SJSU ERFA News, Fall 2014
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association The SJSU Emeritus and Retired Faculty (ERFA) Newsletter Association Fall 1-2-2014 SJSU ERFA News, Fall 2014 San Jose State University, Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/erfa Part of the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation San Jose State University, Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association, "SJSU ERFA News, Fall 2014" (2014). Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter. Paper 24. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/erfa/24 This Newsletter is brought to you for free and open access by the The SJSU Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FALL 2014 • VOLUME 28 • NUMBER 1 SJSU Remembrance of Things Past ERFA Fred Schutz leads us to realize that wars are not all bad (page 4), while Calvin Stevens tells us what life was like for his family on the News western plains (page 5). A Newsletter of the San Jose State University Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association President’s Message Staying connected to the University By Joan Merdinger Our speaker will be Dr. David I look forward to meeting as As your new President this year, Wagner, professor emeritus many of you as I can this year. If I’d like to welcome you back to from Sacramento State and you’d like to contact me, I can be the new academic year on behalf current Chair of the CSU-ERFA reached at jmmerdinger@yahoo. of the ERFA Board. I am an Committee on Health Benefits. com. Emerita Professor of Social Work, His presentation will cover the and prior to retiring in 2012, I upcoming changes to CalPERS No fading away here served as the AVP/Faculty Affairs. and their effects on Long Term I’ve enjoyed my career at SJSU Care and health benefits. It should Info available on and am happy to be associated be most informative, as well as with ERFA as a way of continuing timely. SJSU retirees my University service. I’d also We also look forward to seeing By Jo Bell Whitlatch (Library) like you to know you at our annual Holiday After we retire, many of us seem that your Board Celebration in December. It’s to disappear into the empyrean. has been working always a wonderful way to bring Except for close friends and a few diligently to bring the calendar year to a close with SJSU-ERFA members, we lose you stimulating an informal gathering of friends touch with most of our colleagues, programs and and colleagues in a convivial both predecessors and succes- events again this atmosphere. As for our Spring sors. Even though some retirees year to keep us all 2015 Excursion, I want to thank leave behind scholarships in their connected to SJSU. those of you who answered the name, we, like current faculty and As part of our survey I sent out this summer students, find it difficult to know stated mission to contribute to asking about your interests, and much about them. the University, we’re initiating soliciting your suggestions. The To find information about our the ERFA Faculty Research and Board will review your votes colleagues, one useful source is Creative Activity Award this year. and preferences and announce the collection of San Jose State We plan to award $2500 to up its decision in an upcoming University College Catalogs, to two candidates to support Newsletter. Finally, we’ll wrap which generally include faculty scholarly research and creative up this 2014-2015 year with our members’ dates of appointment at activities among our on-campus annual Spring Luncheon and SJSU, their degrees and granting colleagues. We intend to offer Business Meeting at The Villages institutions. Many of these SJSU these awards each year and in May. I hope to see you there as College Catalogs are still available will be accepting applications well. Continued on page 8 beginning in Fall 2014. SJSU- ERFA will oversee the competitive process with assistance from the Provost’s Office and the Center calendar for Faculty Development. Friday, October 24, 2014 Wednesday, December 10, 2014 As for stimulating events, please Fall Luncheon Holiday Celebration make sure you put the ERFA Fall Luncheon on your calendars. It Mariani’s Restaurant MLK Library, Rms. 225-229 will take place on Friday, October See enclosed flyer. 