Mission and Goals Initiative Funding

President Milton A. Gordon recently awarded more than $600,000 in Mission and Goals initiative funding for the 2010-11 academic year. This year continues the theme of supporting or enhancing the university’s ability to obtain external funds that support research, creative activities and other university programs with particular focus on innovation.

Among the initiatives that received funding:

• Smart Applied Music Studio — $50,000

Funding awarded to Robert Watson, Patricia Prunty and Alison Edwards, all Music, will be used to create an advanced technology space for research into applied music instruction/learning, as well as create a platform for exploring distance teaching/learning in music. The studio space also would provide support for work in allied fields, such as kinesiology and arts medicine.

• Epsilen Pilot Project: A Learning Matrix and E-Portfolio Approach to Direct and Authentic Assessment — $40,000

Gerald Patton, Assessment and Educational Effectiveness, Sara Johnson, Anthropology, and Dennis Robinson, University Extended Education, were awarded funds to establish a collaborate pilot project involving faculty, students and administrators in a program assessment of student learning through portfolio work. Their goal is to reflect the discipline in which the student and faculty member are engaged while benefiting from interdisciplinary perspectives and expertise. The program will incorporate community partners and involve the dissemination of the findings.

• Funding My Research — $36,250

Chris Renne, Faculty Development Center, and Jeannie Kim-Han, Center for Internships and Community Engagement, have received funding to develop a support group and organize workshops and learning communities for faculty members new to, or with some experience in, grant writing. The groups would work to identify and redefine research agendas, explore external funding sources, and prepare and submit proposals.

• Enhancing Geospatial Science Research in Geography — $35,000

Robert A. Voeks, John C. Carroll and Jindong Wu, all Geography, will use funding to seek extramural federal grants in the area of geospatial science, including remote sensing, GIS and GPS, to monitor Earth's surface features and assess environmental sustainability.

• Expanding Math Access for All — $33,000

Michelle Vanderveldt and Cynthia S. Gautreau, both Elementary and Bilingual Education, received funding to evaluate, develop and support grant writing to expand the effort to provide needed mathematics education for at-risk children, as well as innovative preparation for Cal State Fullerton preservice teachers. The project is a partnership with Richman Elementary School, the Center for Research on Educational Access and Leadership and multiple subject credential students.

• STEM@MSIs: Models of Excellence — $30,000

Linda Patton, Grants and Contracts, and Christopher R. Meyer, Chemistry and Biochemistry, were awarded funding for a two-day conference of researchers and science, technology, engineering and mathematics educators from selected minority-serving institutions to share presentations about their successful STEM programs.

• Loosening the MCBE Bottlenecks With Online Tutoring Services — $30,000

Funding awarded to Emeline Yong and Kim Tarantino, both Mihaylo College of Business and Economics, will be used to develop both an on-site and online tutoring program for two courses considered bottlenecks to student's matriculation. If the program is successful, the enhanced tutoring could be considered for other business courses and/or offered for a fee that would provide additional funding to the college's Tutoring Center.

• Building Capacity in Biology for Molecular Genetic Explorations of Infectious Diseases and Wildlife Ecology — $29,900

Paul Stapp, Biological Science, was awarded funding to investigate the molecular ecology of grasshopper mice, especially, their role in the maintenance and transmission of plague. “I propose to improve the bench capabilities in my lab, and in our department, through the investigation,” Stapp offered. “Our results will help build a case for a new proposal to be submitted to the National Science Foundation Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program.”

• The Federal Grant Writing Workshop — $27,420

Funding awarded to David Cherin, Social Work, and Kirsten Torguson, Health and Human Development, will be used to fund grant-writing workshops, a speaker series, stipends and 10 hours of individual, hands-on proposal preparation and evaluation support for up to eight Health and Human Development faculty to submit competitive proposals to a federal or government funding agency.

• Enterprise GIS - Pilot — $26,000

John Carroll, Geography, and Chris Manriquez, Information Technology, will use initiative funding to leverage existing campus data-hosting capabilities, software licensing and faculty/staff expertise to assess the viability of an geographic information system on campus.

• Center for Public Policy: Polling, Research and External Funding — $25,000

Funding awarded to Raphael J. Sonenshein and Keith O. Boyum, both Political Science, will be used to undertake a poll of Orange County residents on critical policy issues of the region. This effort would expand on a survey conducted in 2010. As part of related activities, graduate assistants would launch a working-papers series, and faulty members would be provided release time to write policy-oriented research grant applications.

• Enhancing Infrastructure and Undergraduate Opportunity for Stem Cell Biology Research — $25,000

Math Cuajungco, Biological Science, received funding to enhance the infrastructure for teaching stem cell biology and investigator-initiated research on stem cells to accommodate and train undergraduates for futures in the biotechnology workforce or advanced education in the field.

• Film as a Collaborative Art Distinguished Speaker Series — $25,000

Funding awarded to Jule Selbo, Radio-TV-Film, Dana J. Lamb, Art, and Laurance M. Timm, Music, will be used to establish a series of lectures, demonstrations and presentations by artists in film production, film music, animation, special effects, acting and directing. The monthly series will culminate in a daylong Festival of Film as Collaborative Art featuring cooperative student projects.

