuss the learning path that he is preparing for our students, who will learn modern physics while strengthening their skills in programming, visualization, data science and artificial intelligence: this will transform them into the scientists of the future, able to navigate the complexities of nowadays' world and able to lead us in the challenging path of respecting and protecting our planet.

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Fall 2022 Presentations

This lecture series is to honor and showcase each year's recipients of the Provost's Awards.
Please remember to sign-in to Zoom through your Fresno State Zoom portal.

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

WATCH THE RECORDED PRESENTATIONS - Click Here

Annette Levi, Department of Agricultural Business
2021-2022 – Excellence in Teaching

“Effectiveness of High Impact Practices”=

High Impact Practices (HIP) have been a key pedagogy for nearly two decades in the United States. The objective of implementing HIP is to increase significant educational benefits for students who participate in them, this is especially true for underserved demographic groups. Dr. Levi will review three HIP that she has employed, along with a summary of evidence that shows how HIP leads to student success.

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Steve Blumenshine, CA Water Institute and Department of Biology
2021-2022 – Distinguished Achievement in Research, Scholarship or Creative Accomplishment

“Research Engagement and Opportunities with Students in a Changing California Water Landscape”

Steve's research discipline is very 'place' focused.  His research group and collaborators maintain activities on international fronts, but mainly focus on the complex water landscapes and fish of our region in California.  This unique hydroscape has required a lot of learning, listening, and adaptation, which are great lessons for learners in any discipline and are fostered among the young developing scientists in the Blumenshine lab group.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2022

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Amila Becirbegovic, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
2021-2022 – Faculty Service

“Entangled Memory: The Holocaust and Post-WWII Memory in Bosnia”

The question of memory is not just a question of the past; instead, memory is entangled with the responsibilities of future generations. Memory becomes contemporary, in the sense that it absorbs popular cultural artifacts, and organizes them in such a way as not to be forgotten in the present. What is remembered of a genocide depends on how it is represented. As the desire for the “presence” of the past intensifies, the use of images becomes an essential affective source, acting as a transferential space between the past and the present, making it possible to transmit memory even to those who lay no direct claim to the past. This presentation investigates how visual media, such as photography, is used as a tool to investigate and understand genocide through the case study of Bosnia. 

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Mai Der Vang, Department of English
2021-2022 – Promising New Faculty

“Toward a Poetics of Reckoning: A Reading and Discussion on YELLOW RAIN”

In YELLOW RAIN, I re-investigate the issue of a chemical biological weapon that was used against Hmong refugees following the end to the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Laos. Over time, the Hmong stories were discredited and invalidated. Through the offering of poems in combination with archival research, my book attempts to challenge the dismissing of these allegations while pushing against the erasure of this history. To disassemble and reassemble yellow rain, I sought refuge in poetry’s transformative and alchemical ability to offer its own kind of truth. I researched declassified documents, wrote poems, assembled collages, excerpted from reports, wrote more poems, ripped pages up, assembled again, snipped images, and so on. All in an effort to offer another account of yellow rain from my perspective as a daughter of Hmong refugees belonging to a community that was directly affected by it.

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022

WATCH THE RECORDED PRESENTATIONS - Click Here

Mark Baldis, Department of Kinesiology
2021-2022 – Outstanding Lecturer

"The Lessons of Physical Activity for Health and Wellness”

Dr. Mark Baldis will provide the audience with the seven most important things that he has learned about physical activity while teaching 20 Years in the Kinesiology Department.

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Janine Nkosi, Department of Sociology
2021-2022 – Outstanding Lecturer

“Scholars in Action: Teaching & Learning to Advance Land and Housing Justice”

Join Fresno State Educator-Activist Dr. Janine Nkosi Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Regional Organizer and Advisor with Faith in the Valley as she uplifts the powerful work of university-community partners, including students, residents, and community organizations, as they help advance land and housing justice in the Central Valley and California. Learn how she’s striving to center lived experience, creativity, anti-racism and social action in her research and teaching. 

 

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Fresno State is committed to providing universal access to all our guests. Please contact the Office of the Provost at 559.278.2636 to request accommodations.