24th, at Mariani’s in Santa Clara. • FALL• 2014 FALL• 2014 SJSU ERFA SJSU ERFA Page 2 News News Page 3 University and Academic Senate Report In Memoriam SJSU in the News • Rebecca Herrold (Music) passed and was immediately hired to teach SJSU in 1968-69. With that fiasco By Peter Buzanski (IES) for which they had to pay had already instructed all College away after a long illness on May 5, at SJSU. He was a prolific writer he became persona non grata and (Academic Senator) excessive fees. SJSU came in for deans that the IES funds could not 2014, at the age of 75. Rebecca who wrote too many books and “the most hated man on campus,” This summer, SJSU came in for much public criticism in the lo- be so used. He knew the conster- was born in Warren, PA, in 1938, articles to be listed here, but much he said. Meanwhile, he had been double criticism in both the local cal press and in a KQED morning nation this misuse caused among and by the end of high school, as of his work was based on his wide- experimenting with student- and national news. First, the Cali- radio program where President Mo department and program chairs an accomplished pianist, won two ranging experiences in teaching. directed classes (one of which led fornia Legislative Analyst (CLA), attempted to defend his actions who needed these funds, earned scholarships to the Univ. of Miami They embrace teaching English to the burying of a car on campus Mac Taylor, singled out SJSU with little success. by their faculties, to supplement where she took her BA in Music in and Language Arts in elementary as an environmental protest) and and two other CSU campuses for Secondly, the CLA criticized their ever-shrinking budgetary ap- 1960. She married a fellow music schools, social activities and evening classes for working adults, misappropriation of funds. He SJSU for misappropriating those propriations. student, cellist Stephen Herrold, curriculum development, the role of for whose “life experiences” claimed that because required IES funds. The Chancellor’s Ex- In this Fall’s rankings of national and for the next 54 years they the federal government in education, he hoped to grant university courses were not being offered ecutive Order requires that the universities, SJSU was ranked shared their passion for music the social and cultural foundations credits. The reluctance of SJSU in sufficient numbers during the percentage of IES funds earned in eighth place among western while teaching at all school levels in of education and teaching administrators to cooperate led to regular sessions, students felt be used only for IES purposes, institutions of higher learning by various states: Georgia, Colorado, disadvantaged children. He not his fateful decision to leave and forced to attend alternate classes whereas SJSU returned much of the US News and World Report Oregon and California. Rebecca only taught teachers throughout the create his own learning programs. offered through the International those funds to the campus gen- magazine. However, the Washing- took her MA in Music from SJSU in Bay Area, but conducted classes He sought to provide educational and Extended Studies program eral fund. SJSU Provost Feinstein ton Monthly, a forty-four year old 1969, and her doctorate in Musical and workshops as far away as Iran, opportunities for people who were magazine well known for its liberal Arts from Stanford in 1974. She Crete, the Marianas and the Island not able to attend classes on college SJSU ERFA Officers, 2014-15 perspective, failed to provide a taught at SJSU for 25 years and of Saipan. Sid leaves behind his campuses, to provide easy-access was head of Music Education. She wife Sheila, four children and one classrooms near workplaces, President -- Joan Merdinger ranking for SJSU. The Monthly authored two college textbooks: grandchild. supplemented by “peer teaching” Vice Pres. -- Gail Evans uses more diverse criteria, like percentage of students with Pell Mastering the Fundamentals of • John Sperling (Humanities, ‘72) and distance-learning through Secretary -- Jo Bell Whitlatch Grants, social mobility, research Music and New Approaches to died on August 22, 2014, at age computers. His biggest hurdle Treasurer -- Abdel El-Shaieb and service. Understandably, the Elementary Classroom Music (three 93, in San Francisco. John was was to gain accreditation from Members at Large -- Marian Yoder, Monthly uses categories where editions). Rebecca is survived by a larger-than-life figure whose state agencies dominated by an her husband Stephen and her sister Horatio Alger trajectory took him academic establishment who saw Bill McCraw SJSU should not be evaluated, such as “Top 30 National Universi- Clarice. from a log cabin in the Missouri his efforts as an attempt to establish Patrick Hamill • Sidney Tiedt (Elem. Education, Ozarks (really!) to billionaire status a “diploma mill.” It was a long, Academic Senate -- Peter Buzanski ties” and “Top Affordable Elite,” but in one important category, ’99) passed away on May 20, 2014 as the founder of the University hard-fought process which drove Past President -- Carmen Sigler “The Top 100 Master’s Universi- at age 86.