• Utilizing Technology to Assess Co-Curricular Learning — $25,000

Lea Jarnigan, Student Affairs, was awarded funding to study the effects of co-curricular engagement on alumni. The study is expected to result in the identification and distribution of student-learning outcomes data to the campus, Western Association of Schools and Colleges review team and the larger community. The outcomes data also can be used for grant writing and future fundraising efforts.

• Documenting Cal State Fullerton: Our University History Through Its Publications, Documents and Images — $25,000

Susan L. Tschabrun, Pollak Library, and Chris Manriquez, Information Technology, were awarded funds to conduct a pilot project to identify, prioritize, describe and digitize historical materials important to the university’s history. The project, they report, “is a proof-of-concept study that will allow the university to better understand the costs and benefits of making university history more accessible.”

• Power Up Project: Ensuring Student Success in Online Learning — $24,000

Lynda Randall, Secondary Education, and Alahe Amani, Student Affairs, will use the funding to explore methods for increasing student readiness for online learning and for helping students engage successfully in the learning content. The project will focus on the development of training modules to help students acquire requisite technical knowledge and competence for online learning, a start-of-semester boot camp that includes upgrades and downloads of specific material to student laptops, and a systemwide faculty webinar series. The project also includes efforts for external funding to sustain the program.

• Faculty Mentorship: Expanding Capacity for Federal Funding in Health Promotion — $24,000

C. Jessie Jones and Sora Tanjasiri, both Health Science, received funding to be used as one-course release time for four faculty members of the Health Promotion Research Institute. Two of the faculty will be experienced in receiving federal funding and will mentor the two other faculty to submit grants that involve community partners to address critical health issues.

• Sensing, Navigation, Guidance, Control and Intelligent Mobil Robotic Systems for Assistant Aging and/or Disabled Persons — $23,000

Funding awarded to Jidong Huang, Electrical Engineering, to establish projects involving students in collaborative and multidisciplinary research for developing systems to aid aging and/or disabled persons. The projects, Huang said, will “help students gain practical design and implementation skills, and enhance their overall learning experiences.”

• Assessing the Effectiveness of Serving AB540 Students — $22,500

Esiquio Uballe, Dean of Students, and Dawn Person, Educational Leadership, received funding to study the needs and challenges of undocumented and AB540 students. Data collected will help establish a campus clearinghouse. Funds also will be used to design and implement training materials for departments, as well as a website for current and prospective students, campus employees and the general community.

• Co-curricular Record and Documentation Project — $20,000

Juanita Razo, Dean of Students, Dawn Person, Educational Leadership, and Kandy Mink-Salas, Student Affairs, were awarded funding to enhance the university’s tracking and assessment of co-curricular involvement and its effect on student engagement to support research, grant writing and assessment of best practices that contribute to student learning.

• Fundraising Support for Universitywide Strategic Initiatives — $20,000

Jerry Yu, University Advancement, was awarded funding to develop and implement fundraising plans for six universitywide strategic initiatives, including program development assistance, private funder prospect research, and proposal development and submission. “Through collaboration with University Advancement prospect researchers and the hiring of a special consultant, the project will extend Corporate and Foundation Relations’ ability to provide the specialized and extended support needed to obtain funding for these important CSUF priorities,” said Yu.

• Look Over My Shoulder: ATI Support — $13,000

Funding awarded to Kristen K. Stang, Special Education, and Brian Resnik, Information Technology, will be used to create five to six video vignettes of individual students as they use campus instructional materials. The videos will be used for faculty and staff training about instruction and accessibility. The vignettes will include a short user survey, in order to collect impact data for future grant applications.

• Online Learning Strategies for Success Project — $12,165

Debi Esquival, University Learning Center, will use initiative funding to implement a program of interactive, online surveys to assess students' study and learning styles, then provide personalized study and test-taking techniques to help facilitate graduation in a timely manner.

• A Neurobehavioral Examination of Technology Addictions: The Case of Facebook — $10,000

Ofir Turel, Information Systems and Decision Sciences, will study technology addiction, which he describes as “excessive interaction with a particular technology under conditions of psychological dependency. …This study will employ innovative neurobehavioral research approaches to examine the part of the brain and the exchanged involved in the execution of additive behaviors in technology settings.”

• Taking the Fossil Record to School: Introducing Young Learners to Scientific Concepts Related to Evolution — $9,000

Nicole Bonuso, Geological Sciences, was awarded funding to develop a program to expose Kindergarten through fifth-grade students to foundational principals related to evolution and the history of life.

• Developing Software Engineering Research in the Flat Word — $5,850

Bin Cong, Computer Science, received funds to integrate new developments in the field of software engineering into research and curriculum of the master of software engineering program. “This project sets up a good foundation for us to work with industry and colleagues from other institutions to achieve our goals,” he noted.

April 26, 